Reading the World at Columbia Heights Education Campus
In the early 1960s, Paulo Freire led an experimental adult education project in Northeastern Brazil. This work enabled hundreds of rural adults to read, write, and begin to vote. But political upheaval at the time led to Freire’s arrest and years of exile, during which time he became an icon of advancing democracy through global education. The new documentary Reading the World is told through the collective memories of students who participated in the “Culture Circles,” learning to read and write. The film contains rare archival footage of mid-twentieth century Brazil.
High school English teacher and Zinn Education Project Prentiss Charney fellow Zach Wilson invited the Reading the World filmmaker to his AP Human Geography class. As he explained in his request, “They are currently studying how neo-colonialism affects Indigenous peoples fighting for sovereignty. We’ve explicitly learned about the experiences of the Awa tribe and their efforts to maintain their way of life and language despite the actions of the Brazilian state, and so this documentary will expand on and challenge some of what we’ve already begun to learn together.”
Wilson asked students to respond in writing to two prompts as they arrived:
What questions do you have about making a documentary film?
If documentary filmmakers help to tell the story of a place and its people, then would you consider filmmakers geographers? Why or why not?
After inviting the students to share some of their responses, Wilson introduced filmmaker Catherine Murphy and also a representative from Filmfest DC (Linda Blackaby) and Teaching for Change (Deborah Menkart.)
Due to schedule interruptions caused by high stakes testing, the students had only been able to watch 30 minutes of the film in the week before the filmmaker Catherine Murphy’s visit. Therefore, Murphy showed sections of the film along with her conversation with students.
Murphy began with a brief overview of the history of colonialism in Brazil and how she first read Friere’s book Pedagogy of the Oppressed in college. She wondered how a small book could have such major international impact.
Before showing the first clip from the film, she pointed out that the teachers in the literacy campaign were young people, such as the students in today’s classes. Murphy noted that the interviews reveal that the 40 hours of literacy instruction were so meaningful that the people interviewed described it all these decades later as a transformative, beautiful experience. She also described the risk involved for some of Freire’s former students to save the curriculum materials despite orders from the government to destroy them. Many of the historic clips came from 16 mm film that someone bravely buried to keep them from being discovered.
Many of the students in Wilson’s class have family members who immigrated from Central and South America, so the scenes of rural Brazil were reminiscent of their communities of origin.
When asked if they would recommend the film to other high school students, everyone’s arms shot up. One student noted that Reading the World reminds viewers not to take education for granted.
Filmfest DC 2026 Classroom Visits
In late April 2026, Teaching for Change partnered with Filmfest DC: The Washington, DC International Film Festival for a 15th year to bring filmmakers into D.C. classrooms to share some of their films.
Students learned about filmmaking and social justice issues from viewing the films and participating in discussions with the filmmakers.
Everybody to Kenmure Street at Capital City PCS
First, students wanted to know why he chose to make the film. Bustos Sierra explained that he did not go to the protest even though he knew about it. He was inspired to see that the same kind of solidarity that saved his family in the 1970s when his father was a Chilean journalist still works today.
Bustos Sierra explained that the longer version of the film explains some of the unique history and culture of Scotland that made these protests possible. Scotland had some of the first anti-slavery societies, organized by women. These women then organized the suffragette movements and advocated for tenant’s rights. In 2005, a group of young activists known as the Glasgow girls led a successful campaign to end dawn raids and detention of minors.
Students wanted to know more about how the director made the film when he wasn’t there to shoot on the day of the protest. He explained that he used footage from people’s smartphones (he encouraged students to shoot in landscape if they are ever at a protest!) and did many interviews.
Many students wondered about the reactions of the police in Glasgow compared to what might have happened under similar circumstances in the United States. One student remarked, “Our police would not have been as chill.” Bustos Sierra noted that he reached out to the police for an interview, but they said they were merely following the directions of the Scottish home office (equivalent to ICE in the U.S.)
Bustos Sierra said he saw similarities between what took place in Glasgow and the people resisting ICE in Minneapolis. He wanted people to take away from the film that you should turn out, and that we have more in common with each other than our governments.
Reading the World at Columbia Heights Education Campus
In the early 1960s, Paulo Freire led an experimental adult education project in Northeastern Brazil. This work enabled hundreds of rural adults to read, write, and begin to vote. But political upheaval at the time led to Freire’s arrest and years of exile, during which time he became an icon of advancing democracy through global education. The new documentary Reading the World is told through the collective memories of students who participated in the “Culture Circles,” learning to read and write. The film contains rare archival footage of mid-twentieth century Brazil.
High school English teacher and Zinn Education Project Prentiss Charney fellow Zach Wilson invited the Reading the World filmmaker to his AP Human Geography class. As he explained in his request, “They are currently studying how neo-colonialism affects Indigenous peoples fighting for sovereignty. We’ve explicitly learned about the experiences of the Awa tribe and their efforts to maintain their way of life and language despite the actions of the Brazilian state, and so this documentary will expand on and challenge some of what we’ve already begun to learn together.”
Wilson asked students to respond in writing to two prompts as they arrived:
What questions do you have about making a documentary film?
If documentary filmmakers help to tell the story of a place and its people, then would you consider filmmakers geographers? Why or why not?
After inviting the students to share some of their responses, Wilson introduced filmmaker Catherine Murphy and also a representative from Filmfest DC (Linda Blackaby) and Teaching for Change (Deborah Menkart.)
Due to schedule interruptions caused by high stakes testing, the students had only been able to watch 30 minutes of the film in the week before the filmmaker Catherine Murphy’s visit. Therefore, Murphy showed sections of the film along with her conversation with students.
Murphy began with a brief overview of the history of colonialism in Brazil and how she first read Friere’s book Pedagogy of the Oppressed in college. She wondered how a small book could have such major international impact.
Before showing the first clip from the film, she pointed out that the teachers in the literacy campaign were young people, such as the students in today’s classes. Murphy noted that the interviews reveal that the 40 hours of literacy instruction were so meaningful that the people interviewed described it all these decades later as a transformative, beautiful experience. She also described the risk involved for some of Freire’s former students to save the curriculum materials despite orders from the government to destroy them. Many of the historic clips came from 16 mm film that someone bravely buried to keep them from being discovered.
Many of the students in Wilson’s class have family members who immigrated from Central and South America, so the scenes of rural Brazil were reminiscent of their communities of origin.
When asked if they would recommend the film to other high school students, everyone’s arms shot up. One student noted that Reading the World reminds viewers not to take education for granted.
Other Filmmaker visits included:
Read about more visits
Posted: May 18, 2026