User Reviews

One of the kids says "What's the big whoop?" about people being gay. It should be no more remarkable than the fact that some people are left-handed. Despite the fear-mongering of the religious right wing, this film demonstrates that talking to kids about gay issues is possible and productive

One of the greatest tragedies in America today is the fact that teachers so desperately need to see this film, yet so few will ever see it. It is a tragedy. This film sheds much-needed light on one of the most important issues facing every teacher in America, making it all very sane and showing teachers how simple it is to explain things to kids.

If your school district does not have this film, see to it that someone there gets it and shows it to the teachers. You may just save some lives.

This award-winning documentary was very hard to locate in VHS. Reading about it on the web, I had difficulty finding it at the usual internet sites, local video stores, or even libraries.

Still, I persevered, having become intrigued with the glowing reviews it received. Finally I tracked it down on video format from Women's Educational Media, the film's official distributor. The cost was high, but the investment was worth it.

Throughout its 78-minute running time, I was fascinated and uplifted by the enlightening remarks and questions by elementary youngsters on current social topics.

These young people do indeed represent our future society. How uninhibited, sincere, and honest were particular comments by first graders. I was reminded that children are certainly people in little bodies, with something to teach adults.

What their instruction offers is a kind of open-mindedness, unhapered by the limitation, taboo, restriction, predjuce and fear that so many of us adults have become saddled with.

These delightful, beautiful kids open their mouths and out comes a refreshing innocence, purity, and yes, wisdom. These kids have an important lesson for us adults--if we have the good sense to hear their message.

As I sat watching this extraordinary exposition, I wondered where do our limitations come from, when and why did we buy into these fallacies, and is it possible for us to change?

I also pondered the purpose of human transition: to make room for new wine to be poured into new wineskins--the old skins just won't do.

Kudos to Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen for fashioning this find documentary, and to Women's Educational Media for making it available to schools, tv stations, and the general public.

It's Elementary is, to date, the most important film (and one of the most important pieces of work in any medium) available which addresses gay and lesbian issues in a grade school setting. Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen, the filmmakers, visited six elementary and middle schools in which teachers used a variety of techniques to introduce discussions about gay and lesbian issues in their classrooms.

Daithi Wolfe, teacher at Hawthorne Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin, shows Bill T. Jones as example of famous gay person. "I don't think people should be strict about [gay people] because if they were gay they wouldn't want to be getting beat up..." - 4th grader at a New York elementary school.

While the film is worth it's price (see price information below) for the teaching strategies employed and displayed by the educators whose classrooms were highlighted, the power of It's Elementary transcends teaching techniques and pedagogy. Chasnoff and Cohen broach topics that even people in the Multicultural Education community often find difficult to discuss. More importantly, the film challenges several assumptions made by educators and lay-people alike about student interest in, and ability to intelligently discuss, gay issues. And it does so in a way that is accessible, not intimidating, for viewers who most desperately need to be pulled into a discussion about gay issues as they pertain to self, school, and society.

Even teachers and administrators who routinely hear students throw around terms like "faggot" or "gay" tend to be more comfortable believing that those students are not ready to discuss the bigger implications of this "name-calling," maybe because they, themselves, have never had an opportunity to engage in a dialogue about gay issues. Even as our society is becoming more comfortable exploring issues of race and gender, dialogue about sexual orientation remains taboo, even in many of the most liberal circles. In such a context and climate, the most critical assumption challenged by the film is that young students are not ready to discuss oppression, discrimination, and specifically, homophobia and heterosexism. This assumption is shattered in the unforgettable opening sequence through a manufactured exchange of ideologies between a Congressman who prefers such topics to be left out of the classroom and a group of elementary school students who demonstrate that they're not only ready to discuss it, but that they may be more ready than a hefty percentage of adults. Then, throughout the rest of the film, the students continue to demonstrate and reiterate their readiness.

By providing the educational community with It's Elementary, Chasnoff and Cohen have provided me and other college instructors, workshop leaders, facilitators, and social activists one of the most powerful and important resources available for initiating dialogue, encouraging individual self-development, and pushing forth toward educational and social change on a topic that too few have successfully accessibly addressed.