These are great! Thanks everyone. I've heard of the Seven Up series but haven't seen it before. I actually bought my mother the National Park series on DVD so I'll have to borrow it from her.

OMG if you are a teacher, you have to watch the first grader. iT'S available on netflix streaming http://www.thefirstgrader-themovie.com/news/

It is the true story of an 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex Mau Mau freedom fighter who fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the education he could never afford.

We take for granted that everyone in this country is entitled to an education. We especially can appreciate it when we see it through the eyes of eager children trying to learn the their ABCs in a dusty one room class room in Kenya where the government has decreed, for the first time, the right of everyone to be educated. We are taken to a new level of appreciation when we see it from the point of view of an 85 year old man Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge (Oliver Musila Litondo) who is determined to join this class and get the education he never had and learn to read. This is based a true story of a man who became a national hero in Kenya and a symbol of the universal desire for education as his quest ultimately brought the real Maruge from his country village to address the United Nations. However important this theme may be, there also was another story going on here

Have you watched the Up! series?

7-Up (or 7-Up!)
Seven Plus Seven
21 Up
28 Up
35 Up
etc…I think they are at 56 Up now.

you can get it on netflix. They film the same individuals every seven years throughout their lives, staring when they were 7 years old. It's a British series.

Ok here is another and it doesn't quite fit in with your parameters, but it totally affected my life so I'll throw it out there:

National Parks: America's Best Idea

Since watching this, my kids have hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, been to Zion twice, Bryce, Yosemite Valley and the High Sierra, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, and were on the way to Yellowstone when we had to cancel to move to DC for DH's job.

I even pulled my kids out of school to do some of these trips (and education is important in our household).

There was a really good documentary about a DCPS high school that was shown on PBS within the last year. The high school was DC Metropolitan but I can't remember the title... 180 Days maybe? It was pretty wrenching.

Anonymous wrote:I do not recall the name, but Maria Shriver had a documentary that followed a homeless family living in a motel in California - near Disney Land. I believe it was on HBO and it really stayed with me for quite a while.

I take that back - it was not Maria Shriver - I used google and found this:

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/homeless-the-motel-kids-of-orange-county#/

Anonymous wrote:The Interrupters - available online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/interrupters/ I LOVE this doc. About a group trying to "interrupt" the spiraling street violence in Chicago. Really touches on how it affects youth.

trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS5Hjhy1RhM

I do not recall the name, but Maria Shriver had a documentary that followed a homeless family living in a motel in California - near Disney Land. I believe it was on HBO and it really stayed with me for quite a while.

Oh, and a Chinese movie called The Road Home. It is not a documentary, but it is a VERY touching movie about a teacher in rural China.

The Pruitt Igoe Myth is really good-it's about the creation and destruction of housing projects in St. Louis.

I loved To Be and To Have. Not in the educational category, but also loved Young @ Heart. Starts slow. Sticks with you.

A French documentary called To Be and To Have.

Yes I did. Someone on DCUM recommended it and I watched it. It seems to me it was more about learning differences than race but that's just my 2 cents.

The Interrupters - available online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/interrupters/ I LOVE this doc. About a group trying to "interrupt" the spiraling street violence in Chicago. Really touches on how it affects youth.

Did you watch the one about the AA boys who went to Dalton? Think it was called American Dream or Hope or ? Someone help me out with the title.

So I've watched a few documentaries online recently that I've really liked. I've liked the ones about education topics (I am a teacher) liked Waiting for Superman. This weekend, I watched one on poverty on Frontline called Country Boys. Does anyone have any suggestions for ones on education, poverty or children in general?