A/V Geeks 16mm Lunch 1-22-2026

Hello everybody. I'm Skip Alzheimer. Welcome to the AV Geeks lunchtime streaming show where we watch old 16 millimeter films. And yes, uh so I have three reels of this, maybe four. Um, first one I got on eBay and then the second one I I took on a collection from uh Queens College in New York and there were other reels from this experiment in the collection. So I have a pretty complete collection and it is weird and comical sweet until you read about it and then it is horrible. It's really just the parents of the child who did this experiment with a chimp. Nobody won in this. This was really just a horrible thing. So, uh, but I'm going to lighten you up with some music. Uh, somebody complained that they have a jingle going on in their head. Well, maybe this song, which I showed a long time ago and then was part of the first totapping tournament. Um, maybe this will help. Hey. [music] [music] Hey. Hey. >> [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] [applause] [applause] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Wow. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> What [music] >> [music] >> down. [music] I am Yeah. [music] Heat. >> [music] >> I see [music] curved lines in water. >> Lines can be on anything. [music] >> I can make a slanted line. >> [music] >> I see crack lines on our sidewalk. I see curved lines at the beach. [music] >> I can make lines out of using paint. [music] I see crooked lines on the buildings, straight line, a zigzag line. [music] lines [music] on the railroad track. We're on the street. [music] [music] I can make a circle. >> [music] [music] [music] >> People can make lines by just fooling [music] around. >> [music] [music] [music] >> lives [music] [singing] are fun. Look [music] around. Up and down. Straight and round. Lines [music] are fun. Look [singing] [music] around. Up and [music] down. Straight and round lines [music] are fun. [music] [music] Limes [singing] are fun. >> [music] >> Lines [music] are fun anywhere [singing] on [music] the Found in the air. [music] Lines [singing] are fun. Lines [music] are fun. [music] [music] Heat. Heat. You are happy. [music] [music] >> [music] >> Lines [music] are fun. Fun [singing] with lies. [music] [music] Maybe I'll have that played at my funeral because it it's just it just feels so good. Feels so right. All right. Uh I got a film set up on the scanner and I don't know what this is about. Uh we haven't watched it. It's called Marva. I don't know. Here we go. Enjoy. Who is Marva Collins and why is everyone saying those wonderful things about her? Well, Marva is a 43 year old woman who lives on the west side of Chicago. She's not an elected official. She has nothing to do with government or show business. She's not a social worker, but she's one of those people who is out there quietly but profoundly changing the lives of the people she deals with day in and day out. We begin on the street where she lives. You have it all here on West Adam Street. All the familiar big city blight. The forever broken windows, the burntout flats, the disembowled abandoned cars. All that look and smell that even a crystal afternoon cannot change. And up the street or around the corner, you have a school that for whatever reason does not teach and children who for whatever reason do not learn. Castaways to that ever growing legion of unskilled black teenaged unemployed. And then you have 3819 West Adams. Just another tired looking house with a blank face staring out at a mean street. But come on in. 3819. Come on in and take a look. >> And what you find on the inside could not be more different from what you see on the outside. >> Good. Very, very good. Very good. Michael >> tales are about whom? >> Jeffrey. >> They're about whom? How many pilgrims? >> How many were there? >> 29. There were 29 pilgrims and they were going to >> right Thomas Becket had >> each one of them had to tell a story. >> Each one had to tell a tale. >> They were going to go see the shrine, >> right? They were going to see the shrine of Thomas who back of Thomas Becket. Okay. >> It is the Westside Preparatory School in the West Garfield Park District of Chicago. A one and a half room schoolhouse that goes against the grain of modern corporate education. In no way is Westside Prep the product of a committee. It is the product of this woman's determination. >> She is Marva Collins, a veteran public school teacher who four years ago, utterly disillusioned with the school system, its rules, its unions, and its failures, started her own school upstairs in her own house. There are about 30 children in the school from 4 to 13 years old, including two of her own. It is a licensed private school and there is a modest fee. >> There is very little of what these kids call baby work. >> Okay. Kyle, want to come to the board? >> Okay. Cleopatra. Cleopatra. Very good. Was make that a a little bit better. Okay. Make a round circle back. Goodness. Make that an egg. Egyptian. Put your liature on your t. Okay. An Egyptian queen. Very, very good. >> Hello. When did you learn to spell compliment? We used to just put a sleeve. Very, very good, Kyle. >> There are no frrills at Westside. No art classes, no music, no gym, not even recess. There are also no discipline problems. The emphasis is on basic education with an even stronger emphasis on literature and composition. >> They must read one very tough book every two weeks and they must write a composition every day. >> Erica is 9 years old. >> I hear from the voices of the wind. They sing within a friend. A friend who is truthful, honest, and brave and is there when trouble has already been engraved. >> School is non-stop. The children arrive each morning just before 9:00. Children with working mothers get there as early as 8. Except for a 20 minute lunch break, they go right through to 3. There are no teacher breaks, no teacher desks. >> She is on her feet and over their shoulders all day, pushing them, cajoling them, and praising them. >> Very, very good. Very, very good. Kum lad. And what did I say? >> With praise and what? >> Amen. and Latin. >> And the results are apparent even to a casual bystander. Alert and challenged children being pushed way beyond the boundaries most school system set. I was watching you today and it's a very very structured classroom which seems to fly in the face of some current drifts of education education techniques. For example, a lot of people say it's not doesn't matter how you speak as long as you're expressing yourself in the class, but you insist on the king's English. >> If children are going to go out into the world and command a job in our society, they have to be able to speak standard English. No one wants our to hire a secretary who cannot spell. No one wants to hire um president of a corporation who is not articulate. I think we need to stop saying this is all right for this area and become more universal. >> Marva unashamedly imbuss her class with her own values. Some might call them predictably middle class. But no one can doubt her commitment. She is not a product of the black inner city. She grew up in Alabama in a close, financially secure family. Went to college in Atlanta and Chicago. And to the dismay of her own family, she and her husband Clarence bought a house on West Adam Street. Not in one of the fashionable suburbs. >> I notice a very strong moral tone in the class. Uh in the kids' essays and in your teaching, you're always moralizing. >> Even when the fouryear-olds begin to read the little red hand, I point out the moral that if you don't work, you don't eat. I never miss that opportunity. Children want structure. I I I think we've given them so much freedom that they really don't know what to do with it. I think they're really destroying themselves. >> This world needs boys who are willing to take on a task that is difficult. Knowing that is difficult does not mean impossible. >> What about the recess in the gym and the the necessary horsing around of kids? >> Uh if you watch this area, these children get recess and gym until 11 or 12:00 at night. Which would you rather have? A child who reads well, computes well, thinks well, feels good about himself or a child who uh runs to art, music, gym, and still can't read. While at school, in this school, we do not have gym recess or play all day. We learn to read hard works, hard books, and this school makes our brains big. We love >> Chris is seven years old. >> Very big brains indeed and a very big voice. And like most of the kids here, very proud of himself. How is this school different from the other schools you've been to? >> Well, at first when I came here, I just like to play, I thought. And when she said, "You're going to do your work." I said, "Wow, this teacher really has herself together." When I was at my other school, they like to fight, have fights in the classroom, and we going to fight here. Kyle, what do you do when you get home? >> I read. >> Don't you play at all? >> Don't you want to? >> Well, sometimes when my mother tells me that it's time, she she takes my books from me and hides them. >> Why does she hide them? >> Read >> bedtime. Right. >> And then I like to read in the bed so I could dream about what I read. I'd like to get some idea of who your favorite authors are, what your favorite books are. Look at >> who's your favorite author. >> Jeffrey Cha Jeffrey Chauer and Shakespeare. >> Jeffrey Chaucer. That's very grown up reading. That's very difficult, isn't it? >> No, that really if you know how to learn and you know how to read. Uh my favorite author is uh Booker T. Washington and Hans Christian Lansson. My favorite book is the Greek myth. >> Greek myth. >> Emerson Henry David the role and William Shakespeare >> and Patrick. >> I like Yordsi and Dante Aliggaryi and Shakespeare. >> And your favorite book? >> Divine Comedy. I like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David the Ro and I like Charlotte Bronz Janeir. Um that's my favorite book and I also like uh Marjorie Kim Rawlings who wrote the yearling and I like Jeffrey Chaucer also and Shakespeare. I talked to you the kids in here today and if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, it would looked as though they'd been conditioned to answer my favorite book is by Thoro or Emerson or Shakespeare or Chaucer. It's kind of remarkable for eight and nine year olds. >> I think it's the kind of standards you set for the children when they first began and they meet those goals. I think once they learn how to learn, they kind of live to learn and that's the attitude in here. They've learned how to learn and I don't think there's any stopping them now. and they call everything else baby work. I don't want to go to those schools where they're going to give me that baby work. >> Even the babies do not get baby work. Mrs. Collins assistant, Mrs. Vaughn, teaches them in much the same way. Always the emphasis on words, their correct spelling, correct meaning and correct pronunciation. >> Coach boy dictation. Dictation. After the funnies, we will do dictation. dictation. >> How special are these children? A lot of people are going to watch and say, "These are very special kids in this class." And I would suspect that they come from homes, rich or poor, in which education is a very important thing. >> I have not seen a parent yet who wants their children to fail, >> no matter how indifferent they may be. >> No matter how indifferent. Statistically, West Granfield Park is one of the very poorest areas in this city. I I know how proud these parents are of their children. I think invariably it's just the opposite. The very poor black parent wants their children to excel. >> What sort of example do the older people set for the kids in a neighborhood like this? Men sitting around. But when I look at this area, I could really scream in all the monies that are being spent on programs, all the monies that are being thrown away. And not a dog on thing has changed in this area for the last 17 years. And that's how long we've lived here. I haven't seen any change at all. They couldn't read when we moved here. They can't read now. They didn't have jobs then. They don't have jobs now. >> The statistics bear her out. The two nearby schools show reading scores way below average and declining the longer the child stays in school. >> Hi sweetheart. >> Hi. How are you? >> Hi. How are you? >> She used to be my teacher when I was little going to school. >> Pretty good teacher, >> right? >> Yeah. And I'll still get you one. >> She's the best teacher in the city of Chicago. And there are people who would say to you the street language, black colloquial language is good enough and we should be proud of it and it's quite all right to use that. >> But what happens when they go to apply for a job that same standard of English is not good enough. So what we really doing is really playing games. A child comes to me knowing that language. Again I repeat, teacher is a Latin word meaning to lead or draw. If I teach a child no more than what he comes to me with, then I have not really taught anything. >> But is every child teachable? >> You pick the children. You bring them to me and you come back one month later and I'll show you a different child. Not through beating, not through screaming, not through yelling. >> Through what? >> Through constant touching, through telling that child every day that his only hope is a good education. that in order to make it in this world, no one is going to give it to you. You have to earn it. >> Do you carefully select the ones who you know are going to make it? The ones how do I know? >> I have the very children who came from this school who are sitting there. Why? Why don't you talk to the parents tonight? >> He was in Delano and I was there two and three times a week. >> That's the big school right off the block. >> Yes. Two and three times a week. >> For what reason? >> Because I was concerned about him. He was having problems in school. Uh he didn't want to continue to go to school. He made excuses to keep from going to school. He never wanted to study. And now every night when he goes to bed, I got to take books out of his bed. >> Well, you know, >> he goes to bed with books, paper, pencil. He is always reading. >> How about his grades? >> His grades have gone up like three levels. >> Really? >> Before when Erica was in another school, she was only like 5 years old. She hadn't made sex. And then they told me only been at school about three weeks, too. And they called me in for a conference and said that Erica couldn't read. She wouldn't learn to read that year. She might have never learned to read. As a matter of fact, they were even saying that, you know, maybe she was slightly [ __ ] or something was wrong. She might not learn to do. >> Slightly [ __ ] >> Yes. Before she would always say, well, I can't do that. Today, there is nothing in the world that she thinks that she can't do. Mr. Mrs. Berner, is is this the only school that Craig has been to? >> No, Craig has been to two other schools. >> Well, how would you say Craig has changed? >> Craig has changed quite a bit. He has a lot of confidence in himself. >> He used to do a lot of playing. He He wouldn't get his lessons out. He wouldn't study. But since he's been coming through this school, now he does homework without him. And he loves to come to school every I'm just so overwhelmed, you know. It makes me feel good. >> Do you think what happens here in Mrs. Collins school? Could you make that happen on a grand scale in the big public schools? >> Only if you had a grand scale of Marva Collins. You know, that's what it's going to take. >> I feel that almost anyone who is willing to really work and walk from desk to death uh could do very well what I'm doing here. I wouldn't want to have to think that a union would have to protect my job. I have enough pride about because I reach a high when I'm teaching anyway. >> Do you think anything can be learned by the educational system from this room? >> Well, I think the major thing could be learned is that uh it certainly doesn't take money. If money's kept the school going, we would have had to close our doors four years ago. >> The money is the least of Westside Prep. The parents who can afford it pay $80 a month. Those who can't pay nothing. Some friends of Westside in a distant suburb raise some money and Mrs. Collins picks up fees from occasional workshop she gives. She started the school with $5,000 she withdrew from her retirement fund. Education, it seems, can be inexpensive if the emphasis is simply on teaching. >> We keep spending more and more monies. The lower the scores are, the more monies we spend. If I had all kinds of audiovisisual equipments here, all kinds of fun and games, all kind of gimmicks, then I would not only have chaos but declining scores too. Buildings do not teach, people do. All right. So, um it's kind of slight rattle. I was trying to maintain tension. Anyways, uh yeah, 60 Minutes episode. How about that? Um, like I said couple of days ago, those were in distribution just uh schools um including colleges. Uh, so this was probably meant for educators or people training to get education. Uh, let's learn about a mining community, Kimberly, Canada. Enjoy. This is my home. [singing] [music] This is where I live and grow. This is the land I [music and singing] know. This is my own. [music] From mountain peak to salty sea. Rivers running free. [music] Come with me. Come with me. This is my home. [music] Come with me. Come with me. This is my home. This is my home. [music] This is where I live and grow. This is the land [music and singing] I know. This is my [music] mountain peak to salty sea. Rivers running free. [music] Come with me. Come with [music] me. This is my home. Come with me. Come with me. This is my own [music] >> Sanderson. My name is Jason and I'm from Kimberly. >> I play Pee-Wee hockey and my dad coaches our team. >> Sit down and get ready. >> Kimberly has lots of hockey teams. >> Most of them are in a league right here in our city, >> but I'm on a team that plays against Trail, Kramer, Bernie, Sparwood, Castlegar, and other teams in the Coutney region. >> [music] >> Kimberly is in the Rocky Mountains close to the BC Alberta border. It's the [music] highest city in Canada and usually we get lots of snow in the winter. That means our ski hill is a very popular place. >> [music] >> 59. >> My brother Mikey and I like all kinds of winter sports. [music] [music] >> 42. The Mac store is in our neighborhood and our mom manages the store. Mom puts up displays for advertising and she has to order all the groceries for the store. >> Hi guys. >> Mike, you get the milk and I'll get the macaroni. Okay. Okay. >> The dairy products are trucked in from Vancouver and most of the other groceries come from Calgary, Alberta. Mom stocks the shelves, but she sometimes waits on customers, too. >> Cheese today. >> Doing anything after school tonight, Jay? >> Yep. Hockey. >> Me, too. >> Mom always treats us like real customers whenever dad sends us to pick up things for lunch. My dad is a minor. >> Okay, there you go, Mike. >> Good afternoon, shift, gentlemen. When you going to work? >> I got to leave it about quarter after two. >> So, how many goals did you get last night, Mike? And the hockey two and >> you guys won. >> It was four. >> When dad's on afternoon shift, he makes lunch for Mikey and me. >> My dad and my grandpa are both miners. They always put lamps on their hard hats before they go underground. A lot of men who live in Kimberly are miners. They work for a company called Kamco. >> Kamco started to mine here in 1909. [music] The mine is called the Sullivan Mine. The Sullivan mine is one of the largest lead zinc [music] mines in the world. The entrance to the mine is called a portal. And a big truck called a man carrier takes the miners underground. My dad operates a drill. He drills holes in the rock and puts explosives into the holes for blasting. My grandpa is a slusherman. A slusher moves the rock away after the blasting. Broken rock is called muck. In another part of the mine, giant machines are used to do the mining. A machine called the scoop picks up the muck. Not all the muck is valuable, but the waste rock has to be taken out along with the ore. The ore is the rock that has lead and zinc in it. Miners have special names for everything. They call their underground lunchroom the dog house. >> Miners even have nicknames for each other. They call my dad Rube and my grandfather Coug. >> The lunchroom is really a refuge station. That's a safe place where the miners can go in case of an emergency. >> An electric train carries the ore out of the Sullivan mine. The ore is taken 6 kilometers away to the Sullivan concentrator. At the concentrator, they float the ore to separate it into all kinds of minerals. Lead, zinc, iron, and tin are just some of the minerals that come out of the ore. Trains take the lead and zinc to a smelter and trail. minerals from our mine in Kimberly are sold all over the world. So mining is very important to the people who live here and work here. Every winter we have a winter fest. It's lots of fun because it's like a party and we invite the whole city of Kimberly and other towns too. >> [music] >> I'm going [screaming] [cheering] to Back. Yep. Lots of people come to our Platel. The Platel is like an outdoor mall. Downtown [music] Kimberly used to have a main street that looked like a plain mining town, but the shopkeepers decorated their shops so that more tourists would visit our city. Kimberly is still a mining town, but probably someday that will change. I wanted to learn more about how Kimberly is changing, so I talked to my grandfather at the old portal. Well, this is the portal they used quite a number of years ago, Jason. >> And I worked in here for 35 years. >> That's a long time. >> We visited the abandoned crusher plant, and I saw where they used to enter the mine. >> This is an or sample, Jason. This is the lead. This is the zinc. >> Both or samples had sparkly lead on the outside. No one knows for sure how much lead and zinc are left in the mine, [music] but Kaminko says they may have to close the Sullivan mine in about 25 years. [music] Grandpa says that without mining, this could easily become a ghost town. But our city has a good chance of surviving [music] if we can get more and more tourists to visit Kimberly. >> White here. >> This trestle is a part of the new mini railway that's being built for the tourists. We talked to some men who were doing the work. >> Uh what's going on here, boys? >> Uh we're uh building a little tourist railway for uh the summertime. It was originally all underground mining equipment, underground train. >> Oh, I see. And uh where did you get all the equipment from? You know, these were originally old coaches for underground, and we're just stripping them down and rebuilding them for uh passengers. >> The tourists who come next summer will be able to see some of our scenery while riding in old mining cars. More people are coming every summer, but winter will probably always be the best time for tourists because Northstar is one of the most popular ski areas in the Coupney. >> [music] >> I I like Kimberly because I think mining is exciting and it makes me sad to think that someday the people who live here won't be miners anymore. But I hope there'll be other jobs for the people who want to stay because I think Kimberly is a great place to live. [music] >> [music] >> Can you take uh anything that kid says seriously when you have that theme music like I mean it's like it seems very uh like you would show with a puppet like a puppet show was going to be I don't know I think it colors the narration which is you know it's actually pretty interesting 1984 there was a beginning shift as far as trade wars and as far as where minerals were coming from and so uh I look back 1984 I was in [cough] college [clears throat] by that Uh anyways, thanks for tuning in today. Very much appreciate your eyeballs. Uh yeah. Um join us tomorrow. We'll watch some more films. It'll be a lot of fun. Everybody, uh take care. Hit the thumbs up, hit the like, support us via the superthanks button, which uh some of you have been doing, which really helps us. Um, also you can go to patreon.com/abgeeks uh or Venmo at skip-limer or kofi.coms. Just watch other films uh that have advertising and watch the advertising. It's always for me it's all and maybe because the world knows that I'm almost 60 like it's now just constant ads for arthritis medication and class action lawsuits against uh arthritis medication. [laughter] So, um yeah, that's kind of what it is. Uh, but I get pennies for that um every time I uh people watch these commercials and those pennies add up. Uh, and so thanks for watching and we will see you tomorrow. Come on.