Since neither Tom nor I had our own story to tell, we decided to film a documentary about a fictional but disturbingly realistic situation where a student’s fundamental rights were clearly violated in a Chicago public high school. Because of writing an intellectual and thought-provoking paper on adolescent views towards sex, the student is unjustly punished by his teacher for the “inappropriate” subject of his essay. Through the scripted interview with Tom’s character along with supporting documents from the event, the student presents some of the social factors that have produced this situation where rights are incorrectly sacrificed in American schools. Even though the film is fictional, the very real possibility of this scenario should show what could be going on behind classroom doors. Tom and I strongly feel that steps must be taken to make sure this film never becomes reality…
