Daughters

A little over a year ago I wrote about teaching in the Integrated Learning Community, part of the general education core where I teach. Last year, I wrote about the synchronicity of learning from my co-teacher and being able to put it in use in the community the following day.

This year we are teaching the same theme in the ILC: an introduction to trauma studies. Even though the core of our ILC stays the same, we change activities and readings up from year to year a bit to make sure we are bringing new energy to the work. This year, we decided to take a block of our two classes to show and then discuss/process the documentary Daughters. I had never heard of it until my colleague told me about it when were planning for the semester, but apparently it was quite the hit at Sundance last year. It is now on Netflix, making it easy to show in class. If you don’t know anything about it, the quick summary is that it is about a group of daughters and dads who are getting ready for a dance. The fathers are incarcerated and most have not seen their daughters in years. The ones who have seen them have mostly seen their daughters on screens. Only one had had a “touch visit” within the past two years at the time of filming.

Since the ILC is structured so that the students have the two linked classes back to back, we started the documentary in her class and got through all but about 15 minutes of it. We had the 15 minute break between classes and then walked to a different building for my course, watched the rest of the documentary, and then asked the students what connections they made between the film and the topics we have been learning about in the ILC. The connections they were making and the questions they were asking were powerful. They made connections about attachment and attachment disruption. They made connections about family systems (roles, stress points, boundaries) and ACES (adverse childhood experiences).

They asked about why the prisons were constructed the way they were, which gave us opportunity to share some thoughts on privatized prisons along with encouragement to the students to watch the documentary 13th (only one or two of them had seen it). We also talked about how education in prison lowers recidivism rates. Finally, we shared resources with them and looped back to prior class discussions on using a two-generation approach when we think about parenting interventions and reminded them of the importance of trauma informed systems.

Close to the end of our discussion, one of the students raised her hand and said that she appreciated that the film didn’t disclose what crimes the men had committed. She said that this had helped her focus on the relationship between each dad and his daughter(s). This was a really good way to end the discussion: a focus on strengths, and the reminder that every individual, family, and environment has resources, if we are committed to looking for them.