There’s a moment early in Let the Little Light Shine, a riveting documentary on one community’s fight to preserve their grade school, when it becomes clear that Chicago’s National Teachers Academy is no ordinary place.
It’s a school assembly, and the students – overwhelmingly Black and brown children from the city’s South Side, kindergarten through eighth grade – pack benches in the cafeteria. Two of the older students perform a welcome march; the trombonist plays fine, but the clarinetist is wildly squeaky, every note off. You would expect his peers to laugh – middle school is not renowned for being a forgiving place. But the students are quiet. When the music teacher asks the clarinetist to try again, they clap in encouragement. After another squeaky run-through, the principal takes the stage and reframes the potentially embarrassing moment into a strength: “It took a great amount of courage for them to try and try again and persist.” The students give a standing ovation.
