If we’re lucky, we’ve been blessed with at least one memorable teacher who left an indelible impact on us, perhaps changing how we thought, or what we thought about. Director Elliot Kirschner, a New York Times best-selling author and an Emmy awardwinning news and documentary producer, captures just such a professor in “The Last Class,” playing at the M.V. Film Center from Sept. 12 through 15. The documentary is an intimate portrait of Robert Reich, who, although famous for his public role in multiple presidential administrations, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, is most passionate about his role as a teacher, having reached 40,000 students during his long career.
In “The Last Class,” we follow Reich through his final semester, teaching his “Wealth and Poverty” course to 1,000 students at UC Berkeley, marking the end of a 40-year career. Small in stature, large in impact, Reich captivates his students with every word as he helps them consider why income and wealth inequalities have grown significantly since the late 1970s. We are carried right along with them as they examine their own experiences and perspectives through provocative questions about sociopolitical wealth and inequality in the U.S.
As the film begins, hundreds of students line up to enter the first day of class. The scene has all the hallmarks of a rock concert, and, appropriately, “Respect” blasts on the loudspeaker as students find their seats. Although Reich was an economic advisor to President Obama, Labor Secretary under President Clinton, and assistant to the Solicitor General for President Ford, the classroom is clearly his home. Reich says about teaching, “I knew from the first day coming into the classroom … It was like eating a great meal for the first time … I fell in love with it immediately.”
Reich tells his students, “The subject of this class is directly and powerfully related to the subject of democracy, and the quality and capacity of our country to survive, whether you’re worried about climate change or worried about anything else.” Later he says, “One way to help make sense of the world is inequality — widening inequality of income, wealth, and political power, and racism. It’s inequality that’s undermining democracy, which in many ways makes it difficult to do anything.”
One way Reich engages students is through interactive polls, where they use their smartphones to vote on their opinions, then engage in lively conversations. Interestingly, his graduate teaching assistants report that the kids express a desire to hear Reich’s own opinions. Believing they yearn for the “right” answer to regurgitate on the test, he says to his grad students, “They will learn much more by engaging their curiosity, not giving them our opinions.” About his first goal for the course, Reich relates, “I want my students to get into the habit of thinking hard about the issues we are talking about. I want them to question their own assumptions, to become much more critical in their thinking.”
His second goal is to inspire at least some of the youth to help improve the world and reverse some of its troubling trends. Toward the end of the course, Reich explains, “I’ve learned democracy requires engagement. It involves taking responsibility. Democracy is not a spectator sport.” He reassures them that there are no born leaders: “And you don’t need formal authority. A true leader helps people overcome cynicism and helps others make positive changes.” And when he continues, “I believe in your capacities. I believe in you,” you dearly hope that they will heed the call.
Although Reich commands the enormous classroom, he is always entirely approachable, as we see in the many interactions with his current and former students. However, we get to know him best during private moments of reflection as the semester moves forward, regarding the closing of this chapter of his life. In the beginning, Reich shares that he gets so annoyed when people ask about retirement that he “must resist the urge to punch them in the nose. Patience wears thin when you don’t have all that many years left.”
Even before the end of the semester, Reich feels the loss, saying, “This year is a little bit more profound, intellectually and emotionally. I have my arms around them. I don’t know why. It may be subconsciously, I already miss them.”
Reich’s reflections on aging are both touching and universal. Looking at a photograph of himself when younger, he says, “The big surprise is not what you see in the picture, but what you see in the mirror.” Later, our own eyes water, just as Reich’s do when he shares that the second half of life “is about accommodating what is obviously an ending. And so, retiring from teaching … which has been a calling for me, is a real loss. For my students, it’s a beginning. This is the connection between teachers and students. It’s about the passage of time, and at a deeper level, the arc of one’s life.”
“The Last Class” screens at the M.V. Film Center from Sept 12 through 15. For tickets and information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.