Minding the Gap is a coming of age film by Bing Liu. Starting in high school, Bing begins to make skate videos. What starts as a hobby ends up as a profound exploration of issues that is likely to resonate deeply with students.

The diverse group of participants in the film – Bing, Keire, Zack, and Nina – see and feel the often jarring challenges of life in a small, declining Rust Belt city. Collectively, they experience family violence, substance abuse, economic insecurity, racism, and teen pregnancy, along with the typical struggles of identity formation as teens become adults. To cope, they skate — regulating the speed at which they move through life, attacking obstacles and flipping over platforms, sometimes unsuccessfully. The risks they take are sometimes rewarded and sometimes the source of pain. But they persevere.

Themes

• Initial Reactions
• Race, Class, Culture and Identity: Stereotypes
• Domestic Violence/Abuse
• Masculinity
• Parenting
• Financial Anxiety

Suggested Film Clips

If time allows, we recommend having students view the entire film. Below are some suggested clips that speak to specific themes and activities outlined in this resource.

Race, Class, Culture, and Identity: Stereotypes - 57:43-59:39

Domestic Violence / Abuse - 32:40-34:12, 41:44-43:10

Masculinity - 14:50-16:50, 17:36 – 20:20

Parenting - 22:04-24:55, 35:40-37:00, 54:55-56:24

Financial Anxiety - 11:45-13:12, 20:30-21:36, 1:03:40-1:04:37

Materials

• Film clips from Minding the Gap and a way to screen them
• [optional] Emoji wands

Activity: Discussion

The film’s participants are remarkably vulnerable and open. Their model is likely to inspire a willingness for students to be equally open as they connect what they see to their own experiences.

To encourage dialogue, you might consider opening the conversation by advising students to pause, take a deep breath, and then ask: How do you feel? What was it like to watch the lives, struggles, and accomplishments of the young people on screen?

If students have a hard time identifying their emotions, you may want to try this: Provide at least 1 minute for the students to select from a variety of pre-made emoji wands and to respond to the question by holding up their selected emoji wand they have for everyone to see. Have the students to look around the room. Solicit a few responses from the students to share what they have observed.

Once the group is ready to move on to other issues, you might consider using prompts in the film’s discussion guide, and/or using the activities described in the other sections of this resource.

Important: If students have not previously viewed the entire film, be sure to share with them a general summary and how the clip(s) they are about to see fit into the film’s narrative.

Materials

• Film clips from Minding the Gap and a way to screen them
• Copy of Paul Dunbar's poem “We Wear the Mask” (either projected so all students can see, or one copy distributed to each student)

Activity 1: Don’t Label Me

Learning Goal: Students will gain a deeper understanding of stereotypes by using the film to examine common stereotypes and consider their impact.

As context, ask students if they can identify any examples in our distant and not-so-distant history in which stereotypes have been used to define a person’s race, class, culture, to keep people trapped into an identity. Fill in gaps or connect to curriculum as needed.

[Optional]: Explain that the people in the film are all avid skateboarders. Ask students to identify common stereotypes about skaters. As they view the film clips, invite them think about whether the people on screen affirm or contradict their image of typical skaters.

Instructions:

Use the moments in each film clip to explore the ways that stereotypes can be dangerous because they have the power to constrict people’s identities:

• View each clip and identify the stereotype it contains.
• Pair and share: Who benefits and who is harmed by the perpetuation of the stereotype?

Activity 2: Masks

Learning Goal: Students will consider how people adopt masks as a coping mechanism when self-identity is perceived as – or is actually – unacceptable to the dominant culture.

Instructions:

Show the clip (1:25:11 – 1:25:58) and note the comments about identity shared by Zack and Nina:

Then introduce the poem "We Wear the Mask" by African-American poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar. To provide context, note that Dunbar was born in 1872 to formerly enslaved parents from Kentucky. The poem, written during the Jim Crow Era, appeared in a collection of his poems from 1896 called Lyrics of Lowly Life. After students have had time to read the poem, discuss and/or ask them to write responses to these prompts:

• What connections do you see between Dunbar’s poem and the film clips?
• Why do people wear masks?
• Under what circumstances to people wear masks as a choice and when is it a matter of survival? Can it be both?
• What is the role of masks in perpetuating and/or surviving racism or other forms of oppression?
• Do you ever wear a mask? Why? What does it feel like?

Important: If students have not previously viewed the entire film, be sure to share with them a general summary and how the clip(s) they are about to see fit into the film’s narrative.

Materials

• Film clips from Minding the Gap and a way to screen them
• "Abuse Defined" fact sheet from the National Domestic Violence Hotline

Learning Goal: Students will identify various types of domestic violence and consider the lifelong impact of experiencing or witnessing abuse as children.

Activity

Screen the film clips. Between each, pause for individuals, pairs, or small groups, to use the information provided from the National Domestic Violence Hotline and their own knowledge of domestic abuse to identify the kind of domestic abuse that is being experienced. What is the evidence to support your answer?

Continue the discussion with any or all of these prompts:

• Identify and explain the direct and indirect consequences of domestic violence.
• Create a metaphor or symbol that explains or depicts how domestic violence impacts the lives of partners, friends, and/or children who experience domestic violence directly or indirectly.
• What did you learn from the clips about the ways that men are impacted by domestic violence? How is it similar to and different from the ways that women are typically impacted?
• How does domestic violence in same-gender relationships alter our views about who is typically identified as victims or perpetrators of domestic violence?

Follow-Up Ideas

Bring national attention to domestic violence by writing a song. Identify an artist you would choose to perform your song at a national music awards show. Why did you select that artist to represent a campaign about domestic violence? As an example of a song about an important, volatile issue, you might want to listen to Logic’s song about suicide prevention called 1-800-273-8255 featuring Alessia Cara and Khalid. In the song, one question Logic continually asks is, “Who can relate?” He also repeatedly says, “I want to you be alive. You don’t have to die today.”

Create a slogan that could be placed on a T-Shirt, snapback (baseball cap), or in a national campaign to address the domestic violence against boys and men.

Stage an in-class debate that will allow students to utilize facts / data to support arguments and to make claims about domestic violence and its impact on men and women. Have audience members serve as evaluators to determine which side presented the better arguments. Formulate debate prompts using statements from the film about domestic violence.

Brainstorm ways to reduce or eliminate IPV in your school or community.

Have students complete the online Stay or Go activity from the youth-focused website, REACH: Relationship Education, A Choice for Hope produced by the organization Between Friends. Their website includes further resources for engaging youth in productive activities around healthy relationships.

Materials

• Film clips from Minding the Gap and a way to screen them
• The poem “masculine” by Nayyirah Waheed and a way to project it so everyone can see it
• Students will need a way to write (paper & pen or laptop/tablet/computer)

Learning Goal: Students will explore the link between traditional masculinity and the suppression of emotions.

Activity

Step 1: Masculinity refers to the traditional, widely and culturally accepted characteristics of men.

Jot down some characteristics of masculinity.

Step 2: Pair and share what you wrote and talk with your partner about where you learned what it means to be a man. List all of the influences that have shaped your ideas about masculinity.

Step 3: Read the following poem by 21st Century, African American, woman poet, Nayyirah Waheed and answer the questions that follow.

• What does this poem mean?
• Why would it be more masculine to do violence to one’s heart than to cry in public?
• What’s the impact of feeling like you shouldn’t express emotions?
• To which person in Minding the Gap does this poem apply most? Select from Keire, Zack, or Bing.
• How does the person you have selected challenge what Nayyirah Waheed’s poem says through their behavior and what they verbally express?

Use evidence from the film to support your answer.

Step 4: View the clip in which Elliot gets a miniature skateboard for his 1st birthday. As a class, discuss:

• What gender and cultural expectations are being presented to Elliot through this gift?
• How are ideas of masculinity and gender formed?
• What role is played by nature (biology)? How about nurture (culture & experience)?
• If Elliot was your son, what would you want him to learn about being a man?

Materials

• Film clips from Minding the Gap and a way to screen them
• Note Taking Handout
• Students will need paper & pen

Learning Goal: Students will consider the qualities and impact of “good” parenting.

Activity: Effective Parenting

Prior to viewing the film clips ask students:

With a partner, think about effective parenting. What sorts of things does a good parent do? What qualities do they exhibit? Then work together to summarize your thoughts in a single sentence:

Parenting is _____________.

In a go-round, invite each pair to present their sentence. Ask students to listen for similarities and differences in what everyone presents. What do they notice?

Distribute a handout for note-taking that includes these questions:

• According to Oprah Winfrey, children who have been exposed to “good parents” enter the world with “strengths” and “an advantage.” What kind of advantages do “good parents” provide for their children?
• Does the age of parents determine whether a child will experience “good parenting?” Explain.
• How might children who have not come from “good parents” find success and flourish in spite of lacking “good parenting?”
• How much of an impact do parents have in determining our relationships with race, class, culture, masculinity and identity?
• Other than biological or step parents, who else in a family or community can provide “parenting”?

Screen each of the film clips with pauses between each to give time for students to take notes that will help them synthesize what they learned from the clip that will help them answer one or more of the questions on the handout.

Discuss each of the questions on the handout. As a final question, ask students to share one new insight about parenting that they learned from the activity.

Materials

• Film clips from Minding the Gap and a way to screen them
• Projectable text of the U.S. Constitution Preamble

Learning Goal: After considering the way that economic insecurity plays out real people’s lives, students will examine whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees financial security to the nation’s citizens.

Activity: Promoting the General Welfare

Step 1: Introduce the Film Clips. Explain that financial anxiety is a feeling of fear brought about as a result of not having enough money to meet one’s needs. As students view, they should look for how that anxiety shows up in the lives of the people in the film and how does it impact their choices, decisions, and emotional well-being.

Step 2: Show the film clips, pausing after each to discuss what students notice about the impact of financial anxiety.

Step 3: Shift the focus to thinking about who is responsible to help deal with the impact of economic insecurity and how that might happen. Show the text of the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America and give students a minute to read it.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Ask:

Do you see anything that indicates a federal government responsibility to provide financial security to the nation’s citizens (and if so, what’s your evidence)?

What government supports are already in place to help Americans meet their basic needs? (Examples might include programs like SNAP, WIC, or Social Security Disability payments). Do you see anything in the Preamble that would provide a legal foundation for these programs?

Step 3: Working individually or in groups, come up with at least one response to the financial anxiety experienced by people in the film and make your case for why the response will help and why it is Constitutional.

Extended Learning Assignment Ideas

• Create art or music that conveys the message that not having enough money is not a crime nor is it shameful.
• Conduct classroom debates on issues like:

- Fifteen dollars an hour is not a living wage. The government should require a living wage rather than a minimum wage.

- Governments have limited resources—they simply cannot help everyone and should not be required to.

- Federal, state and local governments should be responsible for retaining jobs and employment opportunities that pay decent wages in all American towns.

- State and local governments should be required to provide mental health services for people coping with persistent economic insecurity.

• Examine where (or from whom), in your community, you learn about money. How much are your ideas about finances influenced by advertising or other media? What difference might that make? What could you do to improve financial literacy in your community?
• Investigate ways that your school can budget discretionary funds to support basic student needs like toiletries and snacks. Develop your ideas into a proposal for the school board.
• Do a feasibility study of adding an entrepreneurship program to your school’s curriculum. Present your findings to administrators.
• Study India’s Universal Basic Income Model (http://carnegieendowment.org/2018/02/14/india-s-universal-basic-income-introduction-pub-75501). Create a graphic novel or a storyboard comic that explores the Pros and Cons of this model and that demonstrates how it works. You might create it in the style of a fanzine to show how it would affect the lives of Bing, Keire, Zack, and/or Nina. .
• Write a persuasive essay and/ or report to the United States Department of the Treasury and to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) committee about why you believe this model has the potential to support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Articles 21-25. Be sure to include a conversation on ways in which debt and financial anxiety could be considered human rights violations of the UDHR’s Articles 21-25.

National Social Studies Standards (Race, Class Culture and Identity)

Themes

I. Culture: a-e, II. Time, Continuity and Change: a-f, III. People, Places and Environment: a, f-h, k, IV. Individual Development and Identity: a-h, V. Individual Groups and Institutions: a-g, VI. Power, Authority, and Governance: a-e, h, VII. Production, Distribution and Consumption: a-j, VIII. Science, Technology and Society: a, IX. Global Connections: a-f, X. Civic Ideals and Practices: a-j

National ELA Standards

For a more detailed overview of how Standards 1-12 can be used, teachers can consult pages 19 -- 32.

Standards Alignment for Specific Activities

Race, Class, Culture and Identity: Stereotypes - SS standards: Themes I -- VI, ELA Standards: 1-4, 9, 12

Domestic Violence/Abuse - SS Standard(s):Theme IV: e-h, Theme V: a-g, Theme VI: a and d, Theme VIII: a, Theme, ELA Standard(s): 3-4, 7-8, 11-12.

Masculinity - SS Standards: Themes I--IV, ELA Standards:1-4, 6 and 9.

Parenting - ELA Standard: 3, 4, and 12

Financial Anxiety - SS Standards: Themes: I--VII, IX, X, ELA Standards: 1-12

This resource was created, in part, with the generous support of the Open Society Foundation and The Center For Asian American Media.