Regent Review-- March 2017

Page 8
Continued stories
Pathways
cont. from page 1
MMSD collaborated with
Madison Area Technical
College, the Workforce
Development Board of
South Central Wisconsin,
and the Greater Madison
Chamber of Commerce.
At the time of the last
Regent Reporter’s publication,
the theme of the
second pathway had not
yet been announced. As
of late January, there are
four options currently being
considered by the administration
and various
focus groups of students,
teachers, and other staff:
(1) visual and performing
arts, (2) information
technology, (3) business
and entrepreneurship,
and (4) engineering.
In a December Reform
Collaborative held
by district officials, additional
pathways such
as liberal arts and law
and social justice were
offered, however the
most current information
suggests that a liberal
arts or humanities pathway
is not being formally
considered at this time.
In a January 2017 email,
Mr. Fralin said that it appeared
as though “the IT
pathway had the broadest
range of support.”
Furthermore, there
has been much speculation
about Pathways’
elimination of electives,
yet little clarity
about the exact future of
West’s departments has
been presented. A few
English electives will no
longer be offered in the
2017-2018 school year,
including but not limited
to English Literature
Honors and Shakespeare
Honors, however,
Ms. Colbert and school
counselors emphasized
that these cuts are “more
due to declining enrollment
than Pathways.”
The English experiences
of current juniors
and sophomores will remain
“almost identical,”
according to Colbert.
As for social studies,
no elective cuts have
been announced and the
transition to AP World
History will occur only
inside the pathway; AP
European History will
continue to be available
to all other sophomores.
Still, several staff members
(who spoke on the
condition of anonymity)
expressed similar concerns
that students and
teachers in a pathway will
not have as much room in
their schedules to enroll
in or teach electives and
that the move to eventually
have all MMSD students
in a pathway will
eliminate West’s rich array
of options by attrition.
This possibility is flatly
denied by Personalized
Pathways officials at the
school and district levels.
Any readers interested
in learning more
about and discussing
Personalized Pathways
should consider coming
to Current Events Club in
Room 2034 on Thursdays
or attending Student Senate
meetings in the Doyle
Administration Building
on alternate Wednesdays.
Marc Webb
cont. from page 7
going to expect somebody
else to change. And that’s
a very difficult thing to do.
SR: During your career, how
has the cinema changed, and
what do you think the future
holds for cinema, for filmmakers,
and for spectators? Do you
see any changes in the future?
MW: Well, I think the biggest
change in the last few years
has been the revolution in
television. There are so many
interesting things that are
happening on TV, with limited
series and stuff on HBO
-- or there’s Game of Thrones
or The Sopranos or Stranger
Things, or Sherlock or
whatever. I’ve found myself
watching more TV. I think
that middle range dramas, for
example, a movie like A River
Runs Through It -- which
was made before you were
born, amazingly -- would be
very difficult to make now,
along with Dead Poet’s Society,
or with many of the movies
that were really formative
for me. Movies tend to
have to be so big, like the big
franchise superhero movie,
or very small independent
film in order for them to survive,
because it’s very hard
to get people to go see movies
-- you need a big event
to compel them. Because
people have computers, they
have social media, they have
TVs, and to get somebody to
get in their car and go to the
theatre, it takes a big deal to
do that. And that’s a pretty
significant change. Whereas
when I was growing up, independent
cinema was really
having a renaissance in the
‘90s. That was a big change
from when I started out.
SR: Do you think that having
Madison roots have had
an impact on your work?
MW: Yeah. Madison is an
interesting combination of
things. One thing is, you
have this university there,
and so there’s an influx of
culture and sophistication
and cosmopolitan attitudes
and progressive attitudes,
which is great. But it’s also
in the middle of Wisconsin,
which is farm country, and
there are hunters there, and
your neighbors are like more
salt of the earth people. I
think that being from Wisconsin,
and from Madison
in particular, I have more of
an appreciation of the world
at large. There were always
international students there,
and the issues and the kind
of basic down-home Americana
that a lot of people in
New York and Los Angeles
are not aware of. You
hear so many people think
about Wisconsin, especially
now, as Trump country, and
they’re not in touch with that
kind of America. While I’m
making movies, and while
I’m deciding what movies
I want to make, there’s always
a part of me that has
an understanding of that audience
from Wisconsin, not
from suburban America but
from the bread basket, from
a society that is very close
to what a lot of rural America
feels. And that sort of down
home quality that you get in
Madison, that midwestern
sentiment, is in my work a lot.
SR: We’ve loved all of your
films so far, what should we
expect to see in the future?
MW: Well, I have a movie
coming out in April called
Gifted, which is about a custody
battle over a young girl
who is a math genius. And
I just finished shooting a
movie called The Only Living
Boy in New York, about
a kid who falls in love with
his dad’s mistress, which
will come out later this year
or early next year. They’re
just two small dramas. I just
wanted something simple to
do after Spider-Man. That’s
what I’ve been working on.
They’re simple little dramas,
they’re so stripped down.
They’re very basic movies.
SR: Do you have any other advice
or anything else you want
the students at West to know?
MW: Follow your bliss.