Regular Price $29.95

Starring: Leslie Sullivan,  Albert Cullum,  Laurie Heineman, 
Directed By: Leslie Sullivan, 
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Release Date: 2005
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
Format: Black & White,  Color,  DVD-Video,  NTSC, 

Editorial Reviews and DVD Information about A Touch of Greatness

Product Description
{Winner! GOLDEN STARFISH AWARD: Best Documentary- Hamptons Film Festival}

{Winner! AUDIENCE AWARD: Best Documentary- Denver International Film Festival}

As an elementary school teacher for more than twenty years and a pioneer in teacher education, Albert Cullum galvanized students and shook up parents through the use of poetry, drama and imaginative play. Cullum championed a radical educational philosophy that spoke directly to his student's hearts through his passionate use of poetry and drama including literary masterpieces from Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Shaw. Cullum went well beyond the textbook and instead allowed his students to find their own inspiration in the works while discovering new heights of originality and joy in learning.

Sullivan's one-of-a-kind film weaves rare archival television broadcasts and remarkable vintage footage from films documenting these projects (several recorded in the early 1960's by Robert Downey Sr., the director of the 60's independent classic Putney Swope), as well as recent interviews with Cullum, Downey, and Cullum's students. What emerges is an inspiring portrait of a maverick teacher who transformed a generation of young people by enabling them to discover their own inner greatness through the power of learning. At a time when the American educational system is under scrutiny, this film is an important look at where it has been and an inspiration for where it can go.

Customer Reviews for A Touch of Greatness

Great Students Make Great Teachers
A Touch of Greatness documents the 20 year career of Albert Collum as an elementary school teacher. His imaginative methods are revealed and discussed, as well as his impact on former students.
I watched this DVD with a family circle of psychologists, all of whom were ravished by the "developmental" approach of the subject, Albert Collum. It was an enjoyable hour of watching, and an even more enjoyable discussion that the film provoked.
I have serious doubts that Mr Collum's methods are exportable. As another reviewer with teaching experience has pointed out, Mr Collum was fortunately placed in a "functional" community. Here's my rap: good teaching results from good students, and good students result from good communities. I got confirmation of that opinion not long ago from Frank McCourt's book Teacher Man. McCourt was by his own account a lousy and unsuccessful teacher in challenged communities, but then became a creative comet in a privileged community.
But hey, although I grew up entirely in challenged communities, I know I would have responded with joy to Collum's teaching. I wish I'd had the opportunity.
I also have doubts whether Mr. Collum's methods of classroom management are reproduceable by anyone without his earnest charisma. Even good methodologies and receptive students don't ALWAYS produce good teaching. Until such time as good teachers can be cloned, I suspect to would be wise to treat them well, pay them well, and keep them in the classroom.A Touch of Greatness

Albert Cullum Definitely Had A Touch Of Teaching Greatness But............
This is a very well made documentary. Albert Cullum was certainly gifted with intelligence, charisma, intuition, boundless energy and no small amount of acting ability which combined to make an incredible teacher. Mr. Cullum was also gifted with teaching in Rye, New York, an affluent NYC suburb in Westchester County filled with bright, privileged children of educated parents, who did not face many of the problems the majority of children today face or for that matter what many of their less fortunate contemporaries in the 1950's and 1960's encountered. Having talented filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. available to come up from Manhattan to film his class's dramatic productions was another gift Cullum possessed and watching the amazingly photographed acting of these young children as they perform Shakespeare, Shaw and Sophocles is fascinating. The testimony of former students, middle aged when this documentary film was made, as to the positive impact "Al" had on their successful lives must have presented yet another gift to Mr. Cullum.

After ten years teaching upper elementary school in Rye Mr. Cullum left to teach at the university level and write about teaching. Granted he continued his work with bringing theater to public schools, even those schools filled with students less privileged than those from Rye. My concern with the message of this film is Mr. Cullum's teaching methods worked for him because he was an extraordinary person with way above today's average public school teaching conditions. New teachers who try to emulate his work in their classrooms without his talents and advantages are likely to meet disaster. Sure almost all kids would enjoy squirming around on the floor while pretending to be swimming up the Mississippi on a giant map but it takes an extraordinary teacher to control this situation and to either refocus the students back to the more mundane learning that has to take place in school or to constantly create other lessons that are just as meaningful and exciting. In the film Mr. Cullum says everyone has a touch of greatness in them. I agree but that touch of greatness is not likely to be found in copying Mr. Cullum's very unique teaching talents.A Touch of Greatness

Inspiring
An inspiring DVD for a new teacher. Though the setting was in the 60s, I can still learn from timeless principles from the documentary.A Touch of Greatness

Every Teacher, Every Parent Must See this Film
A half century ago, a brave public school teacher (Albert Cullum) explored innovative techniques, with heart and mind, to establish a "new way" of teaching 5th graders. Oh...how he succeeded.! A marvelous film. This documentary shows how he inspired his pupils to be interested in the Great Books, in plays, in mathematics. Albert Collum insisted on tough standards but at the same time he was not afraid to make learning fun. The students compete, even dance their way to learning. (Witness the children swimming a "map" of the Mississippi) Under Collum's expert direction, even kindergarten children were starting to learn Shakespeare and to act the roles. In a world where we are dumbing down our kids, we need to learn how to raise the standard of achievement. Highly recommended.

A Touch of Greatness

What teaching success looks like
I'm a high school English teacher and this film is going to change what happens in my classroom.

In this film, Albert Cullum says what are perhaps the most courageous words I've ever heard come out of a teacher's mouth: "Day after day I was having discipline problems, and I thought to myself, 'It must be me. I must be doing something wrong.'"

As a child, my own experience with public education taught me that what was important was to sit down, shut up, and think the way they wanted me to.

I was never any good at any of those things, and (now that I'm an adult with twenty years of life experience outside of education,) as a new teacher I plan to stand up, speak up and open wide the arena of the possible for ALL of my kids, regardless of their backgrounds or previous performance.

If you are a like-minded teacher, this film is simply mandatory viewing. Buy it, rent it, get it at the library; just see it soon. It will help remind you that teaching success does not come from obsessing about what is in the way or from blaming the kids, but from ceaselessly inquiring into what is possible and making no excuses for them or to yourself.A Touch of Greatness