A mother and son are giving CPS students a platform through film. 

Surrounded by nature and sunlight outside of Newberry Elementary School in Lincoln Park, a calm voice asks a simple question. 

“Do you like being a Black girl?” second-grade teacher Ifoema Nkemdi asks one of her students. 

The young girl responds, “Yes.”

Nkemdi was facilitating conversations with some of her students at Newberry for a short documentary on children’s views on how race, culture and identity are discussed at school. Thanks to funding through a McDougal grant, Nkemdi, along with her son, Shiloh Tumo Washington, were able to sit down with students and give them a space to talk to each other about their experiences in a project entitled When Children Speak.

Shiloh Tumo Washington wrote, directed and edited “When Children Speak,” a short documentary sharing students of color’s experiences in Chicago Public Schools. Photo by Bridget Killian, 14 East.

“We are always speaking for the kids. We are always saying, ‘This is what they need, and this is what they lack,’” Nkemdi said. “I just want a platform for children to speak.”

Nkemdi knew Washington would be the perfect fit to take on the film project. A third year student at Columbia College studying film at the time, Washington had all the skills necessary to share the kids’ stories. Nkemdi boasted about her son’s ability to take hours of footage and create a beautiful, 12-and-a-half-minute story.

“He has this way of poetically, artistically, making things make sense with different elements that I wasn’t even thinking of, and he was able to help guide the story through the film,” Nkemdi said.

Over a year after beginning the project, Washington has since graduated in December 2022 from Columbia College with a bachelor of arts in filmmaking. His favorite genre of film is drama, but he says having a decent amount of everything in a film makes it more effective.

“If you want people to feel emotions, to cry, the best way is to make them put their guard down and get some humor in there,” Washington said.

Washington says he draws inspiration for his own projects from foreign films.

“I do think they have a draw to them, especially because I have a travel bug myself,” he said. “Being able to travel somewhere else and see people going through similar things to me is very interesting. Just the universality of it. Humans acting in similar ways and feeling similar things but in different languages and different countries and different contexts, I think is very interesting.”

Washington graduated from Columbia College in Chicago with a degree in filmmaking in December 2022. Photo by Bridget Killian, 14 East.

Washington brought these ideas of universality into When Children Speak. He said he focuses on how significance translates from the actors in the film or the script to the audience taking it in. With When Children Speak, he hopes the audience can listen to and understand what the children are saying. 

“What’s the significance to me as a human being far away?” Washington said. “I think it’s important to try and focus on, especially, the intimate details, the nuances of people speaking, children speaking.”

Khloe Chapman, a former Newberry Elementary student and one of the students featured in the film, said she chose to be a part of the project to raise awareness of the experiences of students of color. Chapman had a unique role in the film as an older student, an eighth grader at the time of filming. She, along with other older kids at the school, were leading the interviews of the younger kids. 

“I feel like, since we are all younger, we could connect to each other easily,” Chapman said.

Students from Newberry Elementary School in Lincoln Park spoke about their views of race, culture and identity in “When Children Speak.” Photo by Bridget Killian, 14 East.

Washington and Nkemdi decided to have the students ask each other questions for this very reason. They hoped having the kids lead the conversation would make everyone feel more comfortable to answer questions about their cultures and identities honestly. 

“These issues are rampant, so hearing kids talk about their struggle with their image or their struggle with their race, unfortunately, is not something that surprises me because I went through the same things when I was that age,” Washington said. “The only thing that surprised me was how well they were able to put it into words.”

Photo by Bridget Killian, 14 East.

Sharing those words with an audience is Nkemdi and Washington’s hope for When Children Speak. On May 24, Nkemdi and Washington presented the film to the school’s community at Facets Theater in Lincoln Park. As a teacher, Nkemdi said she wants to center her students in conversations about race in the classroom and allow them to lead that discussion. Chapman said student voice is something teachers don’t often listen to. 

The film is dedicated to one of Nkemdi’s students, Akeem Briscoe, who was tragically killed last year. She hopes to honor his memory and show the importance of making everyday count with the children she educates. 

“Their life is so important, and you don’t know who you’re gonna have in front of you. You don’t know how long – that’s what Akeem taught me,” Nkemdi said. “One thing I know is that Akeem knew how much I cared.”

Nkemdi’s students kept Briscoe’s desk as a memorial for him in the classroom. Photo by Bridget Killian, 14 East.

Nkemdi said When Children Speak helped give the students that voice. She spoke about the film with words of a mother proud of her son and a teacher proud of her students. She said Washington’s way of poetic filmmaking really captured the beauty and heart of the kids, which was her goal. 

“I cried,” Nkemdi said about her first time seeing the film. “I just cried because I was like, this is what I’m talking about. And now, finally people get to see what I see, what I experience and why I haven’t left teaching.” 

Header by Mei Harter