Webinar: FUHSD Presents: Try Harder! May 6th Parents Q&A Event by Try Harder!

FUHSD Presents: Try Harder! May 6th Parents Q&A Event

About

Panelists (May 6):
Debbie Lum, Director & Producer
Dr. Julie Xie, Psychologist
Richard Shapiro, Film Participant
Kathy Tang, College & Career Counselor Lynbrook High School

Moderator: Dr. Trudy Gross, Associate Superintendent Student and Special Services, FUHSD

About The Film
A New York Time's Critic's Pick, Try Harder! is the first feature-documentary about Lowell High School. Following rave reviews from its premiere at Sundance in 2021, the film has started conversations about success and the intersections of education, race and identity. It will air on PBS' Independent Lens in May of 2022. In the words of Brian Hu, director of San Diego Asian Film Festival, where Try Harder! won the Audience Award:

“Kids at Lowell are pretty amazing,” says one Lowell student, nervously. “Amazing” is what sets them apart: these are specially-selected students in San Francisco’s top high school, a fabled institution that produces college-ready superstars. But “amazing” is also a high bar to live up to: against their peers in silent competition, to their parents’ explicit and implicit expectations of immigrant success, but importantly, to their own inchoate standards of personal value. Furthermore, most of the students at Lowell are Asian American, which comes with a different set of biases about being merely “A.P. machines,” especially in the eyes of Ivy Leagues trying to maintain their white country club reputations, as one Lowell teacher bluntly warns.

The five students we get to know in Debbie Lum’s peppy, nerve-racking, and joyous try harder! are anything but machines. They are not-so-secret dancers and ice cream scoopers. They exude genuine love for each other, their parents, and their teachers. Set across their senior year, Lum follows them from an autumn scrambling to submit college applications, to a bittersweet graduation anticipating the next chapter of trying harder and being amazing.

WEBINAR ENDED

Agenda

7:30pm PT: Parents Panel Discussion Begins
8:30pm PT: Program Ends

Presenters

Try Harder! Film

Debbie Lum

Director & Producer

Debbie Lum is an award-winning filmmaker whose projects give voice to the Asian American experience and other unsung stories. TRY HARDER!, her documentary about San Francisco’s iconic Lowell High School premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival in US documentary competition. Her previous documentary, SEEKING ASIAN FEMALE, premiered at SXSW, and was a “fan favorite” on PBS' Independent Lens, won Best of Fest (Silverdocs), Outstanding Director (LA Asian Pacific Film Festival) and was featured in This American Life. Her editing credits include A.K.A DON BONUS (winner, National Emmy), KELLY LOVES TONY (nominee, IDA Best Documentary), and TO YOU SWEETHEART, ALOHA.

Dr. Julie Xie

Psychologist

Dr. Julie Xie is a School Psychologist of Fremont Unified School District since 2000 and a Licensed Educational Psychologist since 2002. She is also an adjunct faculty of Sofia University. She is the author of “Being a School Psychologist in America” (2016), which was rated as one of the most influential books to teachers in China that year, "Positive Families" (2021), and frequent speaker on mental health & parenting for Chinese American community. Her parenting seminars are very popular and she is the mother of two teenagers.

Richard Shapiro

Educator & Film Participant

Richard Shapiro taught math and science in the San Francisco unified school district from 1985, and Physics and AP Physics at Lowell high school from 1990 to 2021. At Lowell he initiated a computer-based laboratory program, got accreditation for Lowell’s AP Physics courses, and co-founded in 2010, with his former student, Julia Ye, the Lowell Science Research Program at UCSF. Over 1000 students have participated in this collaboration with UCSF, with a select number performing science research at UCSF, and receiving National recognition for their research. He has been nominated for teacher of the year for Northern California and for San Francisco. He is eternally grateful to his students and colleagues at Lowell who have provided for him the most rewarding, creative and meaningful professional experience imaginable.

Kathy Tang

College & Career Counselor Lynbrook High School

Kathy Tang is a College & Career Advisor at Lynbrook High School and has been in her current role for 6 years. She graduated from UC Berkeley and USC and previously worked in the tech sector. She has three children who are Lynbrook alumni. She enjoys helping and guiding students navigate the college search and application process.

Dr. Trudy Gross

Moderator

Trudy Gross is the Associate Superintendent of Student and Special Services in the Fremont Union High School District. In her 24th year with the district, key responsibilities include supporting the areas of guidance, special education, mental health, alternative and career/technical education, and the district Local Control Accountability and School planning processes. Trudy serves as the Title IX coordinator for the district and a resource to the five comprehensive school sites and Educational Options including the areas of campus climate and interventions.

Ian Wang

Film Participant

Ian Wang is a graduate of Lowell High School and Alice Fong Yu, which was featured in Speaking in Tongues. When he was at Lowell, he was in Shield and Scroll, played on the varsity men's volleyball team, led and founded the Lowell Investment Club, and wrote for The Lowell and The Radish, which he founded. Outside of school, he is a proud Eagle Scout and has worked as an Explainer at the Exploratorium and volunteered at NEMS, a public health clinic in Chinatown. He recently graduated from Emory and currently serves as an economics and US history teacher at Banneker High School through Teach for America.