Five Things Students Taught Us About Connecting Across Differences

The useful part

When I'm producing a documentary, one of my favorite parts of the process is the moment when a bit of our footage sticks to me. After watching the footage over and over again, the bit becomes part of me. Often it's a funny line—a perfect, punchy distillation of the truth that gets adopted as an inside joke among the team of producers and editors.

How it works

• For the better part of the past year, I've been working as an executive producer on a series of short documentaries for the Greater Good Science Center called Connecting on Campus:
• We repeat it like a collective spell that buoys us when we're sinking under the weight of the project's heavy subject matter.
• Sometimes it's a splinter, a cutting insight that I would have rather avoided.
• Or it's a solidly true, heartfelt moment that sits like a smooth stone in my pocket.
• The series features students at four universities across the country who are attempting to connect in some meaningful way with people who have different life experiences, political beliefs, or visions for...

What to take from it

students imagine a version of the United States that embodies their values, and then they share those visions with one another. As they listen to one another's values, they discover where they align, where they diverge, and where empathy can keep them in relationship with each other even when they disagree.

Details worth keeping

I never know when it will happen, but it always does. Sometimes the thing that sticks is not funny at all. The touchstone grounds and guides me on the long journey of making a film.