Eye Witness No. 11 (1949)

In this installment of the Eye Witness series of short documentary films, two stories, "Classroom on Rails" and "Disabled Civilians' Workshop", are told. In the former, teacher Cameron Bell and his family live on a rail car during the school year, the car which also acts as his moving classroom. Serving six forested regions north of Lake Superior, the moving classroom spends one week of every six at each stop in supporting the Canadian law that affords every child a free elementary education, with Mr. Bell teaching students standard curriculum up to grade 12. Each stop covers a vast region, meaning that students and their families, for the week the train is at their stop, often will have to camp alongside the train, even in the dead of winter. In the latter, the title workshop is a for-profit business in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan that solely employs people with physical disabilities.

Production

ONF | NFB