Paper Clips

Elliot Berlin and Joe Fab's compassionate chronicle of a small-town school's efforts to broaden its childrens' horizons began with a question: How do you teach tolerance and diversity in a setting so racially, religiously and economically homogenous that its high-school graduates regularly retreat from out-of-town colleges, rattled by sudden immersion in a sea of different nationalities and religions? Whitwell Middle School principal Linda Hooper began looking for an answer in 1998, after history teacher David Smith returned from an enrichment-programs workshop eager to educate their eighth graders about the bitter consequences of bigotry. A small, depressed Tennesse...