I just watched The Last Repair Shop last night on YouTube. Really enjoyed it. It’s a 2023 documentary directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers that follows four folks who repair musical instruments for students in Los Angeles public schools. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2024!
What I love is the way they told their stories, the folks that work there… How they ended up in that shop. What they had experienced along the way. How they see their past and how they see the work they do now. You watch someone repair an instrument, then learn a little about their life, and you start to see that person differently. I really liked how the film gave us time to get to know them.
And then there are the kids who get those instruments. They may never know who repaired them, much less anything about that person’s life. But they get to make music because someone took the time and had the skill to make that instrument work again. There’s something about that connection I found uplifting.
Of course, my thoughts eventually wandered more to my job and higher education.
We work alongside a lot of people whose stories we don’t really know. We know what they do. We know who to call when something needs fixing or when a student needs help. We might talk with them several times a week. But how did they get here? What experiences shaped how they approach their work? What do they enjoy about it, and what makes them feel like they’ve done something worthwhile at the end of the day? I wonder how often we actually ask.
We spend a lot of time in higher education talking about student success. And we should. But watching this film got me thinking about all the work that sits underneath that phrase. Someone helps a student sort out a registration problem. Someone keeps a lab working. Someone takes a few extra minutes to explain a process that makes perfect sense to us but is completely unfamiliar to the student standing in front of us.
From our side, it might be something we do every day. From the student’s side, it might be the thing that allows them to move forward.
I also think there’s something here for those of us in leadership. It’s easy to become familiar with what people do and assume that means we know them. Hearing how someone understands their own work might tell us quite a bit that a job description never could. We might learn something about what matters to them. We might even start to see a familiar part of our campus a little differently.
I liked that this documentary gave four people the chance to tell us those things. It made me curious about the stories I haven’t heard from people on my own campus.
If you have about 40 minutes, it’s free and fully available on YouTube. I’m glad I took the time.
Be good.
-Mike