Yoder Public Affairs Film Screening: Robert Reich in ‘The Last Class’

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich always considered teaching his true calling. As he faces his final class, he wrestles with the dual realities of his own aging and his students inheriting a world out of balance.

The Last Class is a nuanced and deeply personal portrait of master educator Robert Reich teaching his final course and reflecting on a period of immense transformation, personally and globally. It is a love letter to education. The former Secretary of Labor might be famous for his public service, best-selling books and viral social media posts, but he always considered teaching his true calling. Now, after over 40 years and an extraordinary 40,000 students, Reich is preparing for his last class.

Over the course of the film, Reich confronts the impending finality, and his own aging, with increasing candor, introspection and, ultimately, emotion. He displays a rawness of feeling he has never shared publicly before. Drawing on his lifetime in politics, he uses his class, “Wealth and Poverty,” to offer us all a deeper look at why inequalities of income and wealth have widened significantly since the late 1970s, and why this poses dangerous risks to our society.

One thousand students fill the biggest lecture hall on the UC Berkeley campus, the last class to receive Reich’s wisdom and exhortations not to accept that the world has to stay the way it is. His belief in the next generation’s ability to take on the fight is inspiring.

This screening, part of GC’s Lecture Series, is free and open to the public. The film’s runtime is roughly 72 minutes.

This event is supported by Assembly Mennonite Church and the Goshen College Department of Religion, Justice and Society.