Wow. Wow. Wow. What an AMAZING movie! I hope you all enjoyed Freedom Writers as much as I did. I think the movie goes hand-in-hand with what Beers wrote about in Chapter 13 on the importance of building community and setting high standards. I can’t imagine being an educator and not seeing the value of having a relationship with the students after seeing this movie. There were so many powerful scenes! One that really stood out to me was when Eva finished reading The Diary of Anne Frank and fussed about it to Ms. Gruwell then Jamal jumped in and gave his two cents. How many times do you think either of them ever discussed a book before? (Heck, how many times do you think either one of them ever read an entire book before?) They both clearly connected with the text and it had an impact on their lives. That is the power of reading. I think it goes along with Teri Lesesne’s thought of finding “the right book for the right kid at the right time.” Gruwell found the right book for these kids and made it relevant to their lives. If we examine Gruwell’s practice, we discover she didn’t just hand the kids the book and tell them to read it. She did a lot of frontloading to build that background knowledge so the students had some information about the topic as well as developed an interest in it. How do you suppose the students would have reacted to the book if they had not been to the Holocaust museum or learned anything about the Holocaust beforehand?
In case you haven't heard, Erin Gruwell is going to be at the WIN (Writing Improvement Network) conference November 7-9 this year.
In case you haven't heard, Erin Gruwell is going to be at the WIN (Writing Improvement Network) conference November 7-9 this year.
10 comments:
I know I am going to be in the minority, but I did not care for the movie. I agree with the undisputable fact that Gruwell got to know her students and their unique family situations over the course of the movie. This benefited her students to the extent that Gruwell literally saved many students from the same fate other family members endured. The problem for me (no eye rolling please!) was the disconnect between Gruwell and the reality of many teacher’s lives. She cast her marriage aside with barely a thought. Her neglected husband was left alone for nights and weekends on end while she worked two odd jobs to pay for school supplies. HE WAS HER LAST PRIORITY! HE WAS MCDREAMY! The reality is that most teachers have husbands or wives, children, are pursuing advanced degrees, hobbies, housework, yard work, homework, exercise, grading papers, etc. that CONSUME their personal lives outside school. Oh, and teachers have to eat and sleep too. I really, really think that if we had a way to watch what most teachers do EVERY SINGLE DAY for students, it wouldn’t be that much different from Gruwell… just on a less grandiose scale!! Family always comes first :-)
I think Andrea brings up a very valid point. Do we, as teachers, have to sacrifice our personal lives in order to have an impact on students and ensure their success? Can we only be successful in working with students if we neglect our home and devote all of our time to them? BC (Before Child), it always sort of irritated me when people used having a child as an excuse for not being able to do things. But being a mother now, I understand. I’m not able to work until 6:00 or 7:00 every night anymore or just go to things whenever I want. A quick trip to Barnes and Noble to pick up a book or a stop by Hallmark to get a card is a bit of an ordeal now—there’s no such thing as a quick in-and-out. So, how do we strike the balance? What are the things we can do in the classroom to build that community without having give up all of our time outside of school?
I have seen this movie twice, and I loved it both times. I was moved by what Erin Gruwell was able to do with her students. I think I do a fairly good job of building community in my classroom, but I pale in comparison. One of my favorite parts of the movie was when she bought the book, Durango Street for her students. I loved how they flipped through and smelled their new books. The one boy even commented that they were new books. I would guess these students had always been given the old ratty books. I also read the book, The Freedom Writers' Diary. Annette has my copy. When she is finished, someone is certainly welcome to borrow it.
I appreciate Andrea sharing her thoughts on the movie and why she didn't like it. I do think it is important for us to remember that some things have to come before our jobs. I value my time with my family, friends, and a good college basketball game or a new book. I do think it is okay for us to want to spend time at school events, though. As Diane said, it's a balance, and that balance is different for all of us.
What a movie! I don’t have words to describe how powerful it was for me. Erin Gruwell is certainly a teacher of students before she is a teacher of content, which is the only reason she was able to accomplish so much with her students. She certainly did build a sense of community in her classroom. I loved the way her dad finally came around and told her he was proud of her and that what she was doing was what she was meant to do. I can’t imagine having a father like hers was at the beginning of the movie.
As for the comments concerning the breakup of Erin’s marriage and finding a balance between work and our personal lives, I think that it would be difficult for a two hour movie to be able portray all aspects of Gruwell's marriage while continuing to keep the focus of the movie, which is the impact she had on students' lives. Statistics show that half of all first marriages and sixty percent of all remarriages end in divorce; generally when a marriage falls apart, both parties are at fault. I agree that Erin neglected her husband, but we don't know that her husband was the perfect mate (even if he was played by the perfect McDreamy!). Maybe he was really a horrible person and Gruwell asked the executives not to expose that side of him to all of America. Instead of sitting in judgment of Erin, maybe we should feel compassion towards her and be grateful they had no children together. Having taught the same group of kids for 90 minutes a day (or sometimes 180 days) and having continued to watch them grow and mature, I can understand Gruwell's commitment to her students and why teachers do the things they do. Maybe the marriage aspect of the movie is more of a testament of why marrying young--before you are established in your career and really know who you are and what your calling in life is--can be a mistake.
Wow, what a movie!
I stayed glued to my seat the entire time. I was wondering where the story line was going, especially since I hadn’t read the book.
I think that Ms. G. taught the students how “to fight”, the correct way, for what they wanted. She showed them how to push forward despite their problems. She never gave up on the students. She made sure that they had the same opportunities as the other students and even took it one step further with the field trips and dinners. Even when her marriage was crumbling, she kept pushing forward in her endeavors. As for her husband, we don’t know that full story. He may have encouraged her in the beginning, but got tired later on of the “school” life. According to the movie, he didn’t support her at all, even when she invited him to the dinners. I think that if they had worked together as a team, that he could have encouraged the students, especially the boys, just like her father did.
I felt like that I could connect with her in some ways because I know that I have a soft spot in my heart for the same type of students. I also know that I have encouraged several students to pursue their dreams and I know that I helped keep one young man out of a gang and another student enroll in college.
I do agree with Jimmy Richardson though. I believe that our students at Airport would only remember the first part of the movie. I actually encouraged my chorus students to go and see the movie, but I did warn them about the beginning. My daughter also wants to go see the film, but I think that the violence/language is too much for a 7th grade girl.
Regarding Freedom Writers, I enjoyed the movie, and I am glad I had read several essays in the book before I went to the theatre. I was prepared for the scene of the two young boys with the handgun--knew when to put my head down--but I was totally unprepared for the breakup of her marriage. I've skipped around that entire book, but I have not found any mention of her marriage.
Karl and I had been married seventeen years, had two sons, travelled extensively, lived in NY and in Atlanta before moving to South Carolina to be closer to my family. When we moved here, Karl asked me to get a job that had a retirement plan, pension, and the rest. When I said that I'd always wanted to complete my dream of becoming a teacher, he said, "go for it." He assured me that he was supportive. And he was, the first year. He and Dylan helped me fix my room, set up those old computers, and repair bookshelves. Even 6-year-old Max thought it was cool that his mom was a teacher. There were no signs of erosion in our relationship other than the usual disagreements about how to discipline the boys, how to balance visits with his folks and mine, and I still went on business trips with him (thank goodness for personal days). In my second year of teaching, I was feeling my game--I had been elected Dorothy B. Caskey Distinguished Teacher by the senior class, and at home, our oldest son was off to Governor's School. Karl came in later and later, though, and Max and I don't remember seeing him often that spring. Somehow our sons' activities continued, we visited our spread out families, and Karl and I attended counselling....Something tells me we don't know the whole story about Ms. Gruwell's private life. If it appeared that she blew off the loss of her marriage, perhaps she was demonstrating traits commonly found in good teachers, the ability to priortize, the ability to perform in a crisis, and the will to survive because generations look up to those who break out of the mold.
I was elated to see those old composition books in Ms. Gruwell's closet, and I will continue to offer them to all of my students. If my students and I had not had those notebooks and a sense of community that allowed us the freedom to reveal our souls, we'd all have gone out on a fire drill and kept walking.
Freedom Writers
The movie was amazing and even inspiring. I saw a lot of what I sought to do when I started teaching in 1994 in an effort to expose my students to the ‘real world’ rather than the small town in which they lived. We did all of the classic fundraisers including Saturday car washes, candy sales, running canteens and raised enough money each year to go to Washington, D.C and fortunately New Orleans before all of the destruction with Katrina. I brought in WWII concentration camp liberators and survivors to speakers to my US History students and could hear a pin drop while Celia Miller spoke and many of those students were heavily involved with the Five-Percenters (gang). The comments that were made to me by fellow teachers were somewhere along the lines of, “You can tell she’s a new teacher, excited isn’t she?” I was offended that if I wanted to expose my students to the foods of the culture we were studying or take them on field trips to see the places we were studying or bring in guest speakers that I was considered a ‘newbie.’ It also, as Lola mentioned, concerned me that many of the ‘veteran’ teachers had soured over the years rather than becoming seasoned. I was lucky because unlike Erin, I had a department chair who was also the director of student activities and the teacher cadet instructor so she embraced and became a part of many of the things I was trying to accomplish with my students. She was the ultimate mentor who encouraged me when I wanted to try new things to not only educate my students but build a community within my classroom.
Thirteen years into teaching I still aspire to provide my students with opportunities outside of these four walls and sincerely care about what happens to each of them, but I now have two small children of my own and as Andrea mentioned that does change your priorities because you do have obligations that don’t all include school and are even more important like church and family. I now find myself similar in the thoughts that Christy expressed about including my children into the culture of Airport High’s extracurricular activities in order to be able to do the things for my students but it still involves sacrifices that require family support to be sure.
I think Erin is indeed special but like Andrea, Christy and Lola, I feel that we must learn to keep things balanced to truly be successful in and out of the classroom.
Rita
Freedom Writers
What an inspiring movie! How much of a difference we could make if we had one class a day and we got to move with that class through high school and maybe go to college with them. Just kidding! I'm so thankful that we have so many resources available for our students. I know I'm not a guidance counselor, psychologist or a family counselor but I am a math teacher and I can truly help them learn math. When they need the help of other professionals, I will be happy to refer them. We can't be everything to everybody, but I know there is always room for improvement. I think Ms Gruwell would have been more effective for the entire school if she would have been able to seek existing programs or help create programs to assist the students with family, drugs, or other problems.
I thought this movie was absolutely wonderful!! I had not heard much abut the movie before watching it so I did not fully know what to except. The simple idea of Ms. G coming into this class who so openly did not want anything to do with her, her class, or what she had to say and how she completely turned it around into such a positive thing. This became a positive thing not only in the lives of these students but showed the world that the seemingly impossible can be done (and how it can be done). I agree with Pam when she talked about the kids getting the new books and how special they felt having their own, brand new, books to read.
I had a student bring up the movie in my sophomore class and we took a few minutes to discuss it. As Jimmy said, not one of my students talked about the gangs and violence they all shared their favorite parts and really seemed to grasp the idea of the movie! It was great to be able to hear that their thoughts about the movie were a lot like mine!
Freedom Writers was quite inspiring to me. How Erin Gruwell was able to inspire a group of students who had probably never had anyone inspire them was amazing. Some may say that parts of the movie were over dramatized and quite a bit of this is unrealistic for teachers; however, parts of it were realistic and very doable. Erin herself took risks and therefore inspired her students to take risks. She refused to allow them to be considered second rate and fought to ensure that she gave them the best experiences and education possible. We often do not hold students to as high of a standard as we could hold them to and accept mediocre work because that is what is expected of students who we have been told are mediocre. We need to make sure that we keep that fresh attitude and that we refuse to be willing to allow students to be less than they can possibly be. This movie is definitely an example of someone who refused to accept mediocrity and who inspired her students to refuse to accept mediocrity from themselves.
Teachers should never have to sacrifice their personal lives as well as have to sacrifice financially just to ensure that their students have what they need in order to get the best education possible, but so many of us are guilty of doing that for our students. Maybe we do not get 2nd jobs and hopefully our careers do not cause the demise of our relationships, but those are the choices teachers often make for our students.
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