Erin Gruwell's Freedom Writers

The movie Freedom Writers, directed by Richard LaGravenese, is based on the true story of a revolutionary high school teacher in an inner city American classroom.  Hilary Swank portrays a young, middle class, refined teacher by the name of Erin Gruwell who is recently qualified to teach English.  She chooses to throw herself into a rough, low-scoring, inner city classroom where the majority of students are behind in their education and many do not care about gaining an education.  The students live under stereotypes based on their race, and gangs are a dominant factor in the school and broader community.  Erin enters the classroom with a grand and innocent view of education and quickly realizes that she will be challenged by her class in many ways.  Her students challenge her authority, her perspective, and her knowledge.  She realizes that she needs to be more creative and subtle in her teaching methods to address the gang violence and conflicts rampant in the school and to bring up to speed the many students who are below a ninth grade English level.  Erin settles on journaling as a means of expressing emotion and writing from the heart.  The students grab onto the method right away as a safe way to tell Erin about their struggles and dreams.  In this way, her class of gang-affected high schoolers is transformed into a class of freedom writers hoping and aspiring for more in their lives.  The rest of the story line is riddled with ups and downs as individual students struggle to latch onto Erin's teaching methods, as Erin struggles to hold her marriage together, and as students are directly impacted by gang violence in their homes and communities.  By the end of the movie, Erin has transformed the class into a motivated, thoughtful, literate, and determined group of writers and learners who are sincerely interested in learning about other cultures and people outside of their backyard.

A powerful moment in the film occurs when Erin is struggling to gain the respect of her students.  Her class claims that she does not know them and does not understand how important gangs are to their livelihood.  A prominent image that Erin uses to grab her students' attention and demand their respect is the role of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis during World War II.  She exposes her students to the Holocaust and gangs on a large scale.  When her students realize what their small gang wars can develop into, they are even more motivated to push for freedom and lives in a larger world outside of their small one.  Erin Gruwell was creative, confident, and determined to make a difference in the lives of her students.  When her class realized that she was not going to back down in her expectations, they began to live up to them.  

When I reflect on becoming a teacher after seeing this true story, I question my own determination.  I too, like Erin Gruwell, have many idealistic images of my future classroom and how my students will learn.  I am reminded by this movie that teachers have to be willing to adapt based on their classroom.  They have to be able to change their lesson plans and be open to the changing needs of their students.  Teachers also have to take into consideration the community and culture in which they teach.  Erin Gruwell placed herself in a very violent, gang-controlled community intentionally, but she still had to put herself in the learner's stance at the beginning of her career to understand the students she was working with.  Lastly, teachers are in positions where they often teach more than pure fact or information.  Teachers teach many important lessons concerning morals, relationships, and respect.  These responsibilities are daunting while at the same time motivating.  As I look into the next phase of my journey into education, I am excited to see what challenges and people lie ahead for me to teach as well as to learn from.
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