A movie we should watch in class!

The Freedom Writes

This week end I watched one of my favorite movies, “The Freedom Writers”. The movie is based on the book, “The freedom writes diary” by the teacher Erin Gruwell. The title is inspired by the name “The freedom ride” which was a bus from south to North America, with people who where fighting against racism.

Erin Gruwell was a teacher at Wilson Classical High School In Long Beach, California from 94-98. The students at the school did not treat her with respect when she tried to teach them. They all come from different back grounds and they all experience things that 15year old children never should see. Every day is a struggle for the children just to survive. A lot of them are gang members, and they have all seen someone get shot. Erin Gruwell wants the children to open up, and she decides to give them each I diary. They can choose if they want to write in it or not. When she opens them up, she find to her surprise that all off the children wants to tell their story.
As she reads the diary’s we get a view off all the children’s individual life and see what they have to deal with. She wants to listen to their stories, and she wants to show them that she listened, and she respectet their stories enough to fint out how she could teach them.
My favourite sceene in the movie, is when the “latino gang” draws a picture of one of the black boys in the class. They make a drawing of him with really big lips, and a big nose. Erin grabs the picture and it reminds her of the pictures that where made of the jews by the Nazis. The tells the class that there pictures where made by the most famous gang in the world. She tells them how they didn’t just take over cities, they took over countries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz-gv6af-tw&feature=related

The movie shows up a complete change in all the students in Mrs. Gruwell’s class. We see her stryggle to connect with the student, and she wants to see their side of the story. She gets protests from the other teachers, she has to take extra jobs to that she can get money to but the children books. It even effects her marriage. Erin Gruwell gave all she have so tha there student could be heard. She told them that someone wanted to head their story. She managed to change their lifes, and many off them became the first in their family to go to college, or even graduate high school.

I think this is an amazing move, because it shows me that we judge people too fast. It reminds us that no matter where you are from, which family, neighborhood, country, we are all just people. Where you grew up, or how you where raised doesn’t have to effect how you are going to end up, or what you can be.