![]() ![]() Her first weapon was The Diary of Anne FrankĪnd lessons about the Holocaust. Instead she threw out the curriculum and dedicated her class to learning about peace and tolerance. The administrators expected her to quit as soon as she came up against violence and hatred in her classroom. Gruwell was white, wore suits to class and looked like the well-educated product of a safe suburban life. There were few places to go to be safe and few people they could count on. ![]() They saw people they knew using drugs every day. Others came from broken or abusive homes. Fights and even murders were part of the students' experience. The school was tough, racially divided, and gang-infested. Gruwell was given a class of "sure-to-drop-outs," students no other teacher wanted, students who weren't expected to succeed. ![]() Last year, I had the privilege of attending a video chat session with one of Erin’s former students, where he told us that one of the scenes in the movie was taken almost verbatim from one of his own journal entries in The Freedom Writers Diary.For Erin Gruwell, walking into her first teaching job was like entering a war zone. The story of Erin and her students was compiled into a bestselling book called The Freedom Writers Diary, which was later translated into a movie. Through her innovative, caring approaches to teaching however, Erin was eventually able to bring her students together to create a strong classroom community, and to help her class develop the resilience that they would need to succeed in the face of their challenging circumstances. Erin was working as a high school English teacher in Long Beach, California with a group of students who could definitely be classified as “at-risk.” Many of her students were living in extreme poverty, and grappling with issues such as gang violence, addiction, abuse, and various other familial problems when she met them. In my opinion, a classic example of this is the story of Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers. Resilience is not an overnight process– it is gradually built up in students over a long period of time. However, my family (and in particular my mom) helped me to discover the resilient attitude and coping skills that I would need to overcome these circumstances, and I can honestly say that I am a stronger, more empathetic and compassionate person because of these experiences. Growing up with a moderate physical disability, I was relentlessly bullied throughout the majority of my schooling. In reflecting on my own personal experiences, I would say that I am a very resilient individual, and I attribute a great deal of this to my parents and my upbringing. I gave a presentation about Erin and her class in my At-Risk children course this past January, and wanted to share it on my blog, along with Erin’s TED talks about the power of education, writing, and role models in changing the lives of young people.Īs a becoming teacher, helping children to find resiliency within themselves is something I am incredibly passionate about. While I will be working with elementary school-aged children, Erin Gruwell is the type of teacher that I aspire to be, and I hope that I can meet her in person someday to thank her for this. I read the original bestseller, The Freedom Writers Diary, Erin’s personal memoir, AND a book written by a group of Freedom Writers teachers that contains a great deal of reflection, advice, and suggestions for classroom activities. This movie resonated with me more than almost any film I’ve ever seen, and this past year, I made it my mission to learn as much about Erin and her students as I possibly could. Another one of my professional mentors as a future teacher working with at-risk students is Erin Gruwell, whom I was first introduced at age 13, when my Grade 8 class went to see Freedom Writers at my local movie theatre. ![]()
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