I believe that Ms Gruwell the english teacher is the hero in the film. She went outside of her comfort zone. She challenged the students in ways that they have never been challenged. She faced a lot of conflict in the class room with the different race of the students.
The students started in write in the Journal that she supplied them with. They wrote about their lives with involved violence and hatred that had against everyone in their school. As a class they joined all their journals together and published a book. She had faith in the students and showed dedication, She also gave them hope, She had patience there was times that she could have exploded but she didn't, She was Selfless she put the students before her own relationship. This
In High school, she continued to excel where others fell short by focusing and exceeding in her academics, setting an example for others to follow and instilling confidence into others rather than letting them fall into peer pressure. With the help of her
The films “Freedom Writers” and “The Great Debaters” tell inspirational success stories of students fighting racism on their way to the top. Freedom Writers tells a story of a school filled with gang violence. One class, led by teacher Erin Gruwell, is taught to overlook their differences and unite. The Great Debaters accounts Wiley College’s debate team and how they had to fight extreme racism, on top of becoming a successful team. In both movies, discrimination based on race is clear. A group in power is looking down and taking advantage of people, based on their race. A strong teacher figure, in Erin Gruwell and Melvin Tolson, is present to push the students to their potential. Although there is racial tension and discrimination in both stories, they are between different races. The school setting is also different, as Wiley College in The Great Debaters is segregated, and Woodrow Wilson
How often do you see a white teacher transform a class full of recalcitrant students from different races and backgrounds to a class full of great individuals? That is what happened in the movie Freedom Writers. Erin Gruwell is the white teacher and the students are class 203 of Woodrow Wilson High School. At the beginning, class 203 is just a bunch of people who hate learning and have no future. However, it all changes since the presence of Erin Gruwell. She approaches this unteachable class and starts to develop their emotional intelligence. From students who like to neglect the lesson, refuse listening to the teacher, and do not care about each other, they start to show changes in their learning skill. Ultimately, two of the
In the movie “freedom writers” kids learn to be tolerant and respect others for their color and race. It shows how these kids from the streets improve and change their perspective on color. The help from their teacher Ms. Gruwell really inspired and changed them. In their minds everything is about color. Slowly throughout the movie they change and accept others.
She was really hands- on with creating a classroom environment that was suitable for her students. She worked really hard in transforming her classroom into a theorist class. She was very educated and I believe had taught this grade level for sometime. This was a first grade classroom. Twenty plus students, I was astonished how focused they are to their teacher and her teaching. She did not loose their attention even once. As I was this classroom, the teacher used several theories to implement in her classroom; the first one I picked up was the preoperational stage of development based on Piaget theories. She read out-loud to her students and they would sound out all of the verbs in the story she told. I thought this was neat because during this stage, the fixation is on encounters that the students have the capacity to rehearse and in this way learn at their own pace with
The emotion she conveyed was so powerful you would think she really is a teacher fighting for what she wants. With these points in line I will restate my position of Hillary swank being quite effective as an actress portraying the role. The protagonist of the film is Erin Gruwell, a first-time teacher with the thirst for change. The film begins with her interview to become a new teacher for a high school in the projects.
She was a principal and was have a hard time with a student who refused to come out from under their desk. She walked in and got down to his level and simply whispered “That’s really too bad you are under there and not learning, would you like me to call your mom or call the police.” She was fine with either option the child chose and after the child answered she walked away and did exactly what she told him she would do. Another thing that the teacher displayed in what she said was empathy and consequences. She wasn’t mad and displayed she was sorry but she also gave the consequences that would now happen because of his action. The child got out from under the desk and followed her because he was scared of her calling either one and it happened that the mom was walking in the door and she could handle the situation in the
In the movie, The Freedom Writers Mrs. Erin Gruwell (Hillary Swank) plays a role of a dedicated teacher who did all she could, to help her students learn to respect themselves and each other. She has little idea of what she's getting into when she volunteers to be an English teacher at a newly integrated high school in Long Beach, California. Her students were divided along racial lines and had few aspirations beyond basic survival. Mrs. Gruwell was faced with a big challenge when a group of freshmen students showed her nothing but disrespect which made it hard for her to communicate, teach and understand them. However, Erin Gruwell was determined that no matter the cost she would teach her students not only
The movie’s greatest hero is Oskar Schindler. Oskar is the movies greatest hero because he saves many Jews from dying in the concentration camps. He accomplishes this by bribing Goeth, a leader of a concentration camp
She would often go out of her way for people she didn’t know very well but wanted to build a relationship with. While working with the YMCA before and after program at my elementary school she felt it was important to build relationships with the teachers and the parents of the other students. This was not an easy task. There were times where she had to attempt build relationships with a very limited time constraint. But she was often very successful, she contributed this to her ability to be approachable and to do more listening that talking. That parents wanted to talk about their child and that teachers wanted to talk about the different teaching methods, using this knowledge she did research on her own so that she could carry a conversation and build relationships.
As a teacher, it was very hard to motivate students when it seemed as if they were headed for a dead end. Unfortunately, this was the reality for many students during the early years of her teaching career, and many of them dropped out and often went down a bad path. As hard as she tried to help students to graduate many of her students were not successful in high school. Many students decided that they were wasting their time going to school and at the end of the day no one cared for a piece of paper that said they finished high school.
The greatest part of this chapter that I saw that truly separated her from others was free association. Instead of making individuals lay down on a couch or sit in a chair facing them, she would allow them to do what made them the most comfortable. She would focus on their visual emotional reactions toward her, and instead of sitting there jotting down notes and ideas she just listened. She felt that one could not focus one hundred percent of the patient if they was to busy jotting down notes. Luckily today we have voice recorders that allow us to record
Ms. Gruwell wants to be a teacher because she wants to change kids’ lives. Ms. Gruwell is surprised when she sees her students disrespect her and be rude. She expects her students to give her respect and to be kind. Ms. Gruwell is oblivious about what her kids have to go through. She has no experience of gangs, violence, or drugs. Her students see her as nothing in their lives for example, “what are you doing in here that makes a goddamn difference in my life.” This shows how Ms. Gruwell’s students are accepting her.
She closed the door behind her, threw her keys in the bowl next to the lamp, and let the weight of her body fall on the couch. She looked around her living room, and thought to herself, how fortunate she was, but admitted she would not be doing this forever. She enjoyed the flexibility of her working schedule that allowed her to study English literature at the university forty-five minutes away from her apartment. In addition, a proper health benefits and a retirement plan provided the security and peace of mind she required. She was not ashamed, she no longer had to be, and her job generated the income she needed to remain financially independent. Her job no longer posed serious threats it once did, because of unresolved issues that once made her job very difficult and dangerous to perform. Because of strict government regulations women like her were safe and protected to live a safely and to have a dignified life with integrity. She felt proud for what she had accomplished all her own
Mrs. Gordon was the Honors English teacher at my school and in her fortieth-year teaching English. She also oversaw the National Honors Society, English Department, Graduation, and just about every school affiliated activity that there was. Everyone at Georgetown High school knew of Mrs. Gordon because of these reasons. They also knew her because she was known for having the most rigorous and challenging class in the school. Students would say this about her classes because she held her students to a high standard and the amount of work was a little overwhelming. Mrs. Gordon gave a lot of work because: she believed that it would better prepare us for college, she saw potential in each of her students, and she wanted to influence them to tap into their potential so they would push themselves to become the best students they could be. Mrs. Gordon pushed her students to expand their knowledge about literacy. She emphasized the