The Freedom writers
A place where they fight each other for territory. A place where you always
feel that youre in danger. Gang is their family. They kill each other over race,
pride and respect. There is no home where they can feel theyre safe.
Eren Gruwell, in a school where discipline is not given a value and
differences is visible in their eyes. The classroom was not in bloom. Students
with different faces, races and stories. A first day with trouble. For they dont
understand each other and they didnt give way to understand each other.
These are the students that are not expected to graduate at the end of high
school.
She tries to approach them. The first simple thing she did was to wear a
smile on her face. Based on her observation, she came up with a good idea.
She used one music where everyone will hit. Then, she implemented a sitting
plan, rearranged the students in the back that will be place in front and those
who are in the right corner will be at the left. As the day passed by, the
students are decreasing in number. But she got shocked when one of her
students lead his classmates to attend to her class.
A drawing on a paper makes the classroom burst out in laugh. The
subject is one of their classmates. A portrait with large nose and big fat lips.
She didnt find it funny. So that, she gave the students some background
information and reason that conveying they must not laugh on it. An
illustration like that is the same to the art displayed in a museum. A black
man, a jewish man. In fact, it is putted in a newspaper by the most famous
gang in history. Blacks and Jews said that a life will be whole better if youre
dead. All of that is an explanation of how the holocaust happened. A single
phrased If you got respect, you have to give it back she said makes the
classroom to have an intense atmosphere and they made some debate.
The black students have this strong urge to believe that discrimination is
rampant. All about color. The white people always whining the respect as if it
is for free. White people always make them feel that they are above them.
And blacks believe that the time you die, youll gain the respect. But Gruwell
contradict it, she said that if you die you will gonna rot in the ground and
people will not remember you. Gruwelll tried her best for the students to
open their mind, for only one student knows the idea of what holocaust is.
The administration of the school dont distribute the books to the
students because they know that it will get damaged or lost. And thus,
teachers believe that you cant make someone wants education. Instead,
they blame the students because they are the reason why the integration
lies in the school before erased. Meanwhile, they played a game. A line
game, where Gruwell will ask questions and if it applies to them they will
step on the line. Questions circulates about gang. As the questions are
getting serious, they didnt noticed that it help them understand each other
situation.
From her own pocket, she bought big notebooks that will become
everyday journal of each of the students. She wants them to write everything
they want to write: Past, Present or Future. It can be a diary, compilation of
songs, poems, positives and negatives that happened each day. And also she
provides a cabinet where students will put their journal inside it which means
they give their permission for her to read it. Everyone has its own stories.
And she did that because she knows that it is important to tell youre stories
even to yourself.
She get two part-time job to pay the fulfillment of her job. Also, she tries
to gain support from the boards. She took her students on a trip to the
museum. They met and known people on history and their contributions.
They feel sorry at the same time inspires by them. Secondly, Gruwell invited
people who survived the killings way back then. People that they will not
forget. People who lost love ones like them.
They feel new when they enter their classroom because it is filled with
colors. Before the starts of the sophomore year, they did a toast for change.
That means, every voice that told them they cant will be on silent. And
every reasons that tell them the things they will never change, disappears.
One of the students read his diary and tell them that the only person that
gave him hope was Mrs. Gruwell. And he found his home in every corner of
the classroom. She also donated books in her class in which their stories can
relate to it. A book that will inspires them. The book of Anne Frank, her diary.
She wants her class to do their assignment by writing a letter to an alive
person who helped Frank. They do fund raising to make also other people
inspires by the book. It makes their relationship grew stronger. The person
they send letters visited them and gave them her words of wisdom and
encouragement. She said that we are ordinary people that can turn a small
own ways to a big light in a dark room. They change little by little. They took
their way home. They change their rule in life, Tell the truth even if it will
destruct you.
Students treated each other like a family. Trusts is wrapped up. This is
their home. A place where they make sense of their lives. A respect they
always wanted and now, it is found. Something called themselves. A writers
with their own voices. The freedom writers diary.
