Freedom Writers

The inner-city students whom Erin Gruwell is teaching spared little thought for her feelings when they pointed out in her face, matter-of-factly, that they were unable to trust her: she is white; they are not.

By virtue of this fact, she is separated from the many traumatic experiences that they have to deal with, even as adolescents. And because the whites have contributed much to the hardships and sufferings of the blacks, the students found it impossible to respect her. Coming to school with all sorts of problems and emotional baggage, getting these hard-core students to be engaged in the learning process was an insurmountable task.

To aggravate matters, Erin Gruwell receives little or virtually no support from her superiors, colleagues and husband. Her attempts to go the extra mile for her students are often, frowned upon.

Fast forward the story to the very last scene, however, we see her students anxiously waiting for her arrival. Upon announcing that she is finally permitted to follow them up to High School, her students erupt into loud cheers. What a beautiful scene!

���What happened in between so that the kids are eventually won over?��� you may ask. The transformation is only possible, I would say, because Erin Gruwell is not just an educator, but a teacher to her kids. As a teacher, she is genuinely interested to understand what her students are going through and what they need (a game to get to know them and later on, buying journals for them to pen down their experiences and thoughts, inviting guest speakers to give talks she feels her students can identify with); respects them (promises to flip through the journal to make sure they have written but not read the content unless they wanted her to); and above all, she does not allow her external environment/circumstances to constrain her. She is able to transcend her environment and stays true to her calling to teach and make a social change. Because the kids are blessed with a teacher (as opposed to an educator), the classroom is no longer a place where they study for content knowledge with little relevance to the students��� lives. It has become one which truly matters.