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Freedom Writers Writing for Freedom

Published Monday, 22nd August, 2016 | By Susan AKA Peacefull

I saw this film tonight.  I have to smile this is very topical. I visited a group today who were all abused as children. They were in their own war as kids, trying to survive. I was thinking about bullying and reflecting on powerlessness. I reflected on empowerment. All that is is knowing you have the power to change your life. You choose. This film was like a gift, it gave me confirmation.

Moreover, the film empowers through showing how to teach empowerment which catalyses unity. What made Erin so successful is that firstly she listened, she challenged, she encouraged and she had the gift to show children their similarities and importantly, to show them their true selves.  She helped them by giving journals. Their voice was to write their own story, they could share with her if they want. She got to know them through their stories realising how hard their lives were. These kids dealt with gang war, segregation, violence, death, family break up, drugs and so on. She stepped across the line of curriculum and walked into the world of life. She spoke in their language, taught in ways they related to. She got to know just how full on their lives were and they, in truth, were the heroes, as they survived.

She was given no resources by the school administration who had given up on the children.  They had a stereotypical view. The head teacher became jealous of her, as she was a new teacher, instigating change. Change is often seen as a threat and people will consciously or unconsciously fight it as it shows them up, particularly if it is working. They don’t want to change their own views. Through her belief in the kids this showed the discrimination of the teachers who had no hope for these kids. They saw them as inferior. I can hear Jane Elliott here (Blue Eyed series refer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MYHBrJIIFU).  

I am really conscious of discrimination. Even today I am seeing kids on the street who are judged. I actually left a note in a cafe asking the owners to do something about homelessness, to not judge them but maybe raise money for a room to sleep, or go to the Council make up kits (toothbrushes, brushes, sleeping bag, food etc.), give them phone access so they can ring for help, give them contacts places to go etc. I left that with the manager. I said to the girl there, it is amazing we walk past homeless people and do nothing. They could be you or a family member. We are just living in fear and believing bad press, the homeless just need help and love, but make sure you empower them, don’t make them dependent, that is not love. Today has been quite eventful for me.

Now back to the film. There was a part in the movie that I truly get. She said to one of the boys who had self graded himself with an F for failure.  She looked him square in the eyes and said ‘I see you’.  I was writing to someone last night.  I wrote about love and I said what love really means is not romantic, it means I see you.  We usually only see our projections, but when you really see someone, you will feel love. If you don’t feel love you don’t see them. I got love for the first time very deeply. Intimacy can be written in-to-me-see.  This is when we allow others to see us, we bravely reveal ourselves, we be authentic, we be visible, we share our intimate story.  I have done this for those I was in conflict with and only now I realise I was demonstrating love, really. If I didn’t love them I wouldn’t have shown myself. So if they can’t love me or see me, then they don’t love themselves, that is a deep truth. When we sit and deeply listen we start to see the real person, feel the pain they feel, smile at their joys, this is the beginning of true intimacy and friendship. Friendship is platonic love. Comes from Plato.

In our world today we are plugged in and switched off.  We are not connecting, we are ignoring the world around us as we are afraid.  I sat on the train today.  Three Sudanese boys were sitting together you may say they looked somewhat African American.  Anyway, one of the boys threw a squashed can on the ground.  I thought he was littering.  He moved his body towards his friend away from the can.  That didn’t make sense to me.  Then the can blew up and went ‘bang’.  I wasn’t scared but I did say something.  The young boy (tall) moved away.  I said ‘that’s not good you could scare someone’.  He didn’t say anything, looking sheepish.  I said to his friends ‘how did he make that?’, they shook their heads like they didn’t know.  I didn’t believe that.  Then I said ‘where are you originally from?’.  The boys wouldn’t answer.  I said ‘Sudan’.  He acknowledged yes.  I looked at his friend and he was hiding.  I spoke confidently without fear.  Then I got eye contact with the boy who had set off the can.  I said ‘you are very naughty, naughty!’.  I smiled at him and shook my finger.  He saw I was not angry but making my point.  I said ‘there are cameras’.  They got off the train.  I made eye contact with some women and they commented on the smell of sulphur of the can.  They were too afraid to say anything.  I then looked at the people on the train and realised no-one said anything.  They all heard me though.  I was surprised.  What was there to fear?  They were typical boys pushing the boundaries.  I got that.  I talked to the woman who the can was near when it went off.  I asked her if she knew what had happened.  She said she was aware but couldn’t hear the can as her ear phones were on.  I thought she wouldn’t know if it was a bomb.  Anyway, her and I laughed as the idea for the boys was to make her jump.  Yet she didn’t react, no fun there.   It was actually very funny.  Girls will scream won’t they, not this one.  Only I said something and I wasn’t scared either.  So both of us just laughed together.

So back to the film – Erin took the children on the weekend to a museum and she educated them about the Holocaust.  Out of her own money (she worked another 2 part-time jobs) she paid for Anne Frank books so they had quality books.  The head teacher said they will ruin the books.  The kids read Anne’s story and could identify with the war.  Erin then asked the children to write their own story as described above.   

Another important part of the film was when Erin created an assignment of letter writing to the woman over in the Netherlands who knew Anne Frank (Holocaust victim).  The kids decided they wanted to have her come as a speaker, so they organised a sausage sizzle and raised the funds.  They had this lady speak to the class.  There was a point where one of the young African American lads stood up and called her his hero.  She said no, she said she had heard from their teacher about their stories.  She said ‘you are the heroes’.  They were all surprised and inspired by this statement.  She said what they have to live with every day is heroic.  What the kids felt was a sense of self respect, they may never have felt that before.  Someone was praising them. She said she would remember all their faces and carry them in her heart.  The kids were deeply moved.   I so loved that. I find it hard to understand how people can’t show love and really touch others, but they are wounded and in pain and they don’t know how to articulate or feel the love. They get blocked because their own lives are so difficult. So confusion results. Yet everyone craves loving relationships, to be respected, to have a future.  This teacher, Erin, gave these children back to themselves. This Holocaust survivor reinforced this magic.  I had tears in my eyes watching it. 

As a last project the children compiled their journals into a book. Erin had computers brought in and they typed their work into one book. It is called ‘Freedom Writers’. I really love that and I will see if I can get a copy. They absolutely loved her and they all become a family. The Education Board agreed for Erin to teach the kids in the junior and senior years, this came after a fight, but she was so successful, the Department let her continue with the kids so they didn’t fall back. That is love my friends.

Love does not spin and get nowhere and that was the real lesson to the kids ‘love yourself’. When you do that, the world will love you back. That is why it is not about earning respect it is about giving it. The world will mirror it back. Respect really is about respecting yourself, it is not about loyalty or codes, it is to allow people to be themselves without judgement, everyone has a right to be here and no-one is less than anyone else. This is what truth reveals.  

I knew it was a true story.

Enjoy love in action. I highly recommend you check out the full film.  Where there is life there is always hope and every person on this earth is equal, they all have different talents but there are no lost cases unless they believe it.  What if no-one believed they were less.  We will have the most amazing world full of laughter, that is the one in my dreams.

Here is a link to the Freedom Foundation http://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/ 

So here is a clip from the film.

 

Wikipedia tells the story.

Freedom Writers is a 2007 drama film starring Hilary Swank, Scott Glenn,Imelda Staunton and Patrick Dempsey.

It is based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwellwho wrote the story based on Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in theEastside neighborhood of Long Beach, California. The movie is also based on the DC program called City at Peace. The title is a play on the term “Freedom Riders“, referring to the multiracial civil rights activists who tested the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering the desegregation of interstate buses in 1961.

The idea for the film came from journalist Tracey Durning, who made a documentary about Erin Gruwell for the ABC News program Primetime Live. Durning served as co-executive producer of the film. The film was dedicated to the memory of Armand Jones, who was killed after wrapping up Freedom Writers. He was 18 and was shot to death in Anaheim, California after a confrontation with a man who robbed Jones of a necklace in a Denny’srestaurant.

 

Contents

 

Plot

Woodrow Wilson is a formerly high-achieving school which has encountered some difficulties bearing its new racial integration plan. In 1992, in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, Erin Gruwell, an enthusiastic young teacher starts at the school. Her enthusiasm is challenged when she finds her class is composed of “at-risk” students, the “untouchables,” and not the eager-for-college students she expected. Her students self-segregate into racial groups within the classroom. This is problematic, as gang fights break out and, consequently, most of her students stop attending class. Not only is Gruwell challenged with gaining her students’ trust on personal and academic levels, but she must do so with very little support from her professional peers and district higher-ups. For example, her department head refuses to provide Gruwell with an adequate number of books for her class because she insists they will get damaged and lost. Instead, she suggests that Gruwell focuses on instilling concepts of discipline and obedience in her classroom.

One night, two high school students, Eva (April Lee Hernández), a Latino-American girl and narrator for much of the film, and a Cambodian refugee, Sindy (Jaclyn Ngan), frequent the same convenience store. An additional student, Grant Rice (Armand Jones), an African-American boy is frustrated at losing an arcade game and demands a refund from the store owner. When he storms out, Eva’s boyfriend Paco, as retaliation for losing a fight against Grant that took place earlier during a gang fight at Woodrow Wilson, attempts a drive-by shooting, intending to kill Grant but misses, accidentally killing Sindy’s boyfriend. As a witness, Eva must testify at court; she intends to guard “her own” in her testimony.

At school, Gruwell intercepts a racist drawing by one of her high school students and utilizes it to teach them about theHolocaust. She gradually begins to earn their trust and buys them composition books to record their diaries, in which they talk about their experiences of being abused, seeing their friends die, and being evicted. Determined to reform her high school students, Gruwell takes on two part-time jobs to pay for more books and spends a lot more time at school, much to the disappointment of her husband (Patrick Dempsey). Her students start to behave with respect and discover a lot more. A transformation is specifically visible in one student, Marcus (Jason Finn). Gruwell invites various Jewish Holocaust survivors to talk with her class about their experiences and requires the students to attend a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance. Meanwhile, her unique training methods are scorned by her colleagues and department chair Margaret Campbell (Imelda Staunton).

The following school year comes, and Gruwell teaches her class, now sophomores, again, making it the second year that she is their teacher. On the first day of semester, Gruwell makes her class do a “Toast for Change”, allowing everyone to open up about their struggles and what they wish to change about themselves. This inspires Eva to break free of the demands of her father to always protect her own rather than tell the truth; at Rice’s trial, she shocks the courtroom by revealing that Paco actually killed the man in the store. On leaving the court, she is attacked and threatened but ultimately spared by members of her gang and ends up going to live with her aunt in order to keep herself safe.

Meanwhile, Gruwell asks her students to write their diaries in book form. She compiles the entries and names it The Freedom Writers Diary. Her husband divorces her and Margaret tells her she cannot teach her kids for their junior year. Gruwell fights this decision, eventually convincing the superintendent to permit her to teach her kids’ junior and senior year. The film ends with a note that Gruwell successfully prepared numerous high school students to graduate high school and attend college, for many the first in their families to do so.

Cast

Release

Freedom Writers had a domestic gross of $36,605,602 and had a foreign gross of $6,485,139 bringing the movie to a total gross of $43,090,741 worldwide. On the film’s opening weekend it grossed a total of $9,405,582 ranking 4th behind Children of Men (3rd), The Pursuit of Happiness (2nd), and Night at the Museum (1st).

Reception

Freedom Writers has received mostly positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoesprovides links to 124 reviews, 69% of which are positive. The critical consensus is that “Freedom Writers is a frank, formulaic entry in the inspirational inner-city teacher genre, with an energetic Hilary Swank leading the appealing cast of unknowns.” [1] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 64/100 based on 29 reviews, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.[2]Cynthia Fuchs of Common Sense Media gave the film three out of five stars, writing in her review that “the plot is predictable, the actors too old to play high school students, and the pacing too slow. And really, the camera circles around deep-thinking faces a few too many times. But Freedom Writers also argues for listening to teenagers. That in itself makes it a rare and close-to-wonderful thing.”[3] The film received a positive rating from Fox Weekly, giving the film a 9 out of 10.[4]

Posted in Education, Empowerment
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