Freedom Writers

There are reasons why we choose to watch a movie. It could be your friends’ endorsement or the title itself looks interesting to you. I experienced watching many kinds of movie. One of the movies I will surely not forget is Freedom Writers. I was in my early years in high school when I watched it and it is about a public high school English teacher who exerted more than a hundred percent effort in teaching her students.

Erin Gruwell is the teacher in this movie and was portrayed by Hillary Swank. She is a happily engaged woman and passionate to everything she does. If Filipino students don’t have any interest to Filipino subjects, then American students also don’t have any interest in English subjects. That’s why in the first part of the movie, it was easy for me to perceive that it will likely be a ‘Calvary’ for the teacher to teach the worst section in third year.

When Ms. Gruwell started teaching, it was  really disappointing because the students in her advisory section were considered as the worst students of the school. Some were busy reading magazines, putting nail polish, etc. The students have different nationality. There are Black Americans, Indian Americans, Asian Americans and only one White American. Majority of the students in her advisory section are from different fraternities. That is why the section doesn’t know “unity”. Ms. Gruwell made  clear rules and instructions, but first, she allowed her students to evaluate themselves. She also provided notebooks for her students to serve as their journal. She promised them that whatever would be written in their notebook will stay as a secret and that they can still have privacy. Since then, Ms. Gruwell was able to know her students more. She then understood the students’ attitudes.I can still remember my favorite scene in that movie when Ms. Gruwell delivered the line, “For you  to receive respect, you have to  give it first!” it was her answer to a student who kept on answering  back

bad and embarrassing words at her after asking him to stop discriminating one student while she was in the middle of teaching a lesson. She did everything to teach her students about respect and it worked.        After few months of being busy with teaching career, Ms. Gruwell and her fiancé decided to break  up. Her fiancé got tired of canceled dinner dates and listening to her reasons about preparing lesson plans. But, she still continued to strive harder to provide quality education. She started raising funds by knocking the doors of the company near the school for book and computer donations and field trip sponsors for her students.

Before the school year ended, Ms. Gruwell was able to accomplish her plans in the campaign. Her greatest achievement was showing the people in position that their worst expectations about her advisory section were all wrong; The students were able to have good grades and were allowed to move on to the next level of education. At the end of the school year, Ms. Gruwell asked the favor of her students to allow her to compile all the writings on their journal into a book. Her students decided to have “freedom writers” as the title of the book.