Themes In The Freedom Writers

The Freedom Writers: A Multicultural Approach on Education Imagine walking into your classroom for your first day of teaching at a new school. You’re eager, excited, and more than ready to continue to do what you love. You’re anticipating the very second that the classroom will be filled with students, your students. Unfortunately the picture perfect classroom you had in your head is not what you’re staring at in real life, but instead a self-segregating class filled with “at risk” students that have no desire to be there. This is exactly what happened to Erin Gruwell, played by actress Hilary Swank, the teacher who wrote The Freedom Writers Diary, which then inspired the film The Freedom Writers. The Freedom Writers is set at Woodrow Wilson …show more content…
Gruwell seizes a racist drawing of student Jamal Hill with his lips enlarged. This stems into a conversation of racism and respect, or lack thereof. Several students speak on the struggles they face out of the classroom every day and what it takes to earn respect, which entitles even death. Mrs. Gruwell explains that no one is going to respect them when they are dead and that they need to give respect to earn respect now, and not when it’s too late. She then utilizes this conversation to teach her students about the Holocaust. She explains to them that she once saw a drawing, just like the one she had confiscated, in a museum. It wasn’t that of a black man, but instead of a Jewish man with a large nose, that represented all Jewish people and not just one. She made them realize that their “gangs” were nothing compared to what Hitler and his army did. For the first time, Mrs. Gruwell had the attention of every single student in her …show more content…
Gruwell gradually earns the trust of her students and provides them with composition books to write down their experiences including seeing their own friends die, being homeless, and being abused. Willing to do anything for her students, Erin takes on two part-time jobs to help cover the costs of books and begins to spend a lot more time at school, resulting in her own personal issues. The students begin to transform and show respect to their teacher and fellow classmates. As their discussion of the Holocaust continues, Mrs. Gruwell invites a variety of Jewish Holocaust survivors to speak with her class about their experiences which results in a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance. Despite the vast difference Mrs. Gruwell is making in her students’ lives, she is scorned by her peers for lack of experience and knowledge to teach these kind of