User:Gracekelly27/Freedom Writers

Effect on Education

Since its release, Freedom Writers has become a topic of conversation in the reshaping of teaching styles, especially in classrooms with at-risk children.  Following the success of The Freedom Writers Diary, Erin Gruwell founded the Freedom Writers Foundation.  The non-profit encourages a more diverse and inclusive classroom experience with the specific goal of providing further educational opportunities for minority and at-risk students.  Gruwell, the original Freedom Writers featured in the book (many of whom are now educators), and other educators have crafted training programs for educators to help their students succeed and pursue higher education.

Gruwell also developed a curriculum of books for educators to serve as resources to implement the Freedom Writers Method of teaching in more classrooms.  The books in the series include The Freedom Writers Diary, Teaching Hope (written by Gruwell and other Freedom Writers teachers), Teach With Your Heart (Gruwell’s personal memoir), and The Freedom Writers Diary Teacher’s Guide (a classroom resource for teachers looking to implement the Freedom Writers Method in their classrooms).

Criticisms

Mrs. Gruwell as a white savior

Freedom Writers is set in California during the 1990s, which is still feeling the effects of the 1992 Los Angeles riots two years before the time period of the movie. The scene is set by the opening news montage chronicling the riots, and the narration from Eva explaining the racial dynamics that still pervade her city and her school. From the beginning, the perception of race is demonstrated by the students’ reception of Gruwell and their attitudes towards each other, but as they come to trust her, their attitudes and behaviors change. Because Gruwell is the main character of the movie, rather than the students, she appears in some ways to be a white savior. Despite the tagline of the movie being, “Their story. Their words. Their future,” Hillary Swank was the central character and image of all promotions. Swank’s face on the poster, which is much larger and in-focus than the students on the poster, demonstrates how even if the words and stories of the students are central to the plot, the white educator is being given credit for the overall success of their students, instead of on the students themselves.

Educator-hero theme

Much like other films set in at-risk classrooms, a theme present in Freedom Writers comes from Mrs. Gruwell stepping into the classroom to rescue the students from the inequities they experience in school. The “educator-hero” theme is not unique to this film; teachers in this film genre usually follow one of two approaches depending on what school setting is. If the school’s teachers do not have hope in the students or the system, the educator-hero is more aggressive or enthusiastic in their methods, as seen in Blackboard Jungle.  On the other hand, if the school’s teachers place blame on the students for not succeeding, the norm is broken by a gentler, more nurturing educator-hero, like Mrs. Gruwell.

The movie The History Boys breaks from this pedagogy of the individualist educator from Freedom Writers and other movies, and looks at how academic communities with more than one educator may be able to foster deeper conversations due to the differences in beliefs pushing people to reach a deeper understanding of a topic instead of holding on only to the teaching philosophy pushed by the individual educator-hero.