There are various interesting aspects within the teaching world that are reflected in ‘Freedom Writers’. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie not only for the story and the depiction of a multi-cultural, racially, emotionally and behaviorally challenged students, but also for the positive outcome. I guess that everybody enjoys such an ending to a story. But the scenario depicted in the movie is one we are all familiar with or have been in touch with, in our days at school. There were always the ill- behaved, the starry eyed and distracted students in our class. And we are all to some degree in contact with how such student journeys ended. Not all school trajectories have a constructive and positive outcome as depicted in Mrs. Gruwell’s Room 203.
Over the years, the education system has gone through varies changes with an attempt to make a valuable experience for the students on varies levels. In UNESCO’s 1994 Salamanca Statement, most Western nations declare that inclusive education was to be a key fundamental pillar for schools. The primary aim is to provide equal opportunities which are safe and accepting as well as stimulating to all students. Theories and policies have been devised along the years and training for educators rolled. School structures were established to sustain teaching with this new perspective.
According to Barton (in Dyson, 1999), inclusion is defined as the absence of any injustice, exclusion or discrimination. The term ‘inclusion’ is often associated with students with disabilities. However, social disadvantages both behavioral as well as emotional, are often elements which exclude the students from school life.
In the movie, Woodrow Wilson High School is such a school. With such a significant mix of cultural identities, the school had also faced changes and consequently more and more challenges. In comes Mrs. Gruwell, freshly graduated and prepared to mirror her father activist in the civil rights movement. Equipped with so much enthusiasm, she felt she was fully prepared to face a challenging cohort of students. Nothing prepares a new graduate for an indifferent class of adolescents! On viewing the movie, one tends to presume that the story would be mainly focused on the particular situations the students provoke. However, what struck me most was rather the resistance she faced from those around her.
Indeed, Mrs. Gruwell’s story might be partly or grossly fictious. It may have aspects which were elaborate for the purpose of catching the attention of the audience. However, it got me thinking as to the extent of how lonely a teacher’s role can be. The teacher is the one who gets to know her students closely. Their response and conduct say a lot about who they are and where they are coming from. The teacher has a curriculum to cover and to a certain extent knows who from her class cohort will be receptive to her lesson or who will be totally disinterested from what is going on. Room 203 was a classic depiction of this circumstance. It’s variety and spectrum of challenges may easily put any enthusiastic teacher off balance. The challenges are broad and diverse on many levels. And so are the several challenging hours and days ahead. How can Homer and ‘The Iliad’ be relevant to disinterested and restless students? I fail to see, in what ways students such as those of Room 203, can relate to the syllabus. It is clearly evident that the demands of the curriculum are not in sync with the audience. The expectations of the outcomes of such curriculum defeats the purpose of education. All the way through the film, I was wondering whether this situation bears some truth to our present educational system.
Dewey defines education as a process of inviting truth and possibility, of encouraging and giving time to discovery. It is a ‘social process’, a process of living and not a preparation of future living (John Dewey, 1916). This view from Dewey clashes with the perception of some, that to help people learn, ways have to be devised to ‘drill’ knowledge into students. Paulo Freire (1973) named this particular behavior as ‘banking’, such as making deposits of knowledge. Such ‘schooling’ treats learners as objects to be acted upon rather than people to be related to.
The number of school children with emotional and behavioral problems appear to have increased significantly in the last decades. This constitutes a major challenge to schools globally. Reducing undesired behavior and emotional problems at school is of key importance for the fostering of adjustment and growth in young people’s lives. Borman et al. (2002) recognized the school as a major context of student’s development and as having significant influence on both academic and social emotional functioning. Research has established that there exist consistent relationships between learning environments factors and student’s academic and social emotional outcomes (such as in Barber and Olsen, 1997, 2004). I see that these statements bear a lot of truth. So many parents are distracted with their personal life that the number of ‘neglected’ children, is on the rise.
One widely studied aspect, in the quest to find a significant way to counteract student resistance to learning, is by involving students in such a way as to take responsibility over their own particular learning situation and thus become active participants in their learning. Vygotsky (1978) held such a view, and sees the teacher’s role as a facilitator of this process. Studies also show that teachers are able to promote student responsibility by engaging them in the planning and management of educational tasks (Wang and Zollers, 1990). Terrie Epstein (2001) argues in favor of a social cultural approach to policies and practices. The understanding of the social identity of students from racial and ethnic backgrounds and how it shapes their knowledge and interpretations of history and contemporary society is of key importance. This builds a bridge between what they see and learn at home and in their communities, and the other perspectives as presented by the teachers.
This scenario was accurately depicted in Mrs. Gruwell’s approach to her class. A racist portrait, going around the class, sketched with the purpose of instigating offence towards a particular student of color, had the teacher spark a conversation about racial hatred, genocide, and the Holocaust. The subject caught like a house on fire. The whole class was interested because they all belonged to different races, ethnicities and socially diverse backgrounds. They all could relate because they had in one way or another experienced abuse, exclusion and discrimination. This topic was also a vehicle to broaden the knowledge and perspectives of the sole white student in class, with issues related to gender and race.
A major factor contributing to Mrs. Gruwell’s successful engagement of her ‘challenging’ students was her informal way of exposing them to learning. It is very sad to note that informal education is not given its recognition as much as the formal way. With all the focus on inclusive education, it appears that we hold tight to books and methodology and that we have forgotten to ‘think outside the box’.
‘Freedom Writers’ depicts a scenario where the teacher was expected to successfully ‘babysit’ a class of restless adolescents. All her colleagues before her, had given up on teaching the kids which tarnished the reputation of the school. They tried to ‘console’ her by telling her that she would soon be teaching the junior class! Even the headmistress had given up hope in such students. She was not ready to waste her school budget to invest in new books or others which are related to Mrs. Gruwell’s chosen topic, nor provide funds for a school outing. Such an attitude is disheartening and demotivating to the teacher. I believe that leaders too, need to be aware of any bias and racist beliefs which influence their role as educators and leaders. It’s not only a matter of duty but of values and morals. This departs from the premise that educators are a fundamental instrument in building a healthy society. Educators share this mission with the parents.
Teachers are given a professional status. However, to me, this appears many times to be superficial. Professional teachers undergo a journey of learning both in pedagogy as well as in their particular subjects of specialization. Therefore, it is clear that they are able to adapt their output according to their audience. However, it appears that they are expected to deliver according to a plan drawn up by others, who have no idea who is in the class. I say ‘who’ because many times we refer to them as students rather as individuals. A difference which recognizes them as having different characters and abilities. Alison Gopnik (2016) saw that educators, pedagogues and practitioners need to be gardeners and not carpenters. One has to pay attention to the kind of students you are working with.
Many a time as in the film, the teacher is equipped with what is expected from her ‘superiors’ and as indicated by the syllabus. However, she was not supported in any way to adapt to the needs of her students. The students in Room 203 needed someone who hopes and makes it a mission to make better persons out of them. But if the teacher and the school administration speak a language they do not understand, the message conveyed is that the world is foreign, lonely and hard to understand. This understanding can further impact the students negatively both on an emotional as well as on a behavioral level.
The vibe was different when the students in Room 203 were engrossed in learning more about the Holocaust. Their participation showed how the subject caught their interest. They engaged themselves collectively in thinking, brainstorming and joining forces in creating ways to earn money to be able to invite a Holocaust survivor to be able to share her experience with them. And in my opinion, if that’s not a formidable educational feat, nothing is.
Mrs. Gruwell successfully managed to unite her class by appreciating where they are coming from, seeing them as human beings with challenges which are many times larger than themselves. She had hope and a vision for them as opposed to the possible indifference and disinterest of their parents. She provided them with a home away from home thus creating a solid foundation upon which she could build her student’s learning journey.
Of course, many things are easier said than done. Society changes fast, and so do the people. Education too, as an important institution, strives hard to catch up with the times. Processes to devise ways to work better and achieve results, take time and a great amount of effort. However, it is sad if we give up trying to make a difference to challenging students such as the ones in the film. As I explained earlier, it’s very unfair on the teacher in finding obstacles in carrying out her duty as she deems appropriate. The resistance by her peers and by her headmistress was very insensitive. In the end it’s a failure to educational institutions if it manages to make a difference only to those who can understand it’s language. Nothing rewards the educators more, than having made a difference to their students’ lives and contributed so positively to society at large.