I recently had the opportunity to meet Erin Gruwell,
teacher, author, motivator of high school students and founder of the
FreedomWriters Foundation. Her enthusiasm for teaching and her students is
effusive. Her dedication to her students and her career in part led to the
demise of her marriage and the jealous resentment of her colleagues at Wilson
High School in Long Beach, California. Meeting Erin motivated me to read her
second book, “Teach with Your Heart, (Broadway Books c. 2007)”which chronicles
her voyage with her students through four years of high school English making
the course work come alive and become meaningful. She was able to motivate her
student to be thoughtful and productive writers and thinkers. Through her
efforts and some good luck, Ms. Gruwell was able to take her students on field
trips to Washington, DC, New York City, and, after graduation, to Auschwitz in
Poland.
I would recommend that all future teachers (and current ones
as well), read both of Erin’s books, The
Freedom Writers Diaries and Teach With a Heart. While some of us in the profession may object to her methods,
you cannot dispute the results. No one said that working with disadvantaged and
disaffected students would be easy, but those are the students we need to
reach. It is a challenge of the greatest magnitude.
Those of you who will be interviewing future employees for your
schools, try to look for some of Erin’s qualities in your applicants. For those
of you on your job search, try to develop some of those qualities and
strategies that will make you a desirable candidate and a successful teacher.
Ps.- Try to get a hold of the film Freedom Writers with Hilary Swank portraying Erin Gruwell. For more
information about the work of the foundation go to the site
Freedomwritersfoundation.org.
c.2017 J. Margolis
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