Jun 11

Written by: Mike Smith
6/11/2008 8:50 AM

Rinda, Abby and I watched the Movie Freedom Writers this past weekend. We had heard of it but did not see it when it was out in the theaters. We purchased the DVD and watched it. It is based on a true story of a teacher Erin Gruwell (played well by Hillary Swank) teaching at an integrated High School in California after the Racial Riots following the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson court judgments. The kids in her class were classified as unteachable by the school system. They are broken up into groups in the classroom and gangs on the streets by race (black, hispanic, asian, and white). She works to show them how much alike they are. A hispanic student draws a picture of a black student with big lips and passes it around the class. Ms. G. gets it and lectures the class on their prejudices. She tells them a story about the greatest gang in the world. It started with pictures drawn of a group of people they did not like. They drew them with large noses. You take over neighborhoods with your gangs. This gang took over countries. They even came up with a plan to put to death those they did not like. That is where the holocaust comes from. One classmate raises his hand to ask what the holocaust is. She asks the students to raise their hands if they know what the holocaust is. One student raised his hand. She asked them to raise their hands if they had lost a friend from gang violence. Almost everyone raised a hand. She works to help them see the destruction of prejudices and gang violence by showing them how similar they are. She takes them to a holocaust museum. She gets them reading the Diary of Ann Frank. This begins to change them and they begin to bond as a family in the classroom. The movie is well done. I commend it to you. It moved all three of us to tears at times. It is rated PG-13 for gang violence and some lauguage.

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