On Friday, we focused on the topic of Racism and we watched the movie “Freedom Writers.” I had watched this movie in the past but when watching this time around I looked at it with a different perspective. I look at Ms. Gruwell’s role from the perspective of the Child and Youth Worker versus the role of a teacher. Throughout, the movie I was able to see the realization between it and everyday life. In today’s world, we are still trying to hide and cover up that racism and hate crimes still exist. We walk around like we don’t know anything because we don’t want to get involved or be the one to bring it up in fear of what others may say or do.
I found it very powerful and meaningful the way Erin Gruwell challenged herself and her students when no one believed in them. Ms. Gruwell changed her teaching styles and techniques to best suit her students. Erin always made it about her student every second of every day. She listened and respected their stories to figure out how to teach them instead of letting them fall through the cracks. Erin had success because she not to listen what everyone else said to discourage her or even what they decided her students thought about themselves. Gradually, the students started to trust and respect Ms. Gruwell and listening to what she had to say. They began to look at their life in a different way, they accepting their past but watched to make a change for the future.
Erin jumped on the chances to break through to her class when a student draws a picture of another student in the class making fun of his big lips. She labeled the similarities between the drawing and the propaganda of the holocaust. She stressed to her students that their gangs were nothing compared to the Holocaust; that the Nazis took over counties, killed everyone they did not like or that they blamed for their problems. Erin then gave her student the story of Anne Frank to show her students that gangs were not the way to go. After giving the student Anne Frank’s story Erin provided each student with a journal for them to write their own story. Personally, I feel the idea of the journals was really good because it let each student share their story without having to feel pressured or judged by sitting down one-to-one with an adult. Allowing the students to make the decision of handing in their journals or not was a good way to determine her progress with them and show their trust in her. I feel that Ms. Gruwell empowered her students more when she had their stories published.
Overall, the students in Ms. Gruwell’s class learned to look pasted the racism and how they were raised and where able to look at each other differently. They were able to see that they were all the similar even though they had their own unique stories. The students gradually learned to love and accept one another and to help each other grow and change for the better.
Personally, I don’t understand how people define their way of life base on hate crimes and being racism. I don’t understand how people can be proud of themselves for being involved in something that continues to separates different cultures, communities and countries. How can they encourage the people around them when they know that hate crimes are not okay or socially acceptable? How can we teach people that it’s okay to judge someone based on the colour of their skin or that it is okay to exclude them? But mostly of all, why are we letting this happen and why are we not trying harder to prevent racism and hate crimes from happening? When will it stop or is it something that will continue to destroy our world one day at a time? Sometimes it only takes one person to make a change and when they do it is great, but then what happens once they are gone. To the youths in classroom 203 at Woodrow Wilson High School that person was Erin Gruwell, in 1954 it was Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” or Jane Elliott’s “Blue Eye’s Brown Eye’s” experiment. They all had a powerful message to deliver and their message impacted many people but what happen to those messages?
In today’s society, the biggest form of racism I feel we are faced with is the racism towards Muslim’s because of 911. Many individuals judge and assume that all Muslim’s are terrorists because the events that occurred on September 11, 2001 were the result of two Islamic individuals hijacked the planes that flew into the World Trade Centres. Since that day, we assume that every person that wears a turban is a terrorist and we shouldn’t treat them with respect because they are responsible for the thousands of people that died that day or all the Canadian Soldiers that have died since the war started in Afghanistan in 2001.We all know that it’s wrong to discriminate, judge or stigmatize people based on their culture, colour of their skin, beliefs, values, gender or even because of the clothes they wear but we do it anyways. I don’t think it is fair that we just assume that every Muslim or Islamic person is a terrorist because they were a turban.
Overall, the movie Freedom Writers had many powerful messages that I will use, learn, teach and grow from in my future as a Child and Youth Worker. I will encourage the children and youth I work with that they can be whatever they want because they aren’t where they grew up or the neighborhood they came from. That there is more to the world then what they have seen and they can move on from those experiences and grow into the person they dream to be. Encourage and teach them that no one can judge or discriminate them on the things that they have been through because everyone is different and has their own story, and only they can write the ending. I want to empower the child and youths that I work with to be the best they can be and to push themselves even when they don’t believe in themselves because at the end of the day we are all human beings and deserve a chance.
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