Freedom Writers

Teacher’s Philosophy
● Ms. G focuses on a culture of self expression and making her students feel heard and
respected. To get respect you have to give respect. She gives her students respect in
order to gain their respect. She also believes in their ability to succeed and build an
understanding that education and having convictions have inherent value. While she
started out naive, she grew to see how hard life was for her students and she found that
her advocacy was the closest most of her students had to someone supporting them. As
her students grew to respect her and to respect one another, they began to find that
there are other paths that they could choose for themselves.

Intervention Techniques
● When students entered her classroom for the first time, everyone turned the desks
toward the other desks and spoke to each other and eventually two students became
physically threatening toward one another she tried to chime in with mild, polite phrases
like “excuse me” and “please sit back down”. This was not very effective.
● When one student took another student’s backpack she started loudly saying his name
and telling him to get her backpack back to no avail.
● As the students consistently disrespected her, she flipped all of the students seats
around so that the students weren’t near the friends they were being disruptive with.
● When a student was reading a magazine during class, she asked that student to read
from the board to pull her into the lesson.
● When students were passing notes with a drawing of Jamal, she confronted one of the
laughing students who started it. She shifted gears and discussed discrimination against
jews, comparing gangs to nazis. This made the class erupt into disagreement. She
began engaging the class about respect and the giving and earning of it. The discussion
ended up forcing students to look at how senseless their hatred of one another is and
how the continued disrespect and discrimination against one another will lead only to
destruction and death.
○ The following class she spent trying to bridge the gap between students, asking
them questions to show them how similar they all are, and how tragic the losses
they face as a result of focusing on the differences.
● Moving forward she sought to understand her students better and provide them with an
opportunity to be heard. She gave them hope and gave them a cause by having them
write letters and raise money for the woman who housed Anne Frank to come and visit
them. These kinds of human connections led her students to behave in her class. They
became active participants in their own education. This is why culturally responsive
teaching is so important; she met the students where they were at and bridged the gaps
so that differences suddenly didn’t seem so important, while allowing them to celebrate
their own identities.

Personal Application
● My main takeaway from this film is that it is so important to believe in your students,
empower them, give them the tools to do what they want regardless of what ideas
people have of them. At the end of the day, school as a construct is intended to provide
students with tools for success and is meant to teach students what the need to know to
function and engage with the world around them. If students do not believe in
themselves, their learning will be stunted and they will not take what they have learned
and apply it. Instead, students will resign themselves to the mundane and to the lives
that those around them have prescribed. Individuality should be celebrated and
implemented in the classroom because no two students are alike. I hope that someday I
will be able to connect with my students in a meaningful way and empower them to tell
their stories and fight for the causes that they care about as artists. Finding common
ground and celebrating unique and valuable differences go a long way in ensuring a
classroom environment founded on respect.