The Freedom Writers

The Freedom Writers. What a great story!

What are some of the hopes and expectations Erin has prior to starting her first job?
On Erin's first day of school she had many expectations. She wanted to be able to change her students lives before they would get into trouble and end up in the courts. I liked how she had such big hopes.  I know it was hard at first but she keep to her expectations which allowed her to help her students even more because she didn't want to give up.

W hat realities and challenges confronted her in the beginning of the year?
One challenge in particular was I don't believe she was expecting teaching to be so hard.  She didn't know that that her students would have such low testing scores.  Many of the students don't usually make it to graduation which also suprised her. The students didn't respect her in the beginning of the movie but at the end one of her students even ended up calling her ma.  I felt that this was huge. She not only got her students interested in learning but she was able to get respect. Erin also didn't have the support from other faculty members. She wasn't able to do certain things that she wanted to because the faculty didn't want to go out of their way to help her.

What were some of the case scenarios of the lived experiences of the students she had in class?
Almost everyone of the students didn't have a very "good" life outside of school. Many of them were, almost all, were in a gang and had seen a family member or a friend die due to gang violence.  I thought that this was really sad. One of the boys in her class had seen his friend shoot himselve by accident when he was younger.  This boy was also homeless. But it was nice to see that at the end of the movie he went to go live with his mother.  I believe that this was due to the fact that he was doing well in school. 

How did the student's attitudes towards learning impact their academic performance?
In the beginning of the movie the students didn't care about coming to school at all.  They had very negative attitudes toward learning.  It didn't help that the students were fighting a war outside of school. Therefore they didn't even see the point in learning. Threw out the movie their attitudes started to change and I feel that this was due to Erins' teaching style and her love for teaching.  Then you could see at the end of the movie that when they liked coming to her class they started to do better and end up graduating.

What strategies did Erin incorporate to break down the barriers between the students and the teacher?
Erin really tried to connect with the students.  The one example that really sticks out is when she brought her music box into the class and played music that was an example of poetry.  She really showed that she cared about her students and that she loved what she was doing and I believe that this showed the students that she truely cared about them.  I really liked that the movie showed that if your students can tell that you truely care about them, then they will know that and I think they will start to respect you.

What kinds of teaching methods worked with the studenst?
Erin did a lot of hands on activities.  I thought that this was great.  It got all the students to interact with each other instead of just sitting there and listening to her talk the whole time.  I really liked when the students came back for the next semester she had the students come forward and state what they wanted to change or what they were thankful for! Her teaching methods resulted in the students really wanting to come to class and some even called it home.

How did Erin develop curriculum that connected with the students?
In the beginning of the movie Erin had a lesson plan that didn't seem to interest the students what so ever.  She then developed curriculum that the students could relate to in their own lives.  She had them read books such as Diary of Anne Frank.  The students could really relate to these books that she developed.  It was great to she her change her curriculum to best fit her students.

What were the roles and attitude from the other teachers and administrators?
It was really sad to see that there were so many negative attitudes from the other teachers.  I know it's probably hard to teach students that don't want to learn but you can't just push them away and say that they are nothing. The teachers should want their students to learn.  It was really sad to see that the principle wouldn't let the students use their nice books, therefore the books just had to sit there.  It was terrible to hear that some of the teachers say why waste your time teaching students that don't care about education and all they are is violent and break roles. Therefore, the school won't get any better if some of the teacher don't change their attitudes.

What role did Erin's expectations for the students have on their learning?
Erin had great expectations and she stuck to her expectations instead of giving up because it was to hard.  She wanted her students to learn and graduate and so that happened.  She also went out of her way to get another job to buy books for her students, which I thought was really great! I believe that her expectations allowed her to succeed in being a great teacher!

What lessons did I learn from watching this movie?
I really admired Erin because she took the extra step everytime to help her students out. I want to be one of those teacher sthat take the extra step and truely love what they are doing.  I learned have expectations. If I have expectations it will help me to be driven to truely help my students. Second, if things are hard at first and your original plan don't work, don't give up. Keep trying and try different things to get to the students. As teacher we have to be creative in the ways we teach our students. We also have to understand that there will be situations in the classroom that we won't learn about in college.