Erin Gruwell
Erin Gruwell
Erin Gruwellis an American teacher known for her unique teaching method, which led to the publication of The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. The 2007 film Freedom Writers is based on her story...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTeacher
Date of Birth15 August 1969
CountryUnited States of America
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Paying to teach in the trenches was like putting my face through a cutout hole at a carnival while a quarterback threw pies at me. At least with a carnival, I'd see it coming.
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The stories my pupils told me were astonishing. One told how he had witnessed his cousin being shot in the back five times; another how his parents had died of AIDS. Another said that he'd probably been to more funerals than parties in his young life. For me - someone who had had an idyllic, happy childhood - this was staggering.
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I believe that all students, when asked to be accountable for their actions and to be socially aware citizens, will become agents for change!
believe
I believe that everyone has a story, and it is important that we encourage all students to tell theirs.
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I think a lot of teachers feel like they're teaching to a test. Our response is you teach to a student, you really teach to the kid.
schools
Schools are not equal. There are still the haves and the have-nots.
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I was going to show my kids that no matter what happened with their parents, parole officers and other teachers, I wouldn't give up on them. I let them know it matters to me that you come to class, it matters to me that you try, it matters to me when you succeed.
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That's the beauty of education, kids taking lessons out of the classroom and back into their own world where they can positively affect their family, their friends, and their greater community.
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When you're too robotic and scripted, the students tune you out. So I always tried to use different learning modalities - kinesthetic, auditory, visual, whatever might bring learning to life.
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Some teachers feel that if they ask for emotional help, they're a failure. But teaching is a team sport.
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Writing is powerful. Whether it's a little girl hiding from the Nazis in an attic, or Amnesty International writing letters on behalf of political prisoners, the power of telling stories is usually what causes change.
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Hoping they'd been inspired by the examples of Anne Frank and other teens who had turned negative experiences into something positive by writing about them, I handed out notebooks for my students to journal about their lives. There was some initial resistance. But then the stories poured out of them, full of anger and sadness.
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Ruining is a gift .. it's the way of changing.
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Society just doesn't care about young people anymore, even if we are the future.