Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank did a terrific job as always!
Everyone who remembers his/her own educational experience remembers teachers, not methods and techniques the others followed.
This movie is based on a true story of at-risk students attending Woodrow Wilson High in Long Beach, a voluntarily integrated school.
This movie is showcased for Philosophy/ Psychology classes because cultural differences can not only be perceived, but one actually is able to feel how and why the different students act the way that they do.
By watching this we relate the essential truth about education: Most students have a voice if a teacher can find it.
Most students can thrive when a teacher creates a sense of family amid chaos, as Emily Gruwell did in the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1990's. The diaries her students wrote inspired students around the country to do the same.
Hilary Swank who played Ms. Gruwell, became the angel and gave her students the 'life chance' that they are supposed to have, even with all the conflicts of the world. She taught them to understand that they are not alone and that there are always some who are even more unfortunate than them.
Gruwell sacrifices, as cases of true love sometimes require, her personal freedom and loses her marriage for the higher good of the young people she teaches. Admittedly, her slacker husband, Scott (Patrick Dempsey), doesn't deserve such a gifted wife, and her crusty dad, Steve (a monumentally weathered Scott Glenn), has some stereotypical responses to his daughter's choices. Most of all I object to those actors as students: They are way too old to be playing 14 and 15 year olds. But they too did play their parts well.
The lessons in this movie are beyond powerful. How do you reach and teach students who are only trying to survive? How do you create trust when these students hate you just because of your skin colour? How do you work with bureaucracy(District Education Officer/ Education Senator of State)? Erin had to face all this, in her first year of teaching no less.
There was sensitivity, empathy, and reality to this inspirational cinematic portrayal of a woman who didn't give up on her students.
To conceptualise, this film rings true about the magic a dedicated teacher can do with rebellious but malleable teens. As you notice many kids change their attitude towards education in their freshmn/ sophomore year you begin to adore them more and more.
Freedom Writers reminds us why we love a profession that gives us a chance to save souls in the only way we can- make them better citizens of the world. This film is a superior entry in a long history of teaching brought to its ideal display in film.
Watching this gem with my fellow student-teachers generated in me awe & pride as to why ours is rightly called a Noble Profession.
Excellent expression. Keep it up. Seen
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