Freedom Writers

I just watched Freedom Writers and now I feel bad about myself. Great. Maybe I could just start wearing pearls to class and making my fourth graders write freely in a journal and all of my problems will be solved. Really though, some parts of the movie were unbearably corny or laughable and then other parts of the movie were pretty realistic. The most realistic parts: 1) teaching can ruin/destroy your personal relationships, 2) teaching will change the core of who you are, 3) your students will notice when you buy them something new, 4) there are bound to be some crazy teachers and administrators in your way, 5) "difficult" students will take the most interest in subjects that randomly come up in class and you have to run with it.

If you know anything about my classroom, you know that writing is a huge part of my instruction and is actually the thing my students are most invested in doing. No matter how cheesy the movie may have been, the foundation and the mission is real and I have no doubt that lives were changed in that classroom and students were put on a different life path, which is the part of the "cheesy" movie that I can find touching.