Freedom Writers

Today Jenny and I showed "Freedom Writers" to our freshmen during our classes, and if you have never seen the movie, it's pretty good. It shows a new teacher working in the inner city, and how she creates a family within a class that is--at first-- completely controlled by gang-related hatred and racism. Although we have not had to deal with the same intensity of issues and hardships that the kids in the film were facing (true story, too), there have been problems related to the class system that is in play in Micronesia. In brief: there are some islands considered higher up in the system and others that are at the bottom, resulting in tension at times between students from the higher class islands and those from the perceived lower class islands.

I have one girl who comes from the island of Pelilieu, a Palauan island, who has shared her aggravation over being looked down upon by some of the Palauan students because she is from this separate island. They apply stereotypes to her that they hear their parents and peers talking about, and I can tell it hurts her a great deal. She is only one of the reasons we wanted to show the film; there have been other issues in the class of students from other islands feeling unwelcome by their peers because they are not from here. It broke my heart to hear one of my students finally confess to me that she wished the other girls would understand that she and her friends came here to get an education, not to step on anybody else's territory.

As a newcomer myself, I sometimes have a hard time knowing what I can do to help in this; how can I make a difference or help the girls see that we are all people: we need each other; we don't need to rip each other apart or degrade one another.

On a cool note: I did have an amazing breakthrough that I cannot take credit for, though it was so encouraging to hear. One of my students whom I had caught copying the back of a book and trying to pass it off as her free reading summary came to me today after the movie and said that because of the free reading journals I make them do (it's a 200 point project for the semester), she has actually realized that she loves to read!! You can imagine my jaw dropping off my face; she fought me last semester on my free reading requirements, and now she is shocking her mom (and me) by calling her up and saying "Hey! Can you bring me some books from our house? I really like to read now!" Her mom didn't believe her until the girl told her that she had finished an entire book! I was so happy and proud of her; and I have been thankful to not be having as many attitude issues with her this semester.

I really love this group of girls, and want to see them really grasping that they have the potential (as much as I hate that word) to do so much in this world.