Freedom Writers and teaching

The Freedom Writers is a movie/book based on a true story of a young teacher, Ms. Gruwell working in Los Angeles during the aftermath of the L.A riots. The war raged on into the classrooms and Ms. Gruwell faced a classroom of hostile, at-risk teenagers from different races and backgrounds. One day Ms. Gruwell intercepts a racist drawing her students were passing around. She gives a lecture about how during the Holocaust, racist drawings of Jewish people were circulated. Ms. Gruwell then finds out that her students do not know what the Holocaust is. This leads to the students learning about the Holocaust and more. Through reading and connecting with the stories of Anne Frank and other survivors of atrocities, the students learn tolerance; they begin to show respect for Ms. Gruwell and their pupils. Then the students start to write their own stories and they create the book The Freedom Writers Diary. With the guidance and support of their teacher, the Freedom Writers learned their self-worth, exceeded expectations, and began to see their futures as bright.

Ms. Gruwell exhibited several qualities that Confucius discussed in his Analects. In passage 11.22 in the Analects, Confucius believes that the teacher should treat students as individuals. At the beginning of the school year, Ms.Gruwell encourages her students to keep a journal of their life and if they want to they can turn it in for her to read. Through reading her students journals, she gets to know them personally; she even learned from them (3.8). Ms. Gruwell also knew their learning styles; she catered to them and still pushed them.

Ms. Gruwell's teaching somewhat resembles the four corner teaching method Confucius talked about. Ms. Gruwell provided her students with materials (books and information) and support, while her students held up the other three corners (7.8). Like Confucius said, teachers to a student should be like makeup to the face, they should enhance (3.8). Ms. Gruwell does just that.