Teach with Your Heart: Lessons I Learned from the Freedom Writers

I read the Freedom Writer's Diary, watched the movie, and then read Erin Gruwell's "Teach with Your Heart." I have to say that, by far, this book is the best book I've read on an education related topic! Having taught High School students in California for 4 years and reading countless literature (journals, articles, newspaper, and books), this is one for the ages. Erin Gruwell's passion, energy, and enthusiasm are extremely contagious. Her commitment to working with and caring for her students is what helped her earned her stripes and gain credibility, for they had become acustomed to being called "stupid" or "worthless" and being brushed off as problem children who many other teachers refused to teach. The book chronicles her start in education with her student teaching stint, up until her Freedom Writers graduated from Wilson H.S. whereby she then went on to work for the University of California as a professor in the Education training program. Imagine if each and every teacher emulated the qualities "Ms. G," as she is affectionately called by her former students, possess - what a change there would be in our educational outcomes and learning potentials!! This is a book which reinforces the belief that every single person can make a difference in this world!

How ironic that a story with tolerance as its central message should be criticized because of the color of the teacher's skin. Instead of poking (often fallacious) holes in an amazing story, folks should be focusing on some critical questions that are implied in this work: "Given my monetary and time limitations, how can I adopt Erin's practices in my classroom? in my school?" "Maybe I can't do it all by myself, but what if I could get a few other 'true believers' at my school to team up with me?" "As a non-educator, what am I doing to empower teachers in my community?" "As an educator, am I working in relative isolation or am I collaborating with colleagues about how to improve student learning?" "What excuses (if any) am I making for not being able to reach every student in my class?" None of these questions requires the herculean efforts Erin recounts in her memoire--only a simple willingness to get off the sidelines and into the game...whatever your color or gender.

This book, I believe, is a must-read for all teachers. It demonstrates the powerful and far-reaching influence of a teacher who made it her primary aim to nurture her students' ethical ideal and passionately dedicated herself to this aim. Our educational system has much to learn from Erin Gruwell and her students. If you are an educator, I highly recommend that you read this book. It will give you hope and inspire you to be a better teacher and human being. I would like to respond to the two previous reviewers'critiques of Erin and her book. First of all, studies have indicated that students do better when they stay with each other and with the same teacher (assuming the teacher is a caring one) for an extended period of time, the longer the better. Erin and her students must have recognized this truth and her example proved this hypothesis quite well. Secondly, so what if Erin only taught for four or five years? I speculate that the difference she made in the lives of her 150 students in those four years is more significant and lasting than the contribution some teachers make to their students in a 20 or 30-year long career. Erin is serving our society and our students on a larger scale by speaking and providing training to teachers on a methodology that yielded astounding success. I don't think she left teaching because she was "burned out". She was smart enough to know that she could serve the world more effectively in a different capacity. And this one is to the reviewer who called Erin's book "self-serving and trite". Like you, I am sure all of us--as teachers--have spent our own money on our students and felt that every dime has been worthwhile. However, I don't know how many of us has actually worked a second or third job like Erin to cover our students' expenses. Erin is SELFLESS and anything but "self-serving". I am saddened that this extraordinary teacher has been so harshly criticized for what I consider an extraordinary act of love.

For anyone who hasn't listened to Erin tell her riveting stories in person, this book provides her *voice* and fills in much of the background story that you will want to know after seeing Freedom Writers on screen. Teach With Your Heart gives a glimpse into the heart of Erin-ever resourceful, imaginative, savvy and strategic, sometimes naive, and brilliantly inventive as a catalyst for confronting racism and intolerance. Like the Freedom Writers Diary, or listening to Erin give one of her impassioned speeches, this book is a way to mobilize beyond hopelessness to ask "what can I do to make a difference?" Refreshingly, without distilling ten easy steps, Erin speaks to the perseverence, support and stamina needed to manifest an unstoppable vision in spite of heartache, threats and loss.

Read the book then write a review...this is my suggestion to the previous reviewer. Otherwise his review is ignorant and meaningless. While the movie was a dramatization which it necessarily had to be considering it would be impossible to effectively account 151 lives in two years in the span of 2 1/2 hours. But, dear previous reviewer, if you actually buy the two books, you can spend as much time as you need on the factual accounts spanning 12 years and then write a credible review. These books will mean different things to different folks but they should be read by everyone because they are, if nothing else, simple stories which reflect our humanity and culture. I worked with "throw away" kids for many years and see them on every page...but many people do not want to see them, do not want to empathize with them or the struggles of a teacher, do not want to know that racism and poverty still exist in this country...Anne Frank and Viktor Frankl told their stories and people still deny the Holocaust. This story is real, not drama, and it is representative of the struggle thousands upon thousands of teens face today in this country. Don't knock the ones who overcame and the successes teachers rarely achieve in these circumstances. Let them serve simply as the inspirations they are.