The Freedom Writers ted talk

"I want to write his story so others will know his death was not in vain." Chapter 6 page 150.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDq9o9j3-CU

      Erin Gruwell enters Woodrow Wilson High School as a first year English teacher. She comes from a middle class family with privilege and the idea that education is important and necessary for living. In this ted talk, she focuses on one of the students in her class room. She starts out by saying the difficulties that she had with this student. This students name was Maria. By the age of five Maria watched her cousin get shot and killed. She watched her father get arrested and go in and out of jail. Maria had no respect for Gruwell, she felt like she could not relate to her teacher. Gruwell did not know about Maria’s life until she proposed the idea of writing in a journal. The journal served as a bridge for Maria and her teacher because it allowed her to learn about Maria’s life. Soon Gruwell started to understand why Maria behaved the way she did. I chose this text because through writing, Maria was able to tell her story. There were a total of one hundred and fifty students like Maria. Gruwell decided to introduce the diary of Ann Frank to her students. Maria really enjoyed this book because she felt that she could relate to Ann. The Graves text stresses how important it is that students see themselves in literature. Maria starts to get hope; she starts to see that she does matter after all. I really like this ted talk and one of the main reasons that I chose this is because it shows how writing and reading can change the attitude and the life of a student.

         I also chose this ted talk because of all of the challenges and difficulties Gruwell describes that Maria faced. It is easy for teachers to blame their students for not wanting to learn or completing homework. It is easy to look at a parent and say that they are unfit, but as future educators well all need to be like Gruwell and look a little deeper. How can a student come to school ready to learn when he/she is worried about what they are going to eat or that they might get shot walking down the street because of the color of their skin. I liked this ted talk because it shows how outside factors effect education happening in the classroom. The second week of this course we all discussed motivation. Having students read about characters they share or have similarities with can be a sort of motivation. We recently read chopsticks and a key lesson that we all picked up was that “everything is not always what it seems”. This applies for teachers and students in the class room. If a student is not paying attention or has been missing class, this does not necessarily mean that he or she is not interested in the topic being taught in class. We as future educators need to look deeper and go with the notion that everything is not what it seems.

It really upsets me to hear that a teacher laughed at her because of her accent. In class I learned how powerful teachers can be. The same way teachers can have positive effects on their students and motivate them to do positive things, is the same way they can discourage them if the wrong words are said by the teacher. I chose this ted talk because it shows how when entering a class room, teachers will have a variety of students from different backgrounds. Though the teacher was from a different background she was still able to help her students to connect to real people who were like them. The ted talk shows how powerful writing is. After reading the Diary of Ann Frank, Maria gets upset because Ann does not make it. This upset her because it crushed her hopes of making it to a better life. Another student from her class stated that Ann did make it, she wrote it down. People got to read her story; she got to live even after death. This ted talk shows how building a connection and knowing who your students are can help teachers choose books or create assignments that students could relate to.  If students can relate to the work in class they will then be motivated to learn!