Post on 23-May-2015
description
Erin Gruwell & TheFreedom
Writers experience
• The first day of Erin Gruwell as a student teacher in Woodrow Wilson High School in long beach, California was not necessarily a welcome dear teacher.
• The first day of Erin Gruwell as a student teacher in Woodrow Wilson High School in long beach, California was not necessarily a welcome dear teacher.
• Ms. Gruwell received a class fragmentized as into small islands. There were several groups divided by racial and ethnic matters. Latinos, niggers, eastern immigrants and a little white people.
• The first day of Erin Gruwell as a student teacher in Woodrow Wilson High School in long beach, California was not necessarily a welcome dear teacher.
• Ms. Gruwell received a class fragmentized as into small islands. There were several groups divided by racial and ethnic matters. Latinos, niggers, eastern immigrants and a little white people.
• Gruwell entered into the class 203 in Woodrow school as a just graduated teacher looking for experience and on the end of the day after being mocked, scorned and threatened by her students, she return home with two choices in mind.
1.Giving up her teaching career.
1.Giving up her teaching career.
2. Going on not involving with the students, just give the subject, period.
But these two choices seemed too unacceptable for Erin Gruwell, then she simply created a new option. She decided to interact with the students, trying to change that hostile environment.
Her success is now celebrated around the world as a unique and amazing educational experience. She and her students of classroom 203 turned into an example of engagement against discrimination and social struggle. Considering that all her students were involved in gang fights in long beach area.
Gruwell and her group o f students engaged by their own succeeded experience dubbed themselves as “Freedom Writers” inspired by the experience lived for group of Afro-Amricans in 1961 that decided to put on proof a law which banned segregation on busses. They became known as “Freedom Riders”.
Freedom Riders – The inspiration
Long Beach Riots (1992)
The Scenery
Long Beach Riots (1992)
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Celebrate
Success
Build Bridges
Believe in your student
s
Create Community
Encourage Collaboratio
n
Expect Accountabilit
y
Motivate your
students
Break down
comfort zones
Establish a Safe
Environment
Validate prior
knowledge
Promote Diversity
Teach Toleran
ce
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Believe in your students
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Break down
comfort zones
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Establish a Safe Environment
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Validate prior knowledge
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Motivate your students
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Encourage Collaboration
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Teach Tolerance
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Promote Diversity
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Create Community
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Build Bridges
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Expect Accountability
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Celebrate Success
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Believe in your students
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Dispite Gruwell was in charge of students considered unteachable
She always believed all her students were capable of learning
Believe in your students
“[Ms.Gruwell]told me she believed in me. I have never heard those words from anyone...specially a teacher.”-Diary #23
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Break down
comfort zones
Gruwell Secret Sauce
On her 1st day of class Ms. Gruwell found her students sat in comfort zones based on race, gang affiliation and familiar faces
Since then she realized that she need to break down those barriers to create an inclusive environment.
Break Down Comfort Zones
“on the streets, you kick it in different' hoods,
depending on your race or where you are from.
And at school, we separate ourselves from people who are different
from us.”-Diary #3
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Establish a Safe Environment
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Ms. Gruwell realized that most of her students come from extremely difficult home environment sometimes very dangerous
Once she notice that her classroom was a kind of refuge from home, she tried to create an environment where they could feel comfortable
Establish a Safe Environment
“I walk in the [class]room and I feel as though all
the problems in my life are not
important anymore. I am home.” – Diary
# 24
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Validate prior knowledge
Gruwell Secret Sauce
If Ms. Gruwell’s students weren’t experts as book
readers or grammar, they had PhD in street life
Thinking like that Ms. Gruwell was able to make
connections between their previous experience
and the new skills they were developing in the
classroom,
Validate prior knowledge
“it’s amazing how savvy they are. They
‘re walking encyclopedia when it comes to pop culture, quoting the lines from the movies verbatim or reciting every lyric
from the latest rap CD... I think the key is to build on what they already know.”-Ms.
Gruwell
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Motivate your students
Gruwell Secret Sauce
When one of her students asked: “why do we have to read books by dead white guys in tights?”
She realized that she needed to find material that would invest them in the outcome of their work. So she introduced her students to authors whose work could be felt by the students as they were talking about the student’s own lives.
Motivate your students
“this story[the last Spin] is a trip. I’ve never read something
in school that related to something that happened in my
life.” – Diary # 14
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Encourage Collaboration
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Ms. Gruwell encouraged her students to work in collaborative groups.
It demonstrated them that teamwork can be more
effective than working alone.
Encourage Collaboration
“We learn together, we
laugh together, we cry together,
and we wouldn’t
have it any other way.”-
Diary #142
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Teach Tolerance
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Teaching tolerance and acceptance of one another was the key component of what made “the Freedom Writers’ experience so unique
Teach Tolerance
“I believe that I will never again feel
uncomfortable with a person of different
race.” – Diary #116
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Promote Diversity
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Ms. Gruwell created an environment where the students could share their life stories.
Her goal was to embrace every element of diversity, be it economic, ethic, religious, or academic and celebrate the richness of those differences.
Promote Diversity
“The diversity of ideas, traditions and spirit is the
true purpose of the Freedom Writers”- Diary #77
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Create Community
Gruwell Secret Sauce
The Freedom Writers treated one another as confidents and began to see themselves as a family. Instead of competing, they helped one another both inside and outside the classroom.
Working as a community for a common goal made change possible.
Create Community
“through their writing, they shared a common identity, which
united them into a community that connected them, not separated them from the
world.” – Epilogue, p. 276
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Build Bridges
Gruwell Secret Sauce
While Ms. Gruwell taught their students, she made part of he educational mission to bring parts of the outside world to her students. Things that they never had been exposed yet, into the classroom.
The students need a sense of education as continuity . It is not confined into the classroom or the school.
Build Bridges
“Ms. Gruwell can never do things the simple way. She always has some big teaching scheme even when we are nowhere near a classroom,”-Diary #116
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Expect Accountability
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Ms. Gruwell found out that if she make her students accountable and have high expectations, they will rise to meet them
She always expected them to succeed and they did.
Expect Accountability
“[Ms. Gruwell] showed me that excuses will not bring
about success and that adversity is not something
you walk with but something you leap over.”
– Diary #157
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Celebrate Success
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Failure in Ms. Gruwell’s class was not an option. By developing a comprehensive curriculum that engage, enlightened and empowered her students, she was able to help them make valuable connections between the classroom and their lives.
Celebrate Success
“Historians say history repeats itself, but in my case I have managed to break the circle
because I am going to graduate from high school and go to college, an opportunity my
parents never had.” – Diary #105
Gruwell Secret Sauce
1. Believe in your students 2. Break down comfort zones3. Establish a Safe Environment4. Validate prior knowledge5. Motivate your students6. Encourage Collaboration7. Teach Tolerance8. Promote Diversity9. Create Community10. Build Bridges11. Expect Accountability 12. Celebrate Success
Gruwell Secret Sauce
EE
E
Gruwell Secret Sauce
Stage Process
1.Engage your students
2.Enlighten your students
3.Empower your students
Engage your students
Engage your students
Show your students the objectives of what they are learning.
Engage your students
Show your students the objectives of what they are learning.
Create an atmosphere in which the students can share their opinions.
Engage your students
Show your students the objectives of what they are learning.
Create an atmosphere in which the students can share their opinions.
Give them concrete reasons to seek excellence.
Engage your students
Show your students the objectives of what they are learning.
Create an atmosphere in which the students can share their opinions.
Give them concrete reasons to seek excellence.
Help them make connections between who they are as individuals and who they are as students.
How to engage your students
How do you engage your students?
Enlighten your students
Enlighten your students
Give your students all the support they need to be able to learn
Enlighten your students
Give your students all the support they need to be able to learn
Create forms of receiving their feedbacks. Use their feedbacks
Enlighten your students
Give your students all the support they need to be able to learn
Create forms of receiving their feedbacks. Use their feedbacks
Figure out the best way to teach each student
Enlighten your students
Give your students all the support they need to be able to learn
Create forms of receiving their feedbacks. Use their feedbacks
Figure out the best way to teach each student
Explore their own opinions and reactions within a “real world” context.
How to enlighten your students
How do you enlighten your students?
Empower your students
Empower your students
Push your students to put into test what they have been learning.
Empower your students
Push your students to put into test what they have been learning.
Give them security to act by themselves
Empower your students
Push your students to put into test what they have been learning.
Give them security to act by themselves
Encourage them to deal with the frustrations.
How to empower your students
How do you empower your students?
Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers have received many awards, including the prestigious “Spirit of Anne Frank Award”, and have appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show, Primetime, Good Morning America and the View, to name a few. Erin Gruwell is also a charismatic motivational speaker who spreads her dynamic massage to students, teachers and businesspeople around the world. She leads the nonprofit Freedom Writers Foundation and lives in Southern California.
Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers had put the experience lived into the classroom 203 in a book called “The Freedom Writers Diary”.
In 2007 the film maker Richard Lagravenese made a movie based on the diaries written by the freedom Writers.
Sources:
Books:
“The Freedom Writers Diary – Erin gruwell and the freedom writers foundation
“the Freedom Writers Diary, teacher's guide - Erin Gruwell and the freedom writers foundation
Teach with your heart – Erin Gruwell.
Movie:
The freedom Writers –
directed and written by Richard Lagravenese
Conceived by André Stanley Based on Erin Gruwell’s books
andrestanleybrazil@gmail.com