When I got a hold of the picture, I went ballistic. “This is the type of propaganda that the Nazis used during the Holocaust,” I yelled. When a student timidly asked me, “What’s the Holocaust?” I was shocked.
This is the very moment in time that the life of Erin Gruwell changed forever. The picture in question was a caricature of a student—a troublemaker, to be sure—but a human being. And the picture was racist to its core. It is one of those weird hiccups in history where the worst intentions of one person led to a revolutionary leap forward; an ironic positive resolution. Would Gruwell have eventually discovered the shocking ignorance of his students on the subject of Nazi atrocities even without the racist drawing playing a part? Almost certainly. But perhaps circumstances would have been just substantially different enough that this revelation would have come to much less celebrated conclusion than the establishment of the Freedom Writers.
That was it! The bells were ringing, the sirens were sound. It hit me! The Freedom Riders fought intolerance by riding a bus and pushing racial limits in the deep South. Then somebody suggest that we name ourselves the Freedom Writers, in honor of the Freedom Riders. Why not? It’s perfect?
Gruwell’s “tolerance curriculum” mandates that all her students keep a diary. This choice is inspired by famous teenage journal-keepers like Anne Frank. This particular book includes not just entries from their teacher, but passages from certain students as well. This entry follows Gruwell’s lesson plans on the Civil Rights Movement as part of her overall curriculum strategy of teaching tolerance as a necessary component of her discipline. It is the eureka moment explaining the origin of a name now almost as famous as its inspiration.
Being a Freedom Writer, I couldn’t understand how I just stood by and let all of this go on…At that point, I knew I didn’t want to be a part of this group or any group that degraded or humiliated people like that ever again.
This particular passage reveals the extent to which taking part in the Freedom Riders program had consequences far beyond the classroom. The writer of this diary entry speaks of a hazing ritual of a sorority to which belongs involving dangling testicles, one of the least clever parodies of a Christmas songs ever and humiliation. Her entry illustrates the way that being a part of Gruwell’s class fundamentally changed her character and outlook in a way that was still evolving and taking shape. The moment of epiphany in the face of overwhelming peer pressure underscores the vital component of teaching not to a test, but within a much broader philosophical spectrum that seems more than just filling the heads of students with facts to eventually be forgotten.
“You’re making us look bad…Things are based on seniority around here.”
But, of course, the educational system is filled with those who prefer to put process, tradition, convention and envy ahead of actual education. Gruwell writes of celebrating a moment of unexpected triumph when when she is invited to bring her students to Universal Studios to meet with Steven Spielberg in the wake of the release of Schindler’s List. This extraordinary high is almost comically succeeded by the most tragic of career lows: being informed that success is simply not allowed if it casts a shadow over others who’ve not taken advantage of their own opportunities.
