Freedom Writers

I thought this movie was an amazing example of some of the difficulties that teachers face. One key difficulty for this classroom environment was a wide varety of types of people due to the voluntary integration program implemented by the board of education. I thought that Hillary Swank did an especially good job of helping the students unite and understand their differences. One tactic that was useful was the magic tape line where she asked students to step to the line if the statement said applied to them. This made the students understand that though they were very different from one another, they were also similar in that they had lost friends to gang violence and had been to prison or even a refugee camp.
I was amazed to find that the administration gave little support to the teachers in regards to actual teaching. There was a problem similar to what we discussed in class about sticking to a particular system simply due to the fact that it had been around for a while. The teachers reported to department heads who discussed things with the principal who in turn talked with the school board... they would not deviate from this system even though it was clearly not working. I could go on for days about this movie, though I should stop here. It is just a fantastic example of how to bring people together and motivate them to help themselves.