Watching movie: Freedom Writer

Last week, Dr Edwin was not around so he assigned us to watch two movies. The first one was Freedom Writer and the second was History Boys.The two movies were basically about the lives of teachers and students. I really like the first movie. The teacher, who is called Miss. G by her students, was very dedicated and committed with her work. I try to imagine myself being in her shoes. I don’t think I have the courage or strong enough to face different behaviours of the students. She was very enthusiastic on the first day of her teaching. At first, I bet her attitude was only for a while because she had never been exposed to the real experience of teaching. That is why she seems so naïve.

However, throughout the movie, I can see that she never gives up on her students because she strongly believes all her students can contribute something to their own community as well as country. I like the scene where she had an activity with her students that required them to step on the middle line whenever they gave the right answer. I assumed that the activity was to prove to them that in the end, everyone is the same regardless of what colour their skin are. It really does not matter whether we are Chinese, Jews, Spanish or African American. However, I know that we cannot fully blame all these students because they have their own roots and history that shaped them to become who they are. For instance, one of the students Eva Benitez was a problematic teenage girl because her mother died when she was child and her father was put in prison for a crime that he did not commit. Since then, she believed that they were treated unfairly and that caused her to go against the rule.

Another example was one African American student, Jamal was her name if I’m not mistaken who was accused of killing his friend and was locked up in prison. When the truth revealed, I feel sorry for his character and I was also shocked to see that young kids like he and his friend can keep gun. Here, I think it was probably because they felt a bit more secure if they own gun to protect themselves from their enemy. Overall, using movies to teach in classroom can be one of the effective tools because students usually learn better when they can see the characters. Besides, it runs away from the traditional concept of teaching which use chalk and talk.