Mar
9
2016
The Cage Door Opens
Posted in Discipleship 2 Comments
My daughter and I sat down to watch a movie together.
It was a movie I had forgotten about, but one that impacted me when I saw it years ago.
It was the story of Erin Gruwell, the teacher who changed the lives of 150 of her students.
It is a story of integration, opportunities, and unlikely friendships.
Erin Gruwell was a student teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California.
One student gave her quite a bit of trouble that year.
When someone drew a caricature of him as an African American man, she related it to history.
She told her students that this was the type of caricature the Nazis used during the Holocaust.
To her surprise, only one of her students knew anything about the Holocaust.
She explained to them the story of Hitler and the Jews.
She told them about the concentration camps.
She told them about the Nazis, describing them as the worst gang imaginable.
Her students understood gangs.
Many were involved in a gang themselves.
Her room represented the different cultures found in the school.
The students saw only categories and borders; there was no acceptance and agreement.
When she became full time, Gruwell decided that she would give each student a journal.
In that journal, they could write anything they wanted but they must write in it each day.
She had a cabinet in the back of her classroom where the students could deposit their journal.
Gruwell kept the journals in a locked cabinet and promised to read them with their permission.
She could not believe what her students wrote.
They opened up about their lives and their struggles with raw honesty.
She loved her students and wanted to help them.
She wanted to teach them not just babysit them, which was the goal of the school district.
Gruwell worked extra jobs to pay for her own books and materials.
She had the lower achieving students and the school did not want to waste resources on them.
Books and materials ended up lost or they had writing on the pages that were not torn out.
She believed that if her students were respected, they would learn to respect each other.
Gruwell purchased books that her students could relate to, like The Dairy of Anne Frank.
She related Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to a gang war.
It was not until she gave each of her students a bag with their own books, that the change began.
They realized that someone believed in them enough to hold them accountable.
The day she gave them their own bag of books, she had a sparkling cider Toast To Change.
Each student toasted to what would now be different as they went forward.
The people they used to be were gone.
In their place was a determined, caring person who knew that someone believed in them.
Room 203, as it was affectionately called, was home to them.
For some it was the only real home they had.
The culture war raged around them, but in this place, the cages they used to be in, were opened.
Their daily journals set them free; their exposure to knowledge beyond their city changed them.
Gruwell took her students on field trips and had many speakers come to her class.
The administration disliked her unorthodox ways and fought her every step of the way.
However, at the district level, they could not dispute the results.
Reading increased, discipline problems diminished, and learning was exciting for her students.
Gruwell only taught freshman and sophomore English; her students would soon be leaving her.
They wanted to stay.
The family they built was incredibly important to them.
Gruwell fought to keep her students and go through high school with them until graduation.
The district agreed.
Gruwell was able to teach her students for the full four years.
The journals they wrote in each day were compiled into a book.
The Freedom Writers Diary was published in 1999 with introductions by Erin Gruwell.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:30, 31)
I pondered the movie and the story of the Freedom Writers on my morning walk.
I thought about the cages in which the culture had placed them.
I thought about the prisons they all lived in each day.
I thought about the freedom they learned to experience.
If you think about a page of paper with its many horizontal lines, you must think of freedom.
A jail has vertical bars that keep you inside.
A piece of paper has horizontal lines that free you.
On those lines you can write your deepest thoughts, your dreams, and your fears.
In the writing is the release.
In the writing is the turning of the key.
In the writing is the opening of the door from the inside.
In the writing is freedom.
Writing is a catharsis.
It is a process of release.
What is inside, comes outside through the pen onto the paper.
The cage door opens to a whole new world of possibilities.
All 150 Freedom Writers graduated from high school and many went on to attend college.
I have no idea if any of the 150 Freedom Writers in Erin Gruwell’s class know the Lord Jesus.
I pray they do because in Him is True Freedom that cannot be duplicated.
If the Sons sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)
The cage door opens.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
No one comes to the Father except through Him.
In Him, You are free indeed.
Writing down your thoughts and feelings is really cathartic. I once, years ago, kept a “journal” of writing 3 pages, quickly, without thinking, every day. It was amazing what came out! Many things that I was not aware of bothering me appeared on the pages. In this busy day and age it might be hard for many people to do, but it is a good idea. What a great teacher you write about! She gave those kids a valuable gift. Thanks for your great post today (and every day)!
Sue,
I was blessed by the story of the Freedom Writers.
It was such a simple idea that healed some of the brokenness.
Gina