Analytical Reflection Of The Observation

Analytical Reflection of the Observation
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Analytical Reflection of the Observation
While watching the movie Freedom Writers, I came across several issues that can be considered themes for this paper. These include student-teacher interactions, student engagement, classroom management, and race, gender, and marginalization. The film appears to combine these things, but the issue that appears to influence the trajectory of the movie is student-teacher interactions. Throughout the movie, student-teacher interactions appear to influence action, decision-making, and lifelong choices which eventually paid off as some of the students ended up going to college even though they had been written off by their teachers. The movie is not only inspirational but moving as well as it tackles some of the hardest topics a teacher could ever handle. However, regardless of all the moving instances in the film, I can confidently say that were it not for the student-teacher interactions and the teacher’s awareness of her student’s pain, then the ending would have been a bit empty.
The first meaningful instance of student-teacher interactions happens when Teacher G decides to teach poetry using certain unorthodox methods. Mrs. Gruwell decides to play the late 2 Pac’s song “Keep ya head up,” and even though she got some reaction from the students, it was clear that some of the students were not impressed. The interaction here helps to showcase two different worlds, and the stereotypes students might have concerning teachers. The students appear to indicate that the teacher is not fit to talk to them or teach anything that relates to rap music. However, they fail to grasp the real reason of the moment because the teacher was simply trying to use something that appeals to them to teach poetry. The lesson was for poetry and not who was teaching or why they decided to make use of the certain teaching methods. Here, the students appear to ‘own’ something based on their ethnic backgrounds but appear to miss out on the teacher’s gesture of trying to make an impact.
Mrs. Gruwell was not aware of the pain and issues a majority of the students were going through, but in another meaningful instance of student-teacher interaction, she is able to start earning the students’ trust. Gatens (2015) notes that teachers have to take it upon themselves to “build and maintain trust with students, families, and colleagues to be effective.” With this in mind and having started to understand how dangerous the school’s neighborhood is, Mrs. Gruwell decides to tackle the issue of racism and xenophobia. She uses the Holocaust as her example and is taken aback when only a single student appears to know what it is. This particular interaction was quite revealing of the way there might be a divide or gap in teaching and knowledge reception in students. While the Holocaust appeared appropriate in this particular interaction, it helped to reveal a weakness in the students and an opportunity for Mrs. Gruwell to educate the students regarding racism and xenophobia. Cox (2018) appears to echo her support in the use of real-life examples to teach help make “learning about i...