Freedom Writers

While my hubby is away golfing this afternoon, I started flipping through the channels and decided to stop and watch a movie that I have wanted to watch for a while now. I read the book Freedom Writers' Diary last year at the beach, and I loved it. It was very inspiring and made me want to go back to school and change my students' lives. I have struggled with the motivation to go back to work this year, so I thought the movie might provide some inspiration. Did it ever! I can't count the number of times I cried throughout the movie. I know my students do not live in the projects nor do they have to carry a gun around with them, but many of them do have troubled home lives. At one point during the movie, one of the students describes what happened to him over the summer. He states that his family was evicted from their home. He was embarassed to return to school because he was wearing old clothes from last year and the same haircut. This absolutely broke my heart. My students will be returning to school on August 6th, and I couldn't help but wonder how many of them would return to school wearing the same clothes I saw them in the year before. How many of them are embarassed to walk through the door on the first day because they have nothing new to put on. How many of their parents lost their jobs over the summer? How many of their parents got divorced? How many of them were kicked out of their homes? As I watched the movie, I felt so ashamed of myself. I have dreaded going back to work without even the slightest thought of how lucky I am to have a job, or how lucky I am to have a good home. I am ashamed that I have not thought about the fact that since my husband and I have great jobs that my son will probably never have to go back to school on the first day wearing last years clothes or even shoes for that matter. While back to school clothing is superficial, it is extremely important to most teenagers. It makes me sad to think that some of my students may be dreading coming back to school for that very reason. I am oficially motivated to get back to my students. One of the things on my list is to do something nice for a student every day this school year. My goal is to make the students feel comfortable and safe in my classroom. It may be all they have, and I do not ever want to lose sight of that. I did get to mark one of the non-theatre movies off my list today, but in reality, I think I accomplished so much more.