MovieChat Forums > Freedom Writers (2007) Discussion > Shouldn't Ms. G NOT go with them to thei...

Shouldn't Ms. G NOT go with them to their junior + senior year?

posted 17 years ago by llama_girls
40 replies | jump to latest

If she made such a difference in their lives, then after the students have been with her for two years, shouldn't she move on to teach new students so she can stop THEM from hating & killing eachother?
and also she said she taught 9 & 10 grade english. so wouldn't she of had more classes than just the class that was focused on in the movie unless the school has a weird system..?
when she was trying to get permission to teach them junior/senior year, they kept saying that without her class "they'd go back to their old ways" but they can always go see ms. G, they'll still be at the same school. and if they meant old ways as in that their new teachers would treat them like they were treated before Ms. G (although any teacher that wasn't ms. G still treated them the old way since ms. G only taught them english, the students have other classes), than i guess that makes some sense. because since they don't like the teacher and the teacher treats them like they're stupid than they would care less about education.
but if 'old ways' they meant they would go back to hating/killing eachother because of race, well would that really happen? from fights breaking out in the classroom the first day to being basically best friends - calling eachother their "family".. thats a HUGE change, and they wouldn't just "go back" without their teacher.
wouldn't it be better for Ms. G to change the lives of MORE students than staying with that class for all four years, and then leaving to go teach at a college? i mean she must've had classes other than them, but how come they're never talked about? wouldn't they have been treated the same way by ms. g?
now don't get me wrong i actually found it to be a very good movie, but i don't get why they fought so hard/found it so important for her to continue teaching them junior&senior year and what about all her other classes?

[–] alkamal_r 17 years ago

That was the dumbest part of the movie for me, like it was some huge victory that she can teach them for the next two yers. What a bunch of babies. What's the big deal if they're taught by different teachers anyway? It's not as if she was teaching them for all their classes. Everyone else in the whole flipping world copes like that, why can't they? "Nah miss Gee, this our kickin' spot". Well school isn't a kicking spot you fool, it's to learn, now learn how to speak properly, read the books like they tell you to and get a frickin' education you dumbasses.

Ironically, this isn't even ironic at all.

[–] charlottedunne 17 years ago

i love this film with all my heart, but i dont agree that she should of kept them for 2 more years and followed them to college.
she made such an impact in their lives, imagine what she could do with another class and another and another after that!

[–] xoxfresswataxox 17 years ago

I agree with the OP. I think that it's nice that she gets to teach them another 2 years but I feel that should have made more of a difference if she taught a brand new sets of students and touch their lives as well. just a thought!

[–] texasturkey 17 years ago

That is the part of the movie I disliked. In the real world, people have to cope. Coddling all of those kids like that won't help them. They need to move on and work with other teachers and kids. It is part of the maturing process which helps them grow into adulthood. I could understand how that decision infuriated the other teachers.

[–] ajstars1183 17 years ago

I see your point, and as a teacher I know that students need to experience different situations to learn. However, in the case of these students, their home and social lives were not stable. The sense of family and stability that that class provided could have been enormously helpful to their academic and emotional growth (which was stunted for most of them not because a lack of intellect, rather unfortunate environmental situations in their lives). It may not be a good idea for a lot of students, but I can see the benefits in this case.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] trimby99 17 years ago

The part of the movie that was most unbelievable was the portrayal of the two other teachers. OK - maybe there were two horribly racist people in the school's staff (which I don't believe any educator could be as one-dimensional as they were), but you know if a teacher went on a racist tirade like her colleague did in the teacher's lounge, *someone* would have stuck up for her or offered her words of encouragement on the down low.

I know many white teachers who teach in inner city schools and most of the teachers *care* A LOT. So I find it hard to believe that she was some single beacon of decency and inspiration at the school. It was like the story took place in a vacuum with a set number of actors with speaking roles.

Hollywood knew that her following the kids up through college was bizarre and wouldn't play well unless they changed the story to make it like she was all alone and if she didn't follow them they would be taught by teachers who despise them and would fail them just out of spite. But they left so much out that the whole movie seemed fake.

I think what people are railing against isn't that she followed them, but that the movie did a terrible job of building up to the point where it could treat it as some kind of victory. The movie didn't show us enough of their other classes, the other teachers or the family atmosphere in her classroom for us to feel that way. And it also portrayed almost all of them as so well-adjusted by the end that you wonder why they couldn't succeed without her acting as pseudo-mom.

If you want to see some excellent movies in this genre that don't dumb down the story and turn everyone into a caricature try "Stand and Deliver" and "Lean on Me". And if you want to watch a really cheesy movie where a teacher turns around a group of gang members by using capoeira, check out "Only the Strong".

[–] joann112270 15 years ago

I know many white teachers who teach in inner city schools and most of the teachers *care* A LOT...

I know the teachers were racist but they were angry about the school board forcing them to accept lower caliber students at that once top rated school. They were not accustomed to the violence they were seeing on a daily basis, (not that it made it okay to make the comments that they made.) I just think that they were
extremely stressed and didn't quite know how to handle the situation correctly. They obviously didn't handle it correctly.

As for going on to college with them, I agree. I think she should have stayed on and taught in the HS. I think she could do more good there. (IMHO)

Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty. ~John Adams

[–] Setheleh 17 years ago

"just shows how white people really are they do not give damn about other races but themselves"

Wtf do you mean by that? Just because someone doesn't give a damn about other races, just themselves, doesn't mean that all people are like that..

-I wish I knew how to quit you.
-Well, why don't you? Why don't you just let me be?

[–] francescodarcangeli-1 17 years ago

I dunno how it works in the US but here in Italy usually a teacher keeps all of his/her students from first year at high school (I suppose it's 9th grade) to the fifth (last) year, unless (s)he is moves away, becomes ill or whatever.
Once you get the qualifications to teach you can teach to all classes. And that is even more true for such an important subject like English (Italian in my country of course :D)

Indeed, a lot of teaching/education science scholars will tell you that it is BETTER that way, it is called "continuity of education process" or something like that.

Also, I think that she was so deeply touched by the bond she had formed with her students that she preferred to follow them rather than teach new ones, well, I too think she'd better stay at school and teach other kids.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] xlove-me-not 17 years ago

Yeah, seriously.
They can't expect to have Ms.G forever...
They need to learn to move on while keeping in sight all of the new things they've learned and all of the lessons they've taught themselves.
Ms.G didn't do it for them...she just gave them that push. And now it's about time for them to take off the training wheels and really move on.
And there's other kids just like them who needed Ms.G so she should be there for them...
It bothers me that someone as smart as her wouldn't realize that she needs to push other kids too, and that she won't always be there for the kids she'd already helped out.

I'm still here, b*tches. And I know everything. -A (PRETTY LITTLE LIARS <3)

[–] doodwithbooks 17 years ago

I think both sides are extremely legit. It's true to a fact, if SHE truly had an impact on them, maybe it should have been enough, and they could grow to the point where they can go to class, do their homework, and try to assimilate into a typical environment of teaching that alot of people across the country do get to enjoy. Going from one instructor is a change EVERY student usually copes with, it is just part of life.

But I also didn't go to school with maybe 5 teachers that didn't give a crap about me (as the movie seems to make it out to be, at least from the student's perspective). I also understand those kids weren't exactly born at the same starting line as many other people, and its really valid to say they did get real comfortable with the set-up the teacher made by what she did for them, and how she cared, and maybe it did influence them in a everlasting way. I'm guessing that is how Mrs. G saw it, if in fact these kids went from straight-up gangsters to genuinely wanting to change, and showing it.
i honestly think its an open-ended question, and there isn't a real answer to it.

[–] drew_graham1 17 years ago

I agree that she shouldn't have been allowed to go with them to their further years. It's like keeping a child close to its mother and never letting it leave home. If Mrs. Gruwell did her job, like the other faculty said, they should have no problem going forward in their studies with other teachers. Instead, she forced them to have a dependency on her which apparently continued even until they were all in college.

I would hate to be in the next class who doesn't get to benefit from her tutelage, they're all going to end up killing each other and doping up.

http://asg.homelinux.org , http://kuabci.blogspot.com

[–] joedogboy68 11 years ago

In most American high schools, you have six or seven different classes each year, each with a different teacher. You may get one or two teachers in more than one year - usually in specialized subjects - for example, there may be only one music teacher, drama teacher, journalism teacher, French teacher, Spanish teacher, etc. at the school, so students who take those classes every year will often have the opportunity to repeat with elective teachers.

Most English teachers teach two (or more) different "preps" (which can be different types of class, different grade levels, or different types of class within the same grade level), so it is possible to have a teacher for more than one year, but not guaranteed.

Some schools have "small learning communities" where the same group (or "cohort") of students will have the same teacher for two years in a row - Freshman and Sophomore or Junior and Senior. These small learning communities are designed to allow teachers to get to know their students better, and for students to get more comfortable by being around the same group of students. The fact that the school in Freedom Writers was set up to keep students in the same English classes for 9th and 10th grade back in the early 1990s shows that it was already implementing some very forward thinking teaching strategies. It would have made more sense for her to make the case that, since the school's existing policy of having students remain with the same English teacher for two years helped the students to perform well, extending it out to four years would yield even better results.

Some things have to be adjusted to make a good film. While she had 150 students spread across five classes in real life, the film shows us only a handful of students in a single class - and there isn't much time to really develop even that handful of characters. The attitudes and behaviors of the other members of her department shown in the film are probably exaggerated for dramatic effect, reducing them to one dimensional villains - movies often do that, because audiences find it easier to identify a person, rather than circumstances, as the villain that needs to be overcome.

I was disappointed that the film failed to show any other teachers giving her support. If the students started to improve their attendance and performance in their other classes as a result of the breakthroughs made in their English classes, it would be natural for other teachers to note those changes and support them. The principal seems to come around a little, but we don't see any math, history, science, or elective teachers in the film. There is no reason for that omission - especially with the time they decided to spend on her marriage and divorce.

The real life Gruwell spent four years teaching English to the same group of students, and then moved on to teaching education at the college level. This disturbs me as well, since she moved on before replicating her success with another cohort of students. The cynic in me sees her time at the high school as merely a stepping stone on her career ladder - much like those "educators" who spend the minimum required two or three years teaching and then jump to administrative positions.

[–] Shenanyginz 17 years ago

I agree with the OP. If anything not only can Ms G make a difference in other students live but so can the students themselves. I think that would've been more powerful but you can't change a true story I guess...
But I guess we're supposed to believe that after junior and senior year, Ms G helped them into college and they grew up to change the lives of those after them in a better way?

RIP Heath Ledger (1979-2008)
http://whereshenanyginzisat.blogspot.com/

[–] navarro_wantbe 17 years ago

this was an annoying part in the movie. i feel that she'd just keep cradling them instead of letting them learn to make decisions for themselves. Mrs. G isn't going to be with them for the rest of their lives and she could have taught other students.

[–] dancequeen407 17 years ago

I loved this movie, but I agree, she should have used her talents to help other kids learn to get along, realize their full potential, and offere the same family for them. If they were so cool with each other, then they would have stayed in touch even if they weren't in the same class. I didn't like Imelda Staunton's character, but I agreed, if Ms. G had prepeared them as well as she thought, she should have had enough faith in them to let them go on to other teachers. She had really good methods, but they could have had other teachers offer them something different than she did.

[–] snowstorm211 16 years ago

If you've read the book that this movie is based on then you will know that Ms. G gos all the way through with them, and the book is actually on all the classes she teaches in that year, not just the students seen in the movie.
In the book you can see even more clearly just how much good it does to those kids and the others that they influence, to have Ms. G with them the whole way.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] Anna_la_Pineapple 16 years ago

Yes in the movie it doesn't even acknowledge that this teacher or the students themselves have any other classes at all.

And then to move onto University with them.... what!

How is such a newbie high school teacher even qualified to be teaching university english?

Smart went crazy... where did you go?

[–] Kraftzy 16 years ago

I agree,I was pretty sure I heard in the film that the she taught 4 classes and 150 students in all.Though the film only focusses on the freedom writers.However I could be wrong.

and im pretty sure these kids didn't only go to school to learn english,they would've had other classes too.

[–] elemoncelli 16 years ago

The movie focused on English because that's what Ms G taught, of course her students had other classes.

Of her 150 Students 149 went on to college and were successful on their own. A few of them work for the Freedom Writers Foundation. "Jamal" her toughest student became a middle school teacher. She is qualified to teacher college because she has a graduate degree (earned before she stepped into Room 203) then combined with her added experiences within Room 203 she is a valuable resource to the California State University system.

[–] MaraudersFan 16 years ago

At the start of the movie when she is talking to that lady she says she will have four classes roughly 150 students. For the story it made sense to focus strictly on one class and develop those characters/students then to have to do the same for four classes.

It seems unclear if she went on to teach strictly 11 and 12 graders or if she was teaching all four grades or if that class was the only one that she got for 11 and 12 graders. In my high school I had teachers that taught all four grades. My freshmen English Teacher I got her my senior year for creative writing.

Yes certainly the students could have visited her or even had get togethers whether at school or at that hotel that she took them to several times. Her class was more then a class to them it was a family in a sense an anchor of sorts, where they could truly be themselves many of them didn’t have that benefit outside the classroom.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

That's actually true. Despite not being in the SAME CLASS, they still go to the SAME SCHOOL and Miss G is still THERE.

They could have visited, kept in touch and the kids in the class can still continue to hang out with each other. I mean......eventually they all graduated! They can't expect to be in that room forever lol.