The Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell [23]
If I let a few other teachers chase me away from Wilson, the kids would be the ultimate losers. They would think that I, like so many others, had bailed on them. I realized I needed to finish what I had started. Besides, I didn’t become a teacher to win any congeniality contests. So I decided to stay at Wilson and devote my energy to teaching literature, rather than perpetuating petty rivalries.
By staying, I’ll have the majority of the students I had last year. In addition to them, I’ll be getting a whole new crop—the kids nobody else wants! My class has become a dumping ground for disciplinary transfers, kids in rehab or those on probation. But if Sharaud, who graduated in June, could turn his life around, there is hope for these new students yet. Ironically, “hope” is one of the few four-letter words not in their vocabulary.
When I asked one of my freshmen if he thought he’d graduate, he said. “Graduate? Hell, I don’t even know if I’ll make it to my sixteenth birthday!” To some of these kids, death seems more real than a diploma.
Their fatalistic attitude influenced my literature choices for this year. Since the incident with the racist note segued into a unit on tolerance, I’m going to revisit and expand on that theme. I’ve ordered four books about teens in crisis: The Wave by Todd Strasser; Night by Elie Wiesel; Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo. The last two will be the focal point of the curriculum.
It’s uncanny how many similarities my students have with Anne and Zlata. Since many of my students are fifteen, and Zlata is fifteen and Anne Frank was fifteen when she died, I think the parallels between age, alienation, and teenage angst will really hit home for them.
Anne Frank’s book was a natural choice, but I was really excited to discover the book by the young Bosnian writer, who critics are hailing as a “modern-day Anne Frank.” Scope magazine’s cover story about Zlata Filipovic last spring inspired me to read her diary about war-torn Bosnia. Zlata began keeping a diary when she was ten. She called it “Mimmy”—similar to how Anne Frank called her diary “Kitty.” Just as Anne’s life changed dramatically under the Nazi occupation, so did Zlata’s during the war in Sarajevo. Suddenly, Zlata’s focus switched from her studies and watching MTV to the closing of her school and the destruction of the national library. As the war progressed, she experienced and chronicled food shortages, artillery shelling, and the death of children.
In 1991, at the age of eleven, as Zlata watched her once peaceful city erupt in war, my students witnessed Los Angeles literally burn in the wake of the Rodney King verdict; as Zlata dodged sniper fire in the streets where she once played, my students dodged stray bullets from drive-by shootings; as Zlata watched her friends killed by the senseless violence of war, my students watched friends get killed by senseless gang violence. In Sarajevo, Zlata described how soldiers used a “black crayon of war” to put an “S” on Serbs, a “C” on Croats, and an “M” on Muslims. I think my students could argue that they, too, have experienced a “black crayon” of sorts, labeling them with a “W” for white, a “B” for black, an “L” for Latino, and an “A” for Asian.
I think my students will be able to identify with the teen protagonists in all of the books I’ve selected. But since the books won’t arrive for a while, I’m going to have them read short stories and plays that they’ll be able to relate to. I think they’ll be surprised how life mirrors art.
Diary 24
Dear Diary,
5:00 A.M.—The sound of my alarm clock woke me to a dark room this morning. The sun wasn’t out yet, so I decided not to get up. My clock saw things differently and kept beeping.
So I thanked my clock by throwing it on the floor. The beeping stopped. As I looked over to see where