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I immediately decided to throw out my meticulously planned lessons and make tolerance the core of my curriculum.

From that moment on, I would try to bring history to life by using new books, inviting guest speakers, and going on field trips. Since I was just a student teacher, I had no budget for my schemes. So, I moonlighted as a concierge at the Marriott Hotel and sold lingerie at Nordstrom. My dad even asked me, “Why can’t you just be a normal teacher?”

Actually, normalcy didn’t seem so bad after my first snafu. I took my students to see Schindler’s List in Newport Beach, at a predominately white, upper-class theater. I was shocked to see women grab their pearls and clutch their purses in fear. A local paper ran a front-page article about the incident, describing how poorly my students were treated, after which I received death threats. One of my disgruntled neighbors had the audacity to say, “If you love black people so much, why don’t you just marry a monkey?”

All this drama and I didn’t even have my teaching credentials yet. Luckily, some of my professors from University of California—Irvine read the article and invited my class to a seminar by the author of Schindler’s List, Thomas Keneally. Keneally was so impressed by my students that a few days later we got an invitation to meet Steven Spielberg at Universal Studios. I couldn’t believe it! The famous director wanted to meet the class that I had dubbed “as colorful as a box of Crayola crayons” and their “rookie teacher who was causing waves.” He marveled at how far these “unteachable” students had come as a junior class and what a close group they had become. He even asked Sharaud what “we” were planning to do next year as an encore. After all, if a film does well, you make a sequel—if a class surpasses everyone’s expectations, you…

…dismantle it! Yep, that’s exactly what happened. Upon my return from Universal, the head of the English department told me, “You’re making us look bad.” Talk about bursting my bubble! How was I making them look bad? After all, these were the same kids that “wouldn’t last a month” or “were too stupid” to read advanced placement books.

She went on to say, “Things are based on seniority around here.” So, in other words, I was lucky to have a job, and keeping Sharaud and his posse another year would be pushing the envelope. Instead, I’d be teaching freshmen—“at risk” freshmen. Hmm…not exactly the assignment I was hoping for.

So, starting tomorrow, it’s back to the drawing board. But I’m convinced that if Sharaud could change, then anyone can. So basically, I should prepare myself for a roomful of Sharauds. If it took a month to win Sharaud over…I wonder how long it’s gonna take a bunch of feisty fourteen-year-olds to come around?

FREEDOM WRITERS’ NOTE

Each teenager played an integral role in developing the diary entries—reading, editing, and encouraging one another. To protect their anonymity and illustrate the universality of their experiences, we decided to number each diary entry rather than attach a name.

The students have shared their life experiences freely, without inhibition.

Diary 1

Dear Diary,

I always thought that “odd” was a three-letter word; but today I found out it has seven, and they spell G-r-u-w-e-l-l. My freshman English teacher is way out there. I wonder how she got this job. The administrators should have known better than to give her this class, but I guess she didn’t know any better than to take it. How is she going to handle four classes full of this school’s rejects? Most people at this school doubt that we can even read or write.

She probably drives a new car, lives in a three-story house, and owns like five hundred pairs of shoes. It seems to me that she belongs across the hall with the Distinguished Scholars. Yeah, she would fit in nicely there; she and those supposedly gifted white kids who think they’re better than everybody else. She walked in here on “I’m sweet and I care about you” mode. It’s not going to work. We all know she