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| Freedom Writers Diary Erin Gruwell |
2017 Reading Challenge - Day 3
January 3, 2017
Book 1 - Freedom Writers Diary
Part 3 - Pages 108-165
Reading Time - 1 hour
The students and their teacher have decided to edit their diary entries and gather them into a booklet or book format. By mutual consent they have agreed to make the entries anonymous. As they read each other's entries, they realize that they are not the only ones who have been abused or raped. They are not alone. They also begin to recognize the danger of silence, of not speaking up. I can sense that they are moving out of their guilt and shame into a place of self-reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of their authors for the semester and he speaks passionately about self-reliance.
I am rather ashamed to admit that, aside from a few poems, I haven't read Emerson at all. Nor Thoreau. Nor Salinger. On the other hand, in reading the Freedom Writers, I do want to read Emerson! He's got some great quotes and I want to read them in context. One of the quotes that the students grasp is "to be great is to be misunderstood". These are students who have been misunderstood most of their lives. They are labeled as stupid and dumb when they are anything but that. Emerson's quote makes them believe in themselves. As one of the students notes, "no one comes from a perfect home". That is absolute truth. No matter how good someone's life seems, if you were to dig a little deeper, peek behind the curtains, you would see dysfunction.
In reading their stories, I am appalled at the violence in their lives which seems so different and so removed from my life. I easily slide into "they have an extraordinary life - they have something to write about". I also recognize though... that in some circles, my life might seem extraordinary. And that some might read the story of my life and find things that resonate for them because they have experienced similar things.
Emerson's take on self-reliance seems to be "trust yourself". He laments the fact that we don't trust our own thoughts, our own sentiments. And then we hear it from someone else and realize that we had been thinking the same thoughts, or had the same idea weeks or months ago, and yet ours was never spoken.
"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius."
That's the kicker for me though... to believe that the things that I think might have universal applicability... to believe that what I have to say has value, not just to me but to others. Those Freedom Writers students struggled with the same ideas but quickly realized that they could connect to the writings of Anne Frank and Zlata Filipovic. The trick would be to recognize that their own writings speak to others. Looks like they are getting there... question is... am I?
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