Freedom Writers ~ 1.5.07

[treblk]

Though the story needs to be told, I am really tired of movies like this, "white" teacher goes into a "bad" school and changes the students. It's been done over and over again. Just my opinion.

[pinkies up]

Cosign Treblk. It's like saying in order for "bad" schools to change, they need a great white hope to come in and help. I say nothing can compare to "Lean on Me". "The used to call me crazy Joe, now they call me BatMan". Priceless...

[redblackdelta]

Originally Posted by treblk

Though the story needs to be told, I am really tired of movies like this, "white" teacher goes into a "bad" school and changes the students. It's been done over and over again. Just my opinion.

oh trust me soror, i feel you on that one. i don't want to give away the movie since i don't know how much they tell of what really happened. but i will say this..... after old girl got acclaim in california, she left the classroom for politics. hmm, perhaps for change, perhaps for???????

meanwhile, i'm still grinding in my classroom eerry day. where's my movie???? i know who i want to play me too. ME!

[tld221]

Originally Posted by CrimsonTide4

I love teacher movies and this one looks good, reminiscent of Dangerous Minds.

http://www.freedomwriters.com/

http://www.myspace.com/freedomwriters

A dedicated California teacher finds a way to unify her disadvantaged, racially divided students, and to improve their grasp of academics, partly by having them keep journals about their violent, troubled lives.

Originally Posted by treblk

Though the story needs to be told, I am really tired of movies like this, "white" teacher goes into a "bad" school and changes the students. It's been done over and over again. Just my opinion.

Originally Posted by redblackdelta

oh trust me soror, i feel you on that one. i don't want to give away the movie since i don't know how much they tell of what really happened. but i will say this..... after old girl got acclaim in california, she left the classroom for politics. hmm, perhaps for change, perhaps for???????

meanwhile, i'm still grinding in my classroom eerry day. where's my movie???? i know who i want to play me too. ME!

HUGE CO-SIGN! its definitely a movie you can play a drinking game to cause its so over the top cliche. i mean i can do two shots off the movie description alone. but these kinds of movies have the same layout and makes me not even wanna wait for the DVD... ill wait a few years til it comes on TNT or TBS.

• sincere, well-to-do white teacher
• troubled inner-city youth (ALWAYS LA, NYC or Chicago, not realizing there are troubled kids EVERYWHERE!)
• many over-the-top climaxes, including a student who tells her off and in the end becomes the star student, a shootout where said student gets shot or killed, a parent who tells the teacher "we were better off before you got here"
• the faceoff between administrators and said teachers
• the moment where said teacher breaks down, either in a bathroom stall or when she gets home
• an ending where the teacher makes it through their first year and cant wait to do it again, or they move on to another school, where the students tell her "i cant believe youre leaving us like this! you all do this!"
• cameo music performance for the movie's soundtrack
• and of course, whatever subject it takes to get the message across that the student is somebody and that they dont have to live "like this" (this time it's through journals, but as we have seen, it can be dance, art, singing, even math)

i've been in this scenario in real-life. i was slated to work as a teacher's aide in a high school where the teacher was this mid-30s white guy who had worked in the finance sector for a few years and wanted to teach math to "give back and help the kids." i mean, damn, teaching is not like a community service project, its an actual job and career like anyone else's. i only lasted there a couple weeks cause that man didnt know what he was doing in the classroom with the material OR with the kids.

Then I was placed in a special ed class where another guy (white guy from Nebraska, went to UPenn for COMPUTER SCIENCE) was in the teaching fellows. another guy who wanted to "help the kids" but how? you arent trained in any way more than i am to help kids who need more than a good teacher who knows their stuff. again, only lasted there a week (that may be stretching it even) and i had to give him pep talks at lunch cause he didn't think he'd be able to last (if youre not familiar with teaching fellows, its like a 3 year commitment, but it was STILL SEPTEMBER! he was a 2005 graduate, we were the SAME AGE!)

long story short, echoing what everyone else is saying.

[MeezDiscreet]

Originally Posted by treblk

Though the story needs to be told, I am really tired of movies like this, "white" teacher goes into a "bad" school and changes the students. It's been done over and over again. Just my opinion.

I TOTALLY feel you on this soror!

I feel like I should write a book. But my book won't be all sunshine--it'll be REAL gritty and will include many of the teachers of the "white hope" type and how they figure out by their second year that it isn't what they want to do anymore...among other things.

[redblackdelta]

Originally Posted by MeezDiscreet

I TOTALLY feel you on this soror!

I feel like I should write a book. But my book won't be all sunshine--it'll be REAL gritty and will include many of the teachers of the "white hope" type and how they figure out by their second year that it isn't what they want to do anymore...among other things.

after a decade in the classroom i noticed that some of the white hope teachers use a certain weapon to get them over. they cry. about everything.
we may nag, whine, shout, threaten to go postal but they cry and depending on who's listening, sometimes get results.

so i started using this acronym:
When in dispair get Buffy First Year teacher to use the PCWW
Power of a Crying White Woman

[MeezDiscreet]

Originally Posted by redblackdelta

after a decade in the classroom i noticed that some of the white hope teachers use a certain weapon to get them over. they cry. about everything.
we may nag, whine, shout, threaten to go postal but they cry and depending on who's listening, sometimes get results.

so i started using this acronym:
When in dispair get Buffy First Year teacher to use the PCWW
Power of a Crying White Woman

LOL--Imma hafta use that one soror!

[AKADIVA12]

Originally Posted by treblk

Though the story needs to be told, I am really tired of movies like this, "white" teacher goes into a "bad" school and changes the students. It's been done over and over again. Just my opinion.

I feel you on this one. Are there no black teachers who have had a positive influence and changed the lives of black kids? This topic is just played if you ask me.

[PEARLS4ME]

Originally Posted by AKADIVA12

I feel you on this one. Are there no black teachers who have had a positive influence and changed the lives of black kids? This topic is just played if you ask me.

I was saying the exact same thing. I watched Stand and Deliver today about a "brown" man saving "brown" children. Minority teachers who teach at "bad" schools are not movie worthy because we do so many exceptional things everyday that we make it seem easy.

[dzfan]

I think that's a bit of an overreaction in this particular movie's case - it's based on a true story, and the real teacher was a white woman (she was on the View today).

Personally, I think it looks like a good movie; I like inspirational stories and everything.

[tld221]

Originally Posted by dzfan

I think that's a bit of an overreaction in this particular movie's case - it's based on a true story, and the real teacher was a white woman (she was on the View today).

Personally, I think it looks like a good movie; I like inspirational stories and everything.

i feel like you're missing the point... the fact that the story is based on a true story doesnt change the fact that people are tired of movies like this. it becomes overdone and cliche, and when you look at it racially, it gives this image of white people being the rescuer to the minorities who need rescuing, which leaves a bad taste in some people's mouth.

this movie (the trailer, anyway) doesnt show us anything different than similar movies of the sort. it's kinda cut and dry, fill-in-the-blank-type storyline. you have to wonder why this woman's story (of all the people doing great things in the world) is being told. someone mentioned the real-life woman is now in politics - so i wouldnt be surprised at all if it was a campaign move.

so tell me how that's an overreaction.

[lovelyivy84]

Fully co-sign.

Even my very white boyfriend who HAS been a teacher in an inner city school (along with other white people, black people and even hispanic and asian people, wow!) turned to me when he saw the trailer for this and was like "they're making this movie again?"

My mother is a teacher, I grew up around teachers and have worked in a number of schools. "Great white hope" teachers generally don't last. People who come in knowing it's a job, developing their skills as teachers,with commitment to the kids and the courage to put themselves out there regardless of race do. If you come in with a bullisht save the brown people attitude you are not going to make it.

But it seems like we never see any other teacher stories on the screen (except Lean On Me- LOVED that one).

Originally Posted by tld221

i feel like you're missing the point... the fact that the story is based on a true story doesnt change the fact that people are tired of movies like this. it becomes overdone and cliche, and when you look at it racially, it gives this image of white people being the rescuer to the minorities who need rescuing, which leaves a bad taste in some people's mouth.

this movie (the trailer, anyway) doesnt show us anything different than similar movies of the sort. it's kinda cut and dry, fill-in-the-blank-type storyline. you have to wonder why this woman's story (of all the people doing great things in the world) is being told. someone mentioned the real-life woman is now in politics - so i wouldnt be surprised at all if it was a campaign move.

so tell me how that's an overreaction.

[jojapeach]

I'm generally colorblind when looking at some situations, but this one is glaringly annoying. I like the journaling concept in this movie, but the better movie was "The Ron Clark Story" on TNT. It fell in line with the Great White Hope genre, but the only singing was the Tribute to The Presidents rap. It was a good story for TNT, and I'm wating for "Freedom Writers" to join the TNT lineup.

[Sistermadly]

Originally Posted by lovelyivy84

Even my very white boyfriend who HAS been a teacher in an inner city school (along with other white people, black people and even hispanic and asian people, wow!) turned to me when he saw the trailer for this and was like "they're making this movie again?"

There was an excellent op-ed in the Guardian (UK) newspaper about the whole "white crusaders/brown savages" theme that runs through Hollywood films. It was written about Blood Diamond, but also touches on films like The Interpreter, The Constant Gardener, Glory, and To Kill a Mockingbird:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/...982608,00.html

From the article:
Pioneeringly foolish, To Kill a Mockingbird establishes the basic theme of all Three Cheers for Whitey! movies: Yes, there are many bad white people out there who do some terrible, terrible things to black people. But when the chips are down and black people are poised on the very precipice of disaster, they can always rely on some thoroughly decent white folks to step in and make sure that justice prevails.

The only movie where there was a white teacher (protagonist) who played against a black student that came off feeling somewhat genuine was Half Nelson with Ryan Gosling and Shameeka Epps. If you haven't seen it, rent it.

[Sistermadly]

Originally Posted by treblk

Though the story needs to be told, I am really tired of movies like this, "white" teacher goes into a "bad" school and changes the students. It's been done over and over again. Just my opinion.

And it's an opinion I share. Even though the longer trailer shows that the performances of some of the students demand close attention, the whole white savior teaching the "uncivilized brown masses" trope is SO. TIRED. That a movie like this can be greenlit in this day and age leaves a bad taste in my mouth.