Oct. Meeting

Our Oct. meeting information is as follows,

Leader:

Book: The freedom writers diary 街頭日記

Date: Monday, Oct. 5, 2009

Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm
Our study group starts at 1:00pm sharp. Therefore we would assume that any orders (drinks or lunch) are taken care of before we start.

Place: Proroyal 王牌西餐廳市府分店
Address: No. 359, Si-Wei 2nd Road, Kaohsiung City 高雄市苓雅區四維二路359號
Tel: 07-3354466



The freedom writers diary內容簡介
一個關於「相信」就能改變，「用心」創造奇蹟的師生故事
203教室不只是教室，而是我們的閣樓、地下室與歡樂場…… 在這裡，我們扭轉了宿命，實現了夢想。有誰能料到問題學生會有今天？但我們做到了！
《街頭日記》集結有青年學子發人深省的日記及老師古薇爾的筆記，是一部凸顯努力、勇氣與決心如何扭轉師生未來的動人佳作。
初出茅廬、充滿理想的艾琳‧古薇爾，在加州長堤的威爾森高中擔任英文老師，負責教導一堂英文課，包含拉丁裔、墨西哥裔、亞裔、白人等混合的問題學生，家庭問題、幫派、暴力和死亡，是學生每天面對的挑戰。
透過閱讀名著以及書寫日記，古薇爾老師帶領學生展開一場消弭偏執和誤解，徹底顛覆人生、大開眼界、啟迪人心的學習之旅，改變這些孩子對人生和種族的看法，變得積極、有自信，對自己的未來懷抱希望，順利自高中畢業上大學，並成立「自由寫手」基金會，鼓勵與他們境遇相似的人，追求希望！
★本書集結了艾琳．古薇爾以及150青年學子發人深省的日記，描述這位充滿熱情與理想的年輕老師，如何用閱讀和寫作，扭轉了這150位桀傲不馴中學生的宿命，讓這群曾被放棄的青少年，以自己脫胎換骨的人生作為見證，成為改變世界的力量，是一部適合師生共讀的動人佳作。
★派拉蒙電影公司翻拍本書原著，由金獎影后希拉蕊．史旺（Hillary Swank）領銜主演。
★本書中譯本由天下雜誌出版。
作者簡介
艾琳．古薇爾（Erin Gruwell）
1994年開始擔任中學英文老師，帶了一班所謂「放牛班」的學生。她以各種文學作品，如《Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl 安妮的日記》、《Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo 莎拉塔的圍城日記》讓學生看到自己的處境（幫派、暴力威脅、沒有尊嚴），從閱讀中得到激勵。她為了學生募款贊助，使學生有「新書」可讀、能到紐約參訪，開拓他們的視野，並使這群學生個個順利從高中畢業！

　　Straight from the front line of urban America, the inspiring story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students.
　　As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long beach, California, Erin Gruwell confronted a room of ”unteachable, at-risk” students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature, and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust--only to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students, using the treasured books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo as their guides, undertook a life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels in these books to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the ”Freedom Writers” in homage to the civil rights activists ”The Freedom Riders.”
　　With funds raised by a ”Read-a-thon for Tolerance,” they arranged for Miep Gies, the courageous Dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family, to visit them in California, where she declared that Erin Gruwell’s students were ”the real heroes.” Their efforts have paid off spectacularly, both in terms of recognition--appearances on ”Prime Time Live” and ”All Things Considered,” coverage in People magazine, a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley--and educationally. All 150 Freedom Writers have graduated from high school and are now attending college.
　　With powerful entries from the students’ own diaries and a narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is anuplifting, unforgettable example of how hard work, courage, and the spirit of determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students.
　　The authors’ proceeds from this book will be donated to The Tolerance Education Foundation, an organization set up to pay for the Freedom Writers’ college tuition. Erin Gruwell is now a visiting professor at California State University, Long Beach, where some of her students are Freedom Writers.


Freshman Year
Fall 1994
Entry 1 — Ms. Gruwell

Dear Diary, Tomorrow morning, my journey as an English teacher officially begins. Since first impressions are so important, I wonder what my students will think about me. Will they think I’m out of touch or too preppy? Or worse yet, that I’m too young to be taken seriously? Maybe I’ll have them write a journal entry describing what their expectations are of me and the class.

Even though I spent last year as a student teacher at Wilson High School, I’m still learning my way around the city. Long Beach is so different than the gated community I grew up in. Thanks to MTV dubbing Long Beach as the “gangsta–rap capital” with its depiction of guns and graffiti, my friends have a warped perception of the city, or L B C as the rappers refer to it. They think I should wear a bulletproof vest rather than pearls. Where I live in Newport Beach is a utopia compared to some of neighborhoods seen in a Snoop Doggy Dogg video. Still, TV tends to blow things out of proportion.

The school is actually located in a safe neighborhood, just a few miles from the ocean. Its location and reputation make it desirable. So much so that a lot of the students that live in what they call the “’hood” take two or three buses just to get to school every day. Students come in from every corner of the city: Rich kids from the shore sit next to poor kids from the projects … there’s every race, religion, and culture within the confines of the quad. But since the Rodney King riots, racial tension has spilled over into the school.

Due to busing and an outbreak in gang activity, Wilson’s traditional white, upper–class demographics have changed radically. African Americans, Latinos, and Asians now make up the majority of the student body.

As a student teacher last year, I was pretty naive. I wanted to see past color and culture, but I was immediately confronted by it when the first bell rang and a student named Sharaud sauntered in bouncing a basketball. He was a junior, a disciplinary transfer from Wilson’s crosstown rival, and his reputation preceded him. Word was that he had threatened his previous English teacher with a gun (which I later found out was only a plastic water gun, but it had all the makings of a dramatic showdown). In those first few minutes, he made it brutally clear that he hated Wilson, he hated English, and he hated me. His sole purpose was to make his “preppy” student teacher cry. Little did he know that within a month, he’d be the one crying.

Sharaud became the butt of a bad joke. A classmate got tired of Sharaud’s antics and drew a racial caricature of him with huge, exaggerated lips. As the drawing made its way around the class, the other students laughed hysterically. When Sharaud saw it, he looked as if he was going to cry. For the first time, his tough facade began to crack.

When I got a hold of the picture, I went ballistic. “This is the type of propaganda that the Nazis used during the Holocaust,”I yelled. When a student timidly asked me, “What’s the Holocaust?” I was shocked.

I asked, “How many of you have heard of the Holocaust?”Not a single person raised his hand. Then I asked, “How many of you have been shot at?”Nearly every hand went up.

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?

http://www.books.com.tw/fbooks/series/series0767924908-1.php