Erin Gruwell: The Teacher Who Inspired Change

by Stephanie Gray

There is a quote I’ve placed above my desk by William Arthur Ward which captures the spirit of this week’s beINSPIRED hero, Erin Gruwell: “The mediocre teacher tells.  The good teacher explains.  The superior teacher demonstrates.  The great teacher inspires.”

In the early 90s, in the wake of the Rodney King riots, Erin Gruwell was a student teacher at a Long Beach high school where racial tensions ran high.  The class she was assigned encompassed troubled kids, the ones who typically fail out, the ones considered “unteachables.”

Many of her students were in gangs, from broken homes, and in and out of juvenile detention.   After her first day where she learned metal detectors were a common occurrence, rude remarks from students prevailed, and a warning about a student’s potential to shoot a teacher was declared, Erin left deflated and disheartened. 

She reflected, “I felt like a failure.  It was obvious that I didn’t know what I was doing.  I had no idea how to engage these apathetic teenagers who hated reading, hated writing, and apparently hated me.”

So how is it possible, that in a few short years, all of Erin’s 150 students would graduate from high school?  How is it possible that these students who hated school would not only start reading their assignments, but enjoy them?  How is it possible that students who hated writing would share their stories in the now-published book The Freedom Writers Diaries?  How is it possible that students from rival gangs who hated each other would break the racial divide and form a bond of friendship?

It is possible because Erin demonstrated character which distinguishes those who inspire from those who do not.  Erin refused to give up on her students.  In the face of them not caring about school, she sought to help them care, instead of abandoning them to their apathy.  She worked sacrificially and tirelessly to be a support and encouragement to these young people.  She sought creative ways to inspire them to want to learn, analogizing their life experiences with that of other people, like Anne Frank. 

Erin wrote, “After hearing, ‘Ms. G, this doesn’t have anything to do with my life,’ more than once, I made it my mission to prove my students wrong by finding ways to make my lessons speak to their experiences and tap into their talents.”

Indeed, she demonstrated masterful skill in bringing stories to life and helping students learn from history.  She introduced her students to living witnesses of great hardship—Holocaust survivors and Zlata Filipovich who authored A Child’s Life in Sarajevo—showing them that one’s present circumstances don’t have to determine their future.

She showed them that no matter how troubling one’s situation, it is possible to rise above the ashes—if we choose.  Erin Gruwell inspired her students to choose a different way from gang violence and mediocrity—she inspired them to choose to aspire to greatness.

Erin faced many challenges, from resistant students to resistant colleagues and school administrators.  It was no easy task to transform the lives of these students, and in the times of hardship it would have been easy for Erin to give up, to quit and find an easier school, an easier job.

But Erin knew that when it comes to making choices in life, it’s not always about what’s easy, but rather, what’s right.

In her memoir, Teach With Your Heart, Gruwell wrote,

“While I was in college, a young Chinese student stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square.  Not only did he stop the advancement of the tanks, but he captured my imagination as well.  I was amazed that one person could stop the forces of evil dead in its tracks.  This young man’s convictions made me question myself.  What did I believe in?  Did I have convictions of my own?”

Erin’s life demonstrates that she did have convictions of her own—convictions to inspire the next generation to excel and make a positive difference. 

Erin’s example compels us to ask, What are our convictions? And what are we doing about them?

Editor’s Note: Consider watching the movie based on Erin Gruwell’s story, with actress Hilary Swank, called Freedom Writers.