Institute Day 4 Part I

About eight years ago, my mom called me up at college and said, "I just read the most amazing book! You are going to love it!" I never knew that would send me on the journey that lead to right now.

We are a reading family, my mom, sister and I. I will never forget learning the word regurgitation one night when my mom piled us all on her water bed and read from Julie of the Wolves. That's the way we were. We didn't have a lot when we were little, but gosh darn it, we were going to have an imagination inspired by words! So, when we read a good book, we always share. We don't always actually read the books. Mom really loves the "deep" type books, Liz loves both nonfiction and crazy vampire novels, and I am more of a Young Adult or type lover. But, if mom calls up and the sole purpose for calling was about a book, then that was a book that HAD to be read.

The next time I went home, she handed me a copy of The Freedom Writers Diary. She had received it from a woman in her book club. I opened the cover and read the writing. It says "To Julia because you care- Sue ---" I started reading it that night and couldn't put it down. I stole that copy of the book and still have it now.

When I returned to school the following Monday and headed to my Teaching English class, I remember discussing the book with a lot of my friends, specifically my friend Linds. We were starting to get bogged down by all the crazy crap you have to go through to be a teacher. We were sick of writing lesson plans with "schema activators"! We wanted to get into a classroom and inspire. We didn't want to turn in papers all on the same book, we wanted to find new and interesting literature for our classes that we wouldn't even have for another two years! We wanted to be like Erin. We wanted to inspire kids. From that moment, I knew, this is a story that needs to be shared, not just with other teachers, but teenagers need to hear this and know this story!

When the movie came out in January, I have to say, I was disappointed. Just like many other books that I read that become movies, the characters didn't look like who is playing them on the screen in my mind. I HATED Erin's husband, but I think more because I semi-understood where he was coming from. I worry all the time whether I am balancing my home life with my kids at school. Since Jason isn't a teacher and didn't grow up in an education family, he sometimes has a hard time understanding how personal I take things. He doesn't always understand when I want to do extra stuff at school, just to be around my kids more. But, luckily, we've been on this ride for five years now, and so far, he's almost always supportive, even when he can't relate.

Now, I am not saying I didn't like the movie. I did. I thought for an MTV/Hollywood story, it was perfect. I also thought that it was a great way to rejuvenate people to want to go out and read the book, which was a good thing.

All of that brings me to my point. Last night, we watched the movie at Paramount Studios. It was closed for Father's Day, but we got to go because Erin really is a hustler!

I slowly found my seat in the small, chilly theatre. My bag of goodies from Faye was neatly on my lap. As I inspected the contents (popcorn, suckers, raisinettes, and a juice box), Erin spoke. She knew we had all seen the movie, but she wanted us to re-watch it, thinking about all of the Freedom Writers we had met so far and all that we knew about the making of the screenplay with the help of the Freedom Writers. She even told us where the cameos by actual Freedom Writers were. Before the lights were dimmed, I turned around and saw a group of Freedom Writers anxious to see the movie once again. I knew it had to be like the millionth time they had seen it. As I turned back around, the music started playing and the movie began. Once again, I laughed, I cried, and I shrieked. Unlike the first time I saw it when I was with my friend Lori, this time, we all danced and clapped when the music was played. This time, when I cried, I thought about the actual Freedom Writers. As I watched Eva's story unfold on the page, I thought about Maria and who she is today. When I watched the courtroom scene and they showed Paco, I thought about Jason, a new Freedom Writer Teacher from Philly, and how well he was able to get into his character while participating in our role playing game during the course of our activities earlier in the day. When Scott was standing out as being the only white kid, I thought about Michael and dancing with him during our salsa lesson at the Fiesta the previous night and how confident, yet silly he was.

Both the book and the movie mean so much more to me today than they did yesterday. Each day I am here, the book and these stories mean so much more to me. I have so many ideas now as to how I want to use the book and how it could be used at MTA and in Howell. How it can be used to Change the World as Ms. D always says.