Among the many, Socrates remains the seminal figure. The exemplar of the great teacher, past and present, is a staple of Western European culture. ( 187, alone in the genre in lacking final hope, was a commercial failure.) Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, 187, and now Freedom Writers continually tap into our need to believe in the narrative of the “great teacher,” capable of saving students in need. As educators in a pluralist democracy, we are tempted to forgive the film’s weaknesses and celebrate the heroic teacher as she fights for the souls of her students.
The result is a life-changing experience in which her Hispanic and African American students and the Jewish Holocaust survivors they encounter bear witness to a common humanity and hope.
#Freedom writers movie movie#
Based on events in the 1990s at a high school in Long Beach, California, the movie tells how a teacher evokes the Holocaust to connect her students with the universality of human suffering. In Freedom Writers, the latest product of the genre, Hilary Swank looks continually uncomfortable in the leading role. Too often formulaic, these are not great movies. The teacher as hero or heroine pays a price-loss of a less heroic lover or spouse, disdain and opposition from colleagues and school administrators (always portrayed as cynical and patronizing), even, in one case, martyrdom for the cause.
The classroom gradually becomes a haven, a precious space of bonding and learning set against a sea of social violence and family tragedy. The connection made, the trajectory is clear. Through an inspired gesture, the teacher connects: he uses an apple, she uses karate, he the doping of a mouse, she a student-drawn cartoon. The movie scene has become familiar-the American high school class close to rioting, the racial tensions boiling, the curses flying across the room-and then, the breakthrough moment.
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