Freedom Writers Interview

Why did you want to teach in a school with a poor reputation, one filled with troubled teenagers who didn’t want to learn?

Wilson was a school with all of these different ethnicities and troubled children I thought it was a perfect place to start helping the kids. You know, to teach them important life lessons and get them out of trouble and on to the road to success.

Every journey has its ups and downs. What was your lowest point and what was your emotional peak?

I think probably the lowest point was ironically after graduation. It was a very bittersweet moment because Room 203 was this like a second home, or only home, to these kids. A place where they all felt safe and could fostered so much for four year. I think my emotional peak though was when I first made that real connection to the kids with the line game; it gave me a very accomplished feeling.

Can you tell me a little more about the line game you used to connect the kids to you and each other?

The line game was a more unorthodox approach I came up with to help the children realize how much they had in common. Once I was able to engage them I needed to really enlighten them with activities that would make them want to pick up a book like The Diary of Anne Frank or Night, by Elie Wiesel. After they were enlightened and reading and writing profound essays and journals, they actually started leaving Room 203 and bringing these lessons to life. Eventually, my students went to Auschwitz and Anne Frank's attic. Which help complete the learning experience.

The school administrator, Margaret, said, "You can't make someone want an education." Do you agree?

In a way you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. My students came from a world that was antithetical to education. They didn't have wonderful fathers who supported their education because most of my kids didn't even have a father in the home. For me, it was really important to show them a world that they didn't know and what education...