Some teachers feel that if they ask for emotional help, they’re a failure. But teaching is a team sport. Erin Gruwell Read Quote
Hoping they’d been inspired by the examples of Anne Frank and other teens who had turned negative experiences into something positive by writing about them, I handed out notebooks for my students to journal about their lives. There was some initial resistance. But then the stories poured out of them, full of anger and sadness. Erin Gruwell Read Quote
I was going to show my kids that no matter what happened with their parents, parole officers and other teachers, I wouldn’t give up on them. I let them know it matters to me that you come to class, it matters to me that you try, it matters to me when you succeed. Erin Gruwell Read Quote
The stories my pupils told me were astonishing. One told how he had witnessed his cousin being shot in the back five times; another how his parents had died of AIDS. Another said that he’d probably been to more funerals than parties in his young life. For me – someone who had had an idyllic, happy childhood – this was staggering. Erin Gruwell Read Quote
I think a lot of teachers feel like they’re teaching to a test. Our response is you teach to a student, you really teach to the kid. Erin Gruwell Read Quote
Writing is powerful. Whether it’s a little girl hiding from the Nazis in an attic, or Amnesty International writing letters on behalf of political prisoners, the power of telling stories is usually what causes change. Erin Gruwell Read Quote
When you’re too robotic and scripted, the students tune you out. So I always tried to use different learning modalities – kinesthetic, auditory, visual, whatever might bring learning to life. Erin Gruwell Read Quote
I grew up in a very progressive family and with a great educational system, and I asked myself, ‘Why doesn’t everybody have these opportunities for a good education? So why not give back to these kids who didn’t grow up with the same privileges I had?’ Erin Gruwell Read Quote
