Teach With Your Heart Pages 177-227

During this part of the book, Erin feels the need to shelter her students from the media attention that some of them are receiving. She also understands that some of her students may be jealous because only a handful of the students are receiving attention. Erin nominates her students for the Spirit of Anne Frank Award in order to show her appreciation for the Freedom Writer's Diary effort. While interviewing in New York for the award, she gets her foot in the door at a publishing house, interested in her students' book (this eventually ends up in a book deal). Her students end up winning the Spirit of Anne Frank Award. Erin also begins contemplating a new teaching position in another school, partly because of the frustration that she feels at Wilson. Come graduation time, many of her students started finding it difficult breaking away from the pack; it is often hard in these situations to stay connected, and I understand what Erin is talking about when she writes, "It was a challenge to stay connected while the Freedom Writers and I were dispersing to different colleges. While they were trying to find their way in college courses, I was trying to re-create my unorthodox methodology on future educators at California State University" (190). She pairs up her Freedom Writers with her new graduate students, and this benefits both sides. Her and her students travel to Warsaw, Poland to see some of the remnants of the holocaust, such as Auschwitz. Her students get very emotional during the trip; one even finds a bone.
I am astonished with the pure luck that Erin has...it almost seems surreal. On page 182, when she is trying to figure out how to get her kids to New York, she writes: " I returned to California...got an unsolicited call from GUESS? Inc., ...(and they) donated forty-five alrline tickets for a third of my class to attend the ceremony." I can related to Erin's fear of change as she thinks about the new teaching position in the other school; often change can be very scary and difficult to voluntarily do. I liked her idea about pairing up her Freedom Writers with her new graduate students. I can only hope that I get some of the same opportunities as Erin, such as her bring her students on a tour through Europe.