“There are lives lost in this book, and there are lives saved,
too, if salvation means a young man or woman begins to feel
deserving of a place on the planet. . . . What could be more
soul-satisfying? These are the most influential professionals most
of us will ever meet. The effects of their work will last
forever.”  –from the foreword by Anna Quindlen

Now depicted in a bestselling book and a feature film, the
Freedom Writers phenomenon came about in 1994 when Erin Gruwell
stepped into Room 203 and began her first teaching job out of
college. Long Beach, California, was still reeling from the deadly
violence that erupted during the Rodney King riots, and the kids in
Erin’s classroom reflected the anger, resentment, and hopelessness
of their community. Undaunted, Erin fostered an educational
philosophy that valued and promoted diversity, tolerance, and
communication, and in the process, she transformed her students’
lives, as well as her own. Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers
went on to establish the Freedom Writers Foundation to replicate
the success of Room 203 and provide all students with hope and
opportunities to realize their academic potential. Since then, the
foundation has trained more than 150 teachers in the United States
and Canada. Teaching Hope unites the voices of these Freedom Writer
teachers, who share uplifting, devastating, and poignant stories
from their classrooms, stories that provide insight into the
struggles and triumphs of education in all of its forms.

Mirroring an academic year, these dispatches from the front lines
of education take us from the anticipation of the first day to the
disillusionment, challenges, and triumphs of the school year. These
are the voices of teachers who persevere in the face of
intolerance, rigid administration, and countless other challenges,
and continue to reach out and teach those who are deemed
unteachable. Their stories inspire everyone to make a difference in
the world around them.

FOREWORD

ANNA QUINDLEN

Any columnist who makes sweeping generalizations is looking for
trouble, but I once did just that in an essay I wrote for Newsweek.
“Teaching’s the toughest job there is,” I said flatly, and the mail
poured in. Nursing is tough. Assembly line work is tough. Child
rearing is tough. There were even a few letters with some of those
old canards about the carefree teacher’s life: work hours that end
at 3 p.m., summers at the beach.

I imagine that the people who believe that’s how teachers work
don’t actually know anyone who does the job–if they did, they would
know that classes may end at 3 p.m., but lesson planning and test
correcting go on far into the night, while summers are often
reserved for second jobs, which pay the bills. But I’m lucky enough
to know lots of teachers, and that’s why I stuck by my statement.
More important, I’ve taught a class or two from time to time, and
the degree of concentration and engagement required–or the degree
of hell that broke loose if my concentration and engagement
flagged–made me realize that I just wasn’t up to the task. It was
too hard.

But if hard was all it was, no one would ever go into the
profession, much less the uncommonly intelligent people who, over
the years, taught me everything from long division to iambic
pentameter. I don’t remember much at this point in my life, but I
remember the names of most of the teachers I’ve had during my
educational career, and some of them I honor in my heart almost
every day because they made me who I am, as a reader, a thinker,
and a writer.

So when I first read about Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers,
it came as no surprise to me to discover that the truth about
teaching was that it was sometimes a grueling job with near-
miraculous rewards, for students and for teachers alike. In Erin’s
first, internationally known book, The Freedom Writers Diary, you
saw this mainly through the eyes of her high school students, young
men and women living with combative families, absent parents, gang
warfare, teenage pregnancies, and drug abuse. Above all, they lived
with the understanding that no one expected them to do anything–not
just anything great, but anything at all. They’d been given up on
by just about everyone before they even showed up in class.

Except for Ms. G, as they called her, who was too inexperienced
and na?ve to get with the surrender or the cynicism program. Her
account of assigning her students to write candidly about their own
lives and thereby engaging them in the educational process, of how
many of them went on to college and to leadership roles in their
communities, is a stand-up-and-cheer story. That’s why it was
turned into a movie, and why Erin’s model has now been replicated
in many other schools.

That first book contained the stripped-bare writings of those
students, but in this one, it’s the teachers’ turn to give the rest
of us a window into how difficult their job can be. In a way I
never could, they answer the naysayers who question the rigor of
their jobs. Here are the real rhythms of a good teacher’s life, not
bounded by June and September, or eight and three, but boundless
because of the boundless needs of young people today and the
dedication of those who work with them. These are teachers who
attend parole hearings and face adolescents waving weapons, who
teach students they know are high or drunk or screaming inside for
someone to notice their pain. “Sitting at the funeral of a high
school student for the third time in less than a year” is how one
teacher begins an entry. There are knives and fists, and then there
is the all-too- familiar gaggle of girls who are guilty of “a
drive-by with words,” trafficking in the gossip, innuendo, and
nastiness that have been part of high school forever. One teacher
recalls a reserved and friendless young woman with great academic
potential and a wealthy family, and the evening the maid found her
“hanging, as silent as the clothing beside her, in the closet.”
Another gets a letter from a former student with a return address
in a state prison, with this plea: “I know you’re busy but I would
be very grateful if you would write to me.”

Yet despite so many difficulties, these are also teachers who
weep when budget cuts mean they lose their jobs, teachers who quit
and are horrified at what they’ve done and then “unquit,” as one
describes it. Some of them have faced the same problems of racial
and ethnic prejudice or family conflict as their students, and see
their own triumphs mirrored in those of the young people they teach
and, often, mentor. One, hilariously, writes of how she is
“undateable” because of the demands of her work: “I’m going to have
a doozy of a time finding someone willing to welcome me and my 120
children into his life.”

Teachers had an easier time when I was in school, I suspect. Or
maybe back then the kinds of problems and crises that confront
today’s students existed but were muffled by silence and ignorance.
Certainly I was never in a classroom where a student handed over
his knife to the teacher. I never had a classmate who was homeless,
or in foster care, or obviously pregnant.

And yet many of the teachers here speak my language: of pen pals,
class trips, missed assignments–and, above all, of that adult at
the front of the room who gives you a sense of your own
possibilities. “Isn’t that the job of every teacher,” one of them
writes, “to make every student feel welcome, to make every student
feel she or he belongs, and to give every student a voice to be
heard!”

And so I stick with my blanket statement: It’s the toughest job
there is, and maybe the most satisfying, too. There are lives lost
in this book, and there are lives saved, too, if salvation means a
young man or woman begins to feel deserving of a place on the
planet. “Everyone knows I’m gonna fail,” says one boy, and then he
doesn’t. What could be more soul- satisfying? These are the most
influential professionals most of us will ever meet. The effects of
their work will last forever. Each one here has a story to tell,
each different, but if there is one sentiment, one sentence, that
appears over and over again, it is this simple declaration: I am a
teacher. They say it with dedication and pride, and well they
should. On behalf of all students–current, former, and those to
come–let me echo that with a sentiment of my own: Thank you for
what you do.