A String of Pearls: The Heart Behind Reaching the Inner-City Students

Many of you have probably seen or heard of Freedom Writers. Its a movie based on the story of Miss Gruell, a teacher in LA, that transformed the way students learned in her class room. I feel that the movie portrayal of this story is really beautiful as it captures Miss Gruell sacrificing constantly to meet the needs of her students. This contrasts deeply with the portrait of teachers in Wednesday's movie viewing where the teachers were not actively intervening in the struggles of their students. I think that we, as potential educators, need to be made aware of the many ideas people have when imagining what a teacher really is. I think we have all had the unfortunate experience of having a teacher protected by tenure that did nothing to inspire us; however, I think its obvious that we've each had a Miss Gruell in our lives that fired our passion for being a teacher. It is because of my own "Miss Gruell" that I learned to love English because I saw my teacher's love and passion for both the subject and profession.
Now, here we are. We are reminded frequently of how our society views teachers (often in negative lights), we are currently being molded by the cumbersome system of education (will we continue to be inspired, or will we be worn down by the process of "learning"), and we are holding onto a dream that may be the among the lowest paying but highest rewarding professions.
I wonder often what kind of teacher I will become. I pray that I will be the sacrificial and determined educator that we see in Miss Gruell, but what happens to teachers when they get tired?

Here is an article about Miss Gruell. In it, it summarizes how she has made huge impacts in the lives of her students and modeled teaching for fellow educators. It's more of a reflection than an article, but its worth the read if you're unfamiliar with the story. We can be the change in our students' lives.