Jenny’s Blog

Freedom Writers Has it All Wrong

Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 |

My husband and I went to watch Freedom Writers the other night. I was interested in it because I majored in English and enjoy writing. I thought it looks like a nice feel-good movie.

I was wrong.

The movie takes place in Southern California in 1994 (the same year I was a freshman at Santa Teresa High School), and follows a group of troubled kids through their freshman and sophomore years in high school. It chronicles the events that take place as a young first time teacher tries to make a difference in their turbulent lives.

There were good things about the movie, such as the underlying cliché message of “you can do whatever you put your mind to.” It showed how these kids that society “didn’t care about” were able to “persevere” and do great things—such as graduate from high school.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great if these kids who are going through rough times can overcome difficulties and make good decisions to improve their lives. My whole problem with the movie was that it really didn’t represent reality as far as “desegregation” goes.

I grew up in South San Jose, a nice middle class part of town. Educators decided that they wanted to “desegregate” the local schools. The felt the schools were too “white” - even though the white population was around 50%. They decided that the best way to solve this “problem” was to bus kids in from East San Jose – a less than desirable area with lots of gang problems. The Utopian idea was to give these kids a chance at a better education. The schools on the East Side were terrible, so many “minority” kids were brought to South San Jose schools.

A big problem with this idea was that the kids that were bought over were ones that had been kicked out of their schools for gang violence and drug problems. Instead of giving these kids a better education, they ended up in remedial classes – and they didn’t care about learning. They brought their gang affiliations with them, and simply moved the problems from one campus to another. For the most part, these kids did not care about learning. They simply cared about their gangs.

The other problem that was caused was that the classes at Santa Teresa High School (my alma mater) were “dumbed down” so these kids could quickly graduate and be gone. Instead of helping all students achieve and prepare for college, they were simply helped to graduate. There were a few excellent Honors Courses, but most of the rest were a joke.

The other misnomer about the movie was that all of the white kids were in the honors classes, while the minorities were in the remedial classes. This simply was not the case. I was an honors student, but I did not excel in math, so I was in the normal (not honors) math class with kids of all races. Honors classes were not “all white” as the movie portrayed. It was a mix of mostly Indian, Asian, and White kids.

An example of problems desegregation caused:

My freshman year, I was sitting in class with kids that did not want to be there. They decided that it would be fun to light a physically disabled girl’s hair on fire. They tried making a torch out of hairspray and a lighter. This was while the teacher was in the room. I noticed what was going on, and motioned for the girl to sit by me so the others would leave her alone. She, while crying, moved to sit by me.

The next day in school, when sitting in my math class, my blonde ponytail got yanked so hard my head snapped back. Then I had a desk shoved into my back, and someone kicked me. Then, a girl sitting behind me told me that if I didn’t watch my back, I was going to be killed for being a snitch.

I was 14 when this happened. I had to contact the police, and I didn’t even know why I was being threated. I couldn’t walk alone to class for fear of being jumped. My older brother’s friends escorted me. Later, it turned out, the girl whose hair was nearly lit on fire told a teacher what had happened, and the perpetrators received detention. They had assumed that because I had stood up for someone smaller than them, I had been the snitch. I had to nearly take out a restraining order against several girls in my math class.

Another example: When I was in 8th grade, I was walking home from school alone when a boy walking behind me was jumped. His head was bashed in with a baseball bat, and he was nearly killed. I was the main witness to this, and had to work extensively with police to try and identify the perpetrators. This too was gang related.

Other problems I faced simply occurred when I was walking around campus. Groups of girls that were not white would push me or try and trip me from behind. My hair got pulled all the time. (I had very long blonde hair that I often wore in a ponytail.) I was threatened many times, and called a “white bitch” all the time. People call white people racists and bigots all the time, but the white kids were too afraid to stand up for themselves, let alone be racist. I was on the receiving end of racism for six years – all the way from middle school (7th and 8th grade) until I graduated from high school.

I tore my ACL (playing soccer) when I was 16, and spent 12 weeks on crutches. I was pushed so many times by people telling me I was in their way. I wanted to shrink and hide to make it stop. By the time my senior year came around, I was sick and tired of being pushed around, and I shoved a girl back, and told her to back off me. Suddenly, I was very alone, but surrounded by a group of 10 or so minority girls telling me they were going to kill me. Luckily a teacher happened along, and I was spared.

I have since decided that jealousy was a contributing factor in all of this, but I don’t think it’s quite that simple. That may have been one thing, but I think also racism was extremely rampant at my school. It just wasn’t quite what people expect. They expect white kids to “take it” because other races have been discriminated against in the past. They feel it’s just the white kids’ turn. Right. That is saying that racism is ok in some forms. The problem is – it is NEVER ok. Despite the ordeals I had to deal with, I am not in any way a racist. I’m quite the opposite. I suppose it made me go completely the other way, I guess because I had to deal with racism so much. I just think that no one should ever be treated how I was treated, whether they are Black or White, Asian or Indian, or anything else.

I have thought about reasons why “desegregation” or “integration” would be such a popular idea – it’s not like it solves any problems. It actually creates more. I think a big part was to make the “bad” schools look better by removing some of the most trouble prone kids and spreading them around to other schools. If every school has some serious problem kids, then it makes them all seem not so bad. (No one school is worse than another.)

I admit that I don’t know what the solution is. Every child deserves a chance at an education. No child should have to go through what I went through, simply because some administrators decided they wanted to “experiment.”

My younger siblings are going to private high schools because my parents didn’t want them dealing with the same traumas that I had to deal with. They will receive superior education, and will be extremely prepared for college.

My advice to those with children in the California public school system: enroll your kids in a private or charter school, or move. It isn’t worth it.

This brings me full circle, back to Freedom Writers. The movie tried really hard to appear to be caring and “modern” in teaching styles and beliefs. The problem is that the producers of the movie really didn’t do enough research to find out consequences of “integration” as they called it, to see if it is a good thing before preaching about how it is the way to go. It is not a good thing, and it doesn’t help schools, teachers, students, or anyone.

I think students should be able to choose what school they attend, and they shouldn’t be forced to attend the one they are closest to. If schools have to compete for good students, the education system will drastically improve. The current system isn’t working, which is one point Freedom Writers made that I have to agree with.

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