Firstly I have to say that I love this movie. It is the forth movie that I saw after Coach Carter, Dead Poet Society and Good Will Hunting which tells about the relationship between teachers and students. There are all some special teachers in these movies, but Mrs. Gruwall is my favorite one. Not only because I like the famous actress Hilary Swank but also the character's energy and enthusiasm.
In the movie, Mrs. G was a really great teacher. She was determined to help her poor young students. In the beginning Gruwell intercepted a racist drawing by one of her high school students and utilized it to teach them about the Holocaust. She gradually began to earn their trust and bought them composition books to record their diaries, in which they could talk about their experiences of being abused, seeing their friends die, and being evicted. And after a lot of endeavor she succeeded.
Mrs. G is just like the Coach Carter and Mr. Keating. They all changed a group of students' lives. Although these were very special cases and their experiences couldn't be popularized by most of people, they made a great breakthrough for education at their own times.
It was a violent world in that time. The students were facing many problems every day such as racial discrimination, gang fighting and so on. They had no beliefs and didn't know how tomorrow would be. They were living negatively every day. Just like Tito said: “Nobody cares what I do. Why should I bother coming to school?” they thought no one cared about them and they had to fight to protect themselves. Before they met Mrs. G, their lives were totally dark.
We may say that how fortunate they were to meet Gruwell. Yes, Gruwell was a good teacher. She led the class to be a whole. But we can't say that the other teachers were not good teachers just because they didn't care about the trouble students. In my opinion, every teacher should be respected. In the movies, the man male teacher who taught the honors students (I can't remember his name) are was against Mrs. Gruwell. Many people disliked this person, but he was just doing what he should do to protect the good students' rights. What's more, when Ms. Cambell, the Head of the English Department, (I am not sure about that) were was opposed to Mrs. G's proposal to teach junior students, she was very angry. This arguing part impressed me quite a lot. As far as I am concerned, she was a great teacher, too. Education was not totally affair.And there were good students and bad students definitely. Ms. Cambell chose the most students' benefits because she wasn't absorbed in only one class like Mrs. G.
Lastly, I want to talk about the film-making. In this film, there was lots of wonderful music. Because of the gang, the violence, the discrimination and something else, I thought this would be an oppressive film. But after seeing it , I know I was wrong. The impassioned songs made the film very energetic. In a conclusion, it is a good movie.
Please correct me - -!
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