![]() “But I began thinking that we had brought all these great stories of perseverance into the classroom and now it was time to bring them into the larger world. ![]() “The idea of public speaking was terrifying to those not used to being exposed,” Gruwell says. The Freedom Writers’ diaries had been kept anonymous by design, with numbers rather than names assigned to journal entries in the book to protect privacy and to emphasize the universality of the students’ experiences. Although the students had bared their souls in the diaries, the prospect of standing before audiences and telling their very personal and often-wrenching stories was daunting. The critically acclaimed movie Freedom Writers followed, starring the American actress Hilary Swank as Gruwell.įollowing the release of the book and movie, Gruwell began receiving requests for the Freedom Writers to speak around the world. The powerful essays gained notice and became a best-selling book, The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. “The diaries spoke about refusing to be victims and what it takes to survive in their worlds,” Gruwell says, who was recently named Toastmasters’ 2017 Golden Gavel recipient. They called themselves the Freedom Writers after the 1960s American civil rights activists the Freedom Riders. ![]() Students recorded their thoughts and feelings in raw and often-jarring diaries about domestic violence, the killing of family members and friends, broken homes, drug use, finding love, and other teenage concerns. Soon Gruwell was encouraging her students to write about their own life circumstances. “Now that we are proud Toastmasters members, we understand more than ever the power of the voice and the importance of speaking out authentically and passionately about what you believe in.” ![]() “Whether it was the diary of Anne Frank or survivors of gang violence, I decided early on I wanted my students to read those stories and look for parallels in their own lives.” “We read the harrowing and heartbreaking tales of other people who refused to let their circumstances identify them as victims,” Gruwell says. Desperate to capture the students’ interest, Gruwell brought in literature written by teenagers to whom they could relate and who faced similar life challenges. Gang and racial violence were running rampant in the city, and students were more concerned about surviving to the next day than making it to graduation. Many years earlier, in the 1990s, Gruwell, a young English teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, had found herself struggling to reach these same students in her classes. The speaking skills the Freedom Writers developed allowed them to bring-many for the first time-the powerful lessons of their well-known personal diaries to the podium, inspiring new generations of at-risk youth and vulnerable populations to transcend life’s most trying circumstances in the same manner they did. When Erin Gruwell and the former high school students who gained fame in the 2007 movie Freedom Writers decided to transform the power of the pen into the power of the voice, they turned to Toastmasters for help in spreading their message of hope, perseverance and self-empowerment around the world.
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