Freedom Writers

Manuel and his family

I am taking a counseling class this semester at Lamar and for one of our class meetings we were able to go hear Manuel Scott speak. He was one of the original students of Mrs. G in the true life story that was made into a movie called, Freedom Writers, with Hilary Swank. I had seen the movie and really liked it but I wasn't prepared for how much his story would touch me. You can read his whole story by clicking the link above but I will try and tell it in a nutshell.....

Manuel was born and raised in the ghetto with a father in prison who he had never even met and a mother who was in an abusive relationship. He ended up on drugs and dropped out of school at 16. One day while sitting on a park bench, a man walked up to him and asked him why he wasn't in school. Manuel told him he had dropped out and the man began to tell him his own story about how he had got hooked on cocaine and lost his job, family, and everything but how someone had helped him and he was now clean and a changed man. He first introduced Manuel to his Christian faith (which Manuel could not go into at Lamar but he made it clear that that was the first thing that happened to turn his life around) and then the man encouraged him to go back to school. Manuel did go back to school and eventually got in Mrs. G's class. Mrs. G was a 22 year old student teacher that was going to law school when the Rodney King Riots broke out in LA. She was so disturbed by the anger and violence she saw in so many of the inner city kids causing the riots in the streets that she decided to change career paths and go back to school to be a teacher in the inner city to help students like Manuel. Manuel and all his classmates are called the original "Freedom Writers" and because of Mrs. G they graduated high school and most of them went on to graduate from college and like Manuel get their Masters Degree and Doctorate Degree. It is an amazing story and so encouraging for me as a teacher!!

If you haven't seen this movie I recommend renting it soon. I love movies about true stories and to actually get to hear one of the students tell his story was awesome! One of the characters in the movie (I forget which one now) was actually based off Manuel's life.


At the end of his speech he quoted one of my favorite poems called, If, by Rudyard Kipling. What is so amazing is that at one point in high school his English was so bad that his teachers actually thought he was an ESL (English as a Second Language) student. They thought since his name was Manuel that he was half Hispanic and that his family spoke Spanish at home, but as you can see he is 100% African American. He was even put in an ESL class in high school with all Hispanic students. Now he's quoting poetry!!! I love a changed life and his story reminds me that one person can make a big difference in the life of a child. I want to be a teacher like Mrs. G!!

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!