Teach With Your Heart

Simply put: this book is awesome. I feel like it goes without saying - or it should, anyway - that I'm a huge fan of the movie Freedom Writers, and am also therefore a huge fan of the book, The Freedom Writers' Diary - which I should probably add on here... - but I hadn't gotten a chance to read this one, Erin's memoirs, until this fall. That's partially because I didn't even know that it existed until this summer. But I bought it and started reading it at the beginning of fall, when I also started my student teaching semester, and it was a great choice. In those first couple of weeks before I took over the classroom and it was a little bit more laidback, I ate this book up. It's so good and so inspiring and so...interesting. I loved reading about everything she did and every struggle she had - and finding that I was having many of the same - and every extra effort she went through to go above and beyond for her students in order to help them learn. I think this is where I would like to soapbox a little bit and say that it's been extremely frustrating to be around some teachers who grumble and complain and talk about their students in ways that no parent or administrator should ever overhear, and this book is a refreshing change of pace, showing that caring about your students is possible. And maintaining that spirit even if you happen to get a job where you're surrounded by people who don't share your spunk is possible. And working a little bit - or a lot - more than the typical teacher so that your struggling students who have nothing going for them is worth it. Because, let's be serious, there are a whole lot of teachers who don't even put the minimum amount of effort or heart into it. So yes, this book is awesome. And yes, I highly recommend it. And yes, I believe that the things that she accomplishes in her career are possible if you actually try to make it happen. It's amazing how much students respond to you when they know you genuinely care about them.