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00:00:06,475 --> 00:00:09,140
When I was a little girl,
I would sit at the dinner table

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00:00:09,140 --> 00:00:13,074
and revel in my father telling stories
about the civil rights [movement].

3
00:00:13,074 --> 00:00:16,182
And I have an active imagination,
so I just envisioned my father

4
00:00:16,182 --> 00:00:18,318
at all of those strategic places:

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walking across that bridge in Selma,

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sitting at those lunch counters,

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standing on the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial.

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00:00:26,076 --> 00:00:29,315
I even envisioned my father burning bras
during the women's movement.

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I don't know whose bras he was burning,

10
00:00:31,195 --> 00:00:34,917
but it was very exciting to see
my father out fighting the good fight.

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But as I got a little older, and my father
got a little more successful,

12
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then suddenly the only handicap 
he seemed to revel

13
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was his golf score.

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The next thing I knew
we were living in a gated community,

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my father was driving
a convertible Mercedes,

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and so I decided that if I wanted
to fight the good fight

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and go off to college, that maybe I
would do so standing in front of a judge.

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I went off to college, and as I was
pursuing law, there was this moment,

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this moment in time when I turned
to my television, like so many folks,

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and I saw this young man
standing in front of a tank

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in Tiananmen Square.

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And I'll never forget that moment.

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He stood there, so resolute
and so passionate.

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And it was so much bigger than him,

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whether it was about democracy
or freedom or education.

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As I fixated on that moment, I realized
I wanted to stand up for something.

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When I thought about
my cleats or my pompons,

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or that tiara, even those Greek letters,

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I realized I'd never
stood up for anything.

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So at that moment, I decided
that I wanted to be a teacher.

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And I remember calling my father,
and he didn't take the news so well.

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He quickly reminded me
that teachers don't make any money,

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which is true.

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He also told me that I would never
afford a home in Newport Beach,

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which is still true to this day.

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But no matter how cynical my father
was about my "new-chosen profession,"

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I thought, "It's bigger
than a dollar or a paycheck."

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It's like that "Aha!" moment.

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Well, shortly after I made
that decision to stand up,

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I turned on my television again
and watched the Los Angeles riots unfold,

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and I remember seeing the faces
of young kids who were so angry,

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and justifiably -

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kids who had their back against the wall,

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kids who didn't have a voice,

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kids who'd reach for their fists
or a spray can or, worse yet,

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reach for a Molotov cocktail
and destroy something.

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So I had another epiphany.

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At that moment I realized
I not only wanted to teach,

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but I wanted to teach those kids.

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Once again, I picked up the phone,
I called my father on the golf course,

51
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and he made all kinds of cynical jokes,
the most important was,

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"No matter what you do,
please don't eat the apples,"

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because he convinced himself they're laced
with strychnine or razor blades.

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So I'm going to tell you
about my first day on the job.

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I wore the exact same dress that Julia
Roberts wore in the film "Pretty Woman."

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I had polka dots; I had pearls.

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And as I was about to leave my house

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and make that 45-minute drive
down Pacific Coast Highway

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in my convertible white Rabbit,

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I started thinking about
all of those great stories I'd read

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in the literary canon -

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stories by Homer, stories by Shakespeare.

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And as I made that drive,

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I wondered what kind of stories
I was going to read with my students.

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But they had a story of their own.

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Because I quickly found out,

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in their city, shortly after
the Los Angeles riots,

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there were 126 murders -

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126.

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So I walked into my classroom -

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there were no textbooks,
there was no technology,

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and I looked at students
who were miserable.

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Students at the age of 14
who were told they were going to fail

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and drop out of school by the end
of their 9th-grade year.

75
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Students who desperately
believed that they'd be behind bars

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by the time they were 16.

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And worse yet, students who believed

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they would be six feet under
by the time they turned 18.

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My students had never read
a book from cover to cover,

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nor did they intend to.

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They hated reading,

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they hated writing,

83
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and the only thing that seemed to bring
them together in perfect harmony

84
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was they really hated me -

85
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this perky, annoying person
with my polka dots and my pearls.

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And if you don't believe me,
I'd like to show you a brief clip

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to show you what that first day was like

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and what my students
thought of their teacher,

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this cheerleader from hell.

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(Laughter)

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(Video) (Background music) Student #1:
Looking around at them,

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it was like looking at nothing

93
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because I didn't care.

94
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Student #2: A lot of students
were just bad, you know?

95
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And I didn't expect Erin 
to try to teach us anything.

96
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I knew that she was nothing more
than a babysitter.

97
00:04:42,935 --> 00:04:46,121
Erin Gruwell: It was very evident
that they didn't want to be there.

98
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I could walk into my classroom
and I could tell who was pissed off,

99
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who's jaded, who's hungry, who's bored,

100
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who can't wait to get out of here,
who hates my guts.

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It's easy to be perceptive
and to be in the moment,

102
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but to be in the moment
you have to be vulnerable.

103
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I had to walk in there
and not have a guard up.

104
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Student #1: I think
that anybody in that situation,

105
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you've got be scared out of your mind,

106
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you have to be scared out of your mind.

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Have to be.

108
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Have to be.

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Because not only
are you dealing with people

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that don't care that you're a teacher,

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they don't care about you.

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It's personal.

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(Background music ends)

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(On stage) EG: It's personal.

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So, looking at these students,

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I realized, "How can I get them 
to put down their fist,

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to put down that spray can,
or worse yet, put down that gun?"

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Because in my classroom I had students
who just came from juvenile hall,

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had ankle monitors around their legs,

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and a probation officer.

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Students who just came from rehab
for crystal meth or crack cocaine.

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Students who bounced around
from foster home to group home to shelter.

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Students who would never
turn in their homework

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or have their parents bake me brownies,

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and if they did,
I probably shouldn't eat them.

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And most of my students could care less
about these dead white guys in tights.

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Dead white guys in tights
like togas or Shakespeare.

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And so what I tried to do was to figure
out, "How can I teach my students

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that they have a story,
because we all have a story?"

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So I decided that we were
going to play a game

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that was anything but a game.

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And I was going to simply put this piece
of tape down the center of my floor

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and ask my students questions.

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And hopefully that line
could be a gravitational pull.

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And as my students
would stand on that line,

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I would know where they stood,
I would know their story.

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As the questions began,

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I believe that 150 kids who walked
into my classroom at the age of 14,

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all of them were poor.

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In fact, all of them knew
in the pit of their stomach

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what it felt like to not know
where that next meal was coming from,

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to be so proud that they didn't want
to turn in that meal ticket at school.

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All of them knew
what it felt like to go home,

144
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and the lights had been turned off again.

145
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There's no food in that fridge again.

146
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And those hardworking single moms
with those cockroaches and those roaches

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were never going to get ahead.

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Most of my students knew
what it felt like to be homeless,

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to be picked on.

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Most of them knew what it felt like
to want to end it all,

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to stand on the ledge,
to put a razor blade to your wrist,

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to look at those pills.

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Most of my students had been
bullied or were the "bullier."

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Most of my students had visited somebody
in juvenile hall or jail or prison,

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or themselves had been there.

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But the most disturbing question
that I asked my students

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was if they'd ever lost somebody.

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And as student after student
stood on the line,

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I realized, "That is our story."

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Because to be 14 and to go
through your entire life

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feeling like you have
a bull's-eye on your chest,

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to be 14 and to look over your shoulder

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and wonder and wish,
"Am I going to make it home today"

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to see that hardworking
single mom again?

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To be 14 and to be numb
and anesthetized to your future?

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So I wanted to teach
my students to have a voice.

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And maybe they couldn't change
the cast of characters they were dealt,

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but maybe if "the pen
was mightier than the sword,"

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maybe, just maybe,
they could rewrite their own ending.

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So I decided that we were going
to have a toast,

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"a toast for change."

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And maybe it didn't matter

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that most of my students had been kicked
out of every school they ever attended.

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Maybe it didn't matter
that my students had a 0.5 GPA.

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Starting right then, starting right now,

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we were going pick up a plastic champagne
glass filled with sparkling apple cider,

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and we were going to wipe
that slate clean.

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The first young woman who picked up
that plastic champagne glass

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got very serious.

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And her change wasn't
about a number 2 pencil.

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Her change wasn't about a test

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or student scores or data or statistics.

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She picked up that plastic champagne glass
at the age of 14, and she simply said,

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"I don't want to be pregnant
by the time I turn 15, like my mama,

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and I don't want to spend the rest
of my life behind bars, like my daddy,

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00:09:21,289 --> 00:09:26,706
and I don't want to be six feet under
by the time I turn 18, like my cousin.

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I want to change."

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And in that moment of vulnerability,

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and in that moment of being exposed

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in front of a room
full of her so-called enemies,

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it gave every other kid the opportunity
to pick up a plastic champagne glass

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and dare to dream and to dream big.

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Young boys were tired
of being told to act like a man

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when there was no man in their house
to show them or to guide them.

195
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Young boys were tired of sitting
on the edge of their bed

196
00:09:53,999 --> 00:09:57,452
"on this Christmas" or "this birthday,"
waiting for their deadbeat dad

197
00:09:57,452 --> 00:10:00,637
to show up and bring them a present
or tell them they love them.

198
00:10:00,654 --> 00:10:02,464
And they never showed up.

199
00:10:02,835 --> 00:10:06,085
Beautiful young girls were tired
of being touched in places they knew

200
00:10:06,085 --> 00:10:08,086
they weren't supposed to be touched.

201
00:10:08,086 --> 00:10:11,391
And people touching them
had names like "Uncle Joe."

202
00:10:11,804 --> 00:10:15,774
And as each and every student
picked up that plastic champagne glass

203
00:10:15,774 --> 00:10:17,538
and talked about change,

204
00:10:17,743 --> 00:10:19,509
I handed them a journal.

205
00:10:19,530 --> 00:10:23,790
And the idea was, "Go back,
go back to wherever you feel safe,

206
00:10:24,114 --> 00:10:26,634
and write, and own it.

207
00:10:26,866 --> 00:10:29,636
And maybe these words
will make you immortal.

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00:10:29,899 --> 00:10:32,630
And together we're going to read
stories about other kids

209
00:10:32,633 --> 00:10:34,395
who've written their words down.

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00:10:34,402 --> 00:10:36,912
Kids who come from undeclared wars -

211
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or declared.

212
00:10:38,707 --> 00:10:40,809
Little girls in tiny little attics

213
00:10:40,809 --> 00:10:43,137
who will look out her window
and watch her friends

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00:10:43,137 --> 00:10:45,305
being led off like sheep to slaughter.

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00:10:45,414 --> 00:10:47,004
And she owned it.

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00:10:47,004 --> 00:10:50,256
Every day, that little girl
Anne Frank wrote her story.

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00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:52,311
Or young boys like Elie Wiesel,

218
00:10:52,311 --> 00:10:55,881
who was crammed into a cattle car,
rode into Auschwitz-Birkenau,

219
00:10:55,881 --> 00:10:59,073
watched his entire family
perish in a chimney.

220
00:10:59,492 --> 00:11:01,172
But he wrote about it.

221
00:11:01,645 --> 00:11:04,535
Or courageous little girls
in places like Bosnia-Herzegovina,

222
00:11:04,535 --> 00:11:07,365
who watched her friends
being picked off by snipers,

223
00:11:07,422 --> 00:11:10,382
and yet every day she too wrote about it."

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00:11:10,914 --> 00:11:13,564
So my students
started writing their story.

225
00:11:13,860 --> 00:11:16,496
And in doing so, we started
sending these letters off

226
00:11:16,496 --> 00:11:19,340
like these messages in a bottle.

227
00:11:19,630 --> 00:11:21,744
Maybe someone will listen to us.

228
00:11:21,744 --> 00:11:24,724
Maybe our cries won't fall on deaf ears.

229
00:11:24,871 --> 00:11:27,951
Maybe these icons will come and see us,

230
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150 gangsters.

231
00:11:30,731 --> 00:11:32,211
And they came.

232
00:11:32,551 --> 00:11:35,941
The woman who helped Anne Frank
in that tiny, little attic,

233
00:11:35,995 --> 00:11:37,973
this simple secretary,

234
00:11:38,075 --> 00:11:40,076
got 150 letters,

235
00:11:40,552 --> 00:11:44,378
and she hopped on a plane, even though
there were typos and grammar mistakes,

236
00:11:44,832 --> 00:11:47,912
to give homage to my students
and their story.

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00:11:48,637 --> 00:11:51,837
Schindler's survivors who walked
across those railroad tracks

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00:11:51,837 --> 00:11:53,866
leading into Auschwitz-Birkenau -

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00:11:53,866 --> 00:11:56,232
they too got letters from my students.

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00:11:56,322 --> 00:11:57,888
They too came.

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Bosnian refugees came to our classroom.
and looked at my students -

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00:12:02,731 --> 00:12:05,144
who could care less about
the color of their skin,

243
00:12:05,158 --> 00:12:07,068
the side of the street they came from,

244
00:12:07,113 --> 00:12:10,167
or, more importantly,
what their parents did or didn't do.

245
00:12:10,344 --> 00:12:11,814
They came.

246
00:12:12,013 --> 00:12:14,510
And then one day
my students got really cocky,

247
00:12:14,644 --> 00:12:19,044
and they said, "You know, Miss G, we keep
sending these letters out into the world,

248
00:12:19,301 --> 00:12:22,769
and all of these icons come into room 203,

249
00:12:22,769 --> 00:12:25,250
and they share their world with us.

250
00:12:25,274 --> 00:12:28,957
It's time that we take
our world out there."

251
00:12:29,001 --> 00:12:31,072
My students wanted to go on a field trip.

252
00:12:31,161 --> 00:12:33,141
They wanted to go to Washington, D.C.

253
00:12:33,141 --> 00:12:36,534
They wanted to follow in the footsteps 
of these civil rights activists,

254
00:12:36,534 --> 00:12:40,283
the Freedom Riders, who got on buses
and stopped at every depot

255
00:12:40,343 --> 00:12:43,403
and drank out of those drinking fountains,
sat at those counters,

256
00:12:43,403 --> 00:12:46,266
and sat on that bus,
no matter where they wanted to sit.

257
00:12:46,462 --> 00:12:48,992
For those of you who have
never dealt with teenagers,

258
00:12:48,992 --> 00:12:51,995
the idea of taking 150 students
to Washington, D.C.,

259
00:12:52,070 --> 00:12:55,526
all I could think about
was "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll."

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00:12:55,928 --> 00:12:59,468
And in the pit of my stomach,
I knew that I had 150 students

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00:12:59,521 --> 00:13:01,632
who lived below the poverty line.

262
00:13:01,649 --> 00:13:03,696
So they didn't have
the luxury of going home

263
00:13:03,696 --> 00:13:05,660
and talking to that
hardworking single mom

264
00:13:05,660 --> 00:13:08,170
and asking her to pull out her Visa,

265
00:13:08,170 --> 00:13:10,980
or convincing her to write that check,

266
00:13:11,003 --> 00:13:13,922
or even to go to the ATM
and get that crisp $20 bill,

267
00:13:13,922 --> 00:13:15,856
because if they had that $20 bill,

268
00:13:15,856 --> 00:13:17,594
that should go for lights,

269
00:13:17,594 --> 00:13:19,911
that should go for food in that fridge.

270
00:13:20,364 --> 00:13:23,395
So I told my students,
"You have to figure out a way.

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00:13:23,395 --> 00:13:26,352
If we're going to get
from point A to point B,

272
00:13:26,449 --> 00:13:28,625
if we're going to take this journey,

273
00:13:28,625 --> 00:13:30,598
you have to figure it out."

274
00:13:30,601 --> 00:13:32,551
And as we began to fundraise,

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00:13:32,551 --> 00:13:35,412
one of my students put me on the spot,
like all kids will do,

276
00:13:35,412 --> 00:13:39,069
and he said, "Miss G, what happens
if we raise all of this money,

277
00:13:39,245 --> 00:13:41,285
and we don't make it there?"

278
00:13:41,345 --> 00:13:44,410
And at that moment I thought,
"We're not going to make it there."

279
00:13:44,410 --> 00:13:46,375
So like a deer in the headlights, I said,

280
00:13:46,375 --> 00:13:49,778
"If we raise all this money and don't make
our way to Washington, D.C.,

281
00:13:49,998 --> 00:13:51,911
we can buy some more books.

282
00:13:52,035 --> 00:13:55,219
Maybe we can take a field trip
to the Museum of Tolerance.

283
00:13:55,716 --> 00:13:57,507
Maybe we can have a pizza party,

284
00:13:57,507 --> 00:14:00,540
so in that case it's a win-win
because we did it together."

285
00:14:00,750 --> 00:14:05,103
But then I stopped myself and to this day
I don't know how and I don't know why,

286
00:14:05,647 --> 00:14:08,655
but I said, "But if we do make
that chic trip,

287
00:14:08,715 --> 00:14:10,675
and we do raise that money,

288
00:14:11,005 --> 00:14:13,940
your lives will never be the same."

289
00:14:14,210 --> 00:14:15,631
And they did.

290
00:14:15,874 --> 00:14:19,117
So, for a brief moment,
I'd like to show you our field trip,

291
00:14:19,117 --> 00:14:23,851
when 150 kids put down a fist,
put down a gun,

292
00:14:24,279 --> 00:14:27,124
picked up a pen, and wrote their story,

293
00:14:27,412 --> 00:14:31,612
and took their words,
their story to our nation's capital.

294
00:14:31,796 --> 00:14:35,101
(Video) (Background music) Student #3:
Somebody came up with this idea

295
00:14:35,101 --> 00:14:39,357
that we should honor all of our friends
who had been lost to senseless deaths.

296
00:14:40,905 --> 00:14:45,441
Student #4: So we wrote names
of people we lost in our lives on pins,

297
00:14:45,441 --> 00:14:49,195
and we were wearing them as a symbol
of that their spirit is still alive.

298
00:14:49,203 --> 00:14:51,919
You know, they're still with us,
they're still part of us.

299
00:14:54,936 --> 00:14:57,326
Student #5: We all held hands,

300
00:14:58,179 --> 00:15:01,459
and we left the hotel holding hands.

301
00:15:04,703 --> 00:15:09,001
Student #6: We took a walk
to the Washington Memorial,

302
00:15:10,023 --> 00:15:12,092
and it was quite a ways

303
00:15:13,377 --> 00:15:17,377
and - there were 150 of us.

304
00:15:17,771 --> 00:15:19,308
And we didn't let go.

305
00:15:19,624 --> 00:15:23,184
Everybody started honking at us
and we just kept on walking.

306
00:15:24,113 --> 00:15:26,071
Student #7: The world just goes by

307
00:15:26,071 --> 00:15:28,729
and no one stops to look
at somebody in their face

308
00:15:28,748 --> 00:15:31,358
to actually look at them for who they are.

309
00:15:31,429 --> 00:15:34,219
And so we stopped traffic,

310
00:15:36,315 --> 00:15:40,612
and you could feel the presence
of this is something bigger than us.

311
00:15:46,782 --> 00:15:50,212
EG: I'll never forget this man rolled
down his window, very disgruntled,

312
00:15:50,212 --> 00:15:52,167
and he said, "What are you doing?"

313
00:15:52,167 --> 00:15:55,619
and one of the "Freedom Writers" said,
"We're changing the world."

314
00:16:02,104 --> 00:16:04,154
(Background music ends)

315
00:16:04,154 --> 00:16:06,831
(On stage) EG:
For a group of 150 students,

316
00:16:06,950 --> 00:16:10,355
change meant that they didn't have
to be like that mother

317
00:16:10,355 --> 00:16:12,164
who was strung out,

318
00:16:12,164 --> 00:16:14,352
or that deadbeat dad,

319
00:16:14,448 --> 00:16:16,818
that they could rewrite their own ending,

320
00:16:16,838 --> 00:16:20,608
that they could be the first
in their families to graduate,

321
00:16:20,951 --> 00:16:23,981
the first in their families
to go to college,

322
00:16:24,132 --> 00:16:27,202
the first in their families
to take these stories,

323
00:16:27,585 --> 00:16:29,393
to put them in a book,

324
00:16:29,425 --> 00:16:30,463
to send them off -

325
00:16:30,463 --> 00:16:32,773
once again, like a message in a bottle -

326
00:16:32,773 --> 00:16:35,973
and hope that those cries
didn't fall on deaf ears.

327
00:16:36,719 --> 00:16:39,717
So I sent 150 copies
of my students' stories

328
00:16:39,717 --> 00:16:42,475
to every single publishing
house in our country.

329
00:16:42,525 --> 00:16:45,455
And every single one of them
rejected my students.

330
00:16:45,513 --> 00:16:48,303
Every single one, except one -

331
00:16:48,675 --> 00:16:50,795
the same publishing house
that took a chance

332
00:16:50,795 --> 00:16:53,847
on a little girl in a tiny, little attic.

333
00:16:54,250 --> 00:16:55,364
So it's as it should be

334
00:16:55,364 --> 00:16:58,508
that the publishing house
that published "The Diary of Anne Frank"

335
00:16:58,508 --> 00:17:03,178
decided to take a chance on 150 kids
and published their book.

336
00:17:03,807 --> 00:17:07,727
Would anybody read a book
written by and for and about kids?

337
00:17:08,347 --> 00:17:10,047
Apparently someone would

338
00:17:10,047 --> 00:17:14,102
because this little book became
the number one book in America.

339
00:17:14,626 --> 00:17:17,799
And I tell you that because
my students nicknamed this book

340
00:17:17,818 --> 00:17:19,708
"The Little Book that Could,"

341
00:17:19,754 --> 00:17:22,501
in honor of that train
going down those tracks,

342
00:17:22,501 --> 00:17:26,265
"I think I can, I think I can,
I think I can."

343
00:17:27,323 --> 00:17:31,173
I stand in front of you
as an ordinary teacher

344
00:17:31,421 --> 00:17:34,041
who had an extraordinary experience.

345
00:17:34,332 --> 00:17:37,672
And even though I haven't
quite mustered up the courage

346
00:17:37,805 --> 00:17:41,225
to stand in front of a tank in any square,

347
00:17:41,488 --> 00:17:45,678
or like my students, stand
and stop traffic by myself,

348
00:17:46,073 --> 00:17:49,823
I did muster up the courage
to stand in front of you today,

349
00:17:50,321 --> 00:17:53,341
and so I hope that,
standing in front of you,

350
00:17:53,381 --> 00:17:55,181
when you see me,

351
00:17:55,280 --> 00:17:57,060
you see my kids.

352
00:17:57,453 --> 00:17:58,933
When you hear me,

353
00:17:58,933 --> 00:18:00,697
you hear their cries.

354
00:18:01,128 --> 00:18:04,118
And when a beautiful Holocaust survivor
challenged my students,

355
00:18:04,118 --> 00:18:08,143
and she said, "Evil prevails
when good people do nothing,"

356
00:18:08,170 --> 00:18:09,780
I stand before you,

357
00:18:09,780 --> 00:18:12,548
challenging each and everyone of you,

358
00:18:12,548 --> 00:18:15,201
each and everyone of you
who is a good person,

359
00:18:15,201 --> 00:18:16,660
to do something.

360
00:18:16,738 --> 00:18:19,860
Don't let those cries fall on deaf ears.

361
00:18:19,860 --> 00:18:21,720
Don't turn the other cheek.

362
00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:23,017
Do something.

363
00:18:23,017 --> 00:18:25,367
Do something for a kid in need.

364
00:18:25,532 --> 00:18:27,012
Thank you.

365
00:18:27,065 --> 00:18:30,045
(Applause)