Teacher/student role in a learning environment (ESR 505)

This is a clip from the movie Freedom Writers. This particular part in the movie shows an activity that the teacher came up with after viewing her students at recess and noticed that they were all apart of different cliques and none of them were socializing with each other.

 Ms. Gruwell, is a teacher that accepted a position in which she as not prepared for. She is having a rough time getting to know that students and their way of life so she does a number of things including this activity shown. In the clip she poses questions and if the answer is yes the students move to the line that has been placed on the floor in front of them. By doing this, Ms Gruwell is trying to get the students to see that they all come from similar backgrounds and have similar struggles. She engages the students by giving them a choice. Either they can do the activity or they can continue to work in their notebooks. Doing this she gets all the students to participate and starts her activity.

The students in this clip are being guided by the questions that the teacher has. Based on their questions they will either move or stay where they are. They often give the teacher verbal feedback based on what it is that the teacher asks.

The clip is centered around the teachers questions and the students answers. The goal of this lesson is to get the students to think about what situations they have encountered.