FREEDOM WRITERS AND THE CULTURE THAT DOES NOT ENTERTAIN

I often watch films dedicated to school. Sometimes I look for them on purpose, other times I stumble upon them almost by accident. It’s a kind of habit: the stories that talk about teachers, kids, lessons and growth inevitably end up making me think of Piccioletta Barca and the educational work that is carried out every day, in that well-kept and kind space on the outskirts of Milan, between Forze Armate and Baggio.

This time I came across Free­dom Wri­ters, 2007 film, directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Hilary Swank, based on a true story.
We are in Long Beach, California; Erin Gruwell, a young and idealistic English literature teacher, arrives at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School. The school is inserted in the classic multi-ethnic context of American cities: marked territorial division between gangs of different ethnic groups, violent rivalries, easy guns and knives, brothers dead or in prison, contempt for institutions, arrogance. But in a classroom everything can change. Professor Gruwell undermines any mistrust with the unshakable faith in the fact that the children, in their second year of high school, can and want to learn. As? Starting from the study of Nazism and the persecution of the Jews, to touch on racism, harassment and abuse of power that the children themselves experience in their days, up to giving each of them a notebook in which they can write their own stories and thoughts, becoming Freedom Writers, even deserving of publication.

Classic exemplary story, corny and easy, designed to arouse the tears of an audience that feels redeemed by a simple morality and, above all, that does not involve them in any way in responsibilities. A collage of clichés and obvious narrative models, which seem to be the hallmark of cinematography about school, particularly of American production. And here they are in their close-ups: difficult kids, marked by poverty, violence, social divisions. There are gangs, conflicts, crime always around the corner. Then comes the teacher who, almost by chance, finds himself in that school and discovers extraordinary resources within himself; he dedicates himself completely to his students, often to the detriment of his own private life, and manages to change their destiny. A story that perhaps works well on the big screen, but also a story that cinema tells continuously, almost to the point of exhaustion.

And so I asked myself: why do we talk about school almost only in these extreme situations? Why does education only seem to become interesting when it takes place against the backdrop of hardship, poverty or crime?
Perhaps because the conflict is a spectacle. But a boy’s growth is much more complex than that.

Growing up is difficult. Not only for those who live in highly and openly dramatic environments. There are contexts with thinner border lines, where there are economic, linguistic difficulties, cultural gaps, which do not have violent manifestations, remain almost invisible and, however, marginalize and confine children to an idea of ​​life with fewer opportunities. Mixed contexts, in which families coexist who have different economic and cultural possibilities and yet share the same desire to see their children grow up serene, strong, responsible and open to the possibilities of life. Every boy, in whatever environment he finds himself in, must deal with his own fears, with his own possibilities, with the desire to understand who he is and what place he can occupy in the world.
And this is where, in my opinion, culture comes into play.

Not as an instrument of last-minute salvation, not as a heroic remedy against delinquency, not as a “special” occasion, almost unrepeatable and in the end, once again excluding, but as a constant opportunity to nourish the mind, to encounter good, lofty, powerful thoughts and words, which every boy can find by reading and conversing with the greats of literature, art and music. This happens every Saturday morning in our Academy. This also happens in the smaller groups, the Living Room and the Convivio, where children discover, while having fun, the great characters of history and literature and learn new words, which enrich their vocabulary and give breathing space to their thoughts.
Culture is the encounter with something that surpasses us and at the same time concerns us profoundly; it is a training of the gaze and intelligence, it is what allows us to read the present with greater depth and to inhabit it with greater awareness, as is happening now with the children of the Philotheque.

Educating is responsibility of adults who do not take up the professorship, although they certainly bring the knowledge and experiences of years of study and life, but place themselves alongside the children, showing and sharing the pleasure of culture as a lens for observing the world and the human, helping them to discover abilities that they did not know they had, showing them that their starting situation does not necessarily coincide with their destiny, allowing them to make more informed and freer choices. And it is something that affects everyone, not just those experiencing emergency situations.

For this reason, I am also struck by the way in which Free­dom Wri­ters presents the writing. In the film it almost seems that writing is automatically a liberating gesture: the students, rebellious and tormented, write down their life stories, their feelings and thoughts in their notebooks and this becomes the scoop for articles and television reports and even turns into best sellers. But what remains of this work? Writing can certainly help you get to know yourself better – it is no coincidence that it is also used in many paths of analysis and self-awareness – but writing is not just about telling yourself.
Writing is also learning a language. It is dealing with words, with their precision, with their richness. It is patient work on thought. It means being inspired by models that show that writing is an adventure of thought and life, such as the writings in our column “With the heart, a sheet of paper and a pen”. It is a way to learn about reality, not just to express oneself, and it starts, first of all, from assiduous reading. Our kids know this when they commit to writing texts that take inspiration from novels and stories they have read and studied in depth. They are their stories, yes, but they are not streams of consciousness, if anything, opportunities to discover the potential of the word, the beauty of reasoned and conscious creativity, even in the shortest writings. And some are collected on this blog of ours, in the “Budding Writers” category.

Perhaps this is precisely what perplexes me in many films about school: the tendency to simplify:
the encounter between a boy, the culture and the adults who accompany him is something much deeper than the narrative formula of the heroic teacher who saves a difficult class. It is a process that involves an entire community.

This is what we see happening at Piccioletta Barca.
We see it in the dialogue with schools and teachers. We see it when Beatrice is invited to meet the children of the primary school in via Valdagno, on the occasion of “Libriamoci”, to read great literary stories and engage in dense dialogues with the little ones. We see it in parents who choose to share with their children an idea of ​​culture that has to do with life, choices, being in the world. We see it in the older members and volunteers who dedicate time, thought and heart to a project that is not limited to transmitting knowledge.
Because culture is not erudition, it is not studying to pass a test, it is learning to look at the world, without ever stopping to ask questions and delve deeper. And it is perhaps precisely this dimension, the most everyday and the most decisive, which rarely makes it to the big screen, for examplebecause it doesn’t produce the spectacular heroism of the films. But it is the one that, day after day, really changes people’s lives.