Chapters 27-33

These chapters of Teach with Your Heart covered the senior year of the Freedom Writers, Erin’s new teaching job at the college, and the class reunion trip to Europe. The students continued on with Erin their senior year and worked on the class diary even more, which ended up being accepted by Doubleday publishing company as The Freedom Writer’s Diary. Erin nominated her classes for the Spirit of Anne Frank award, which they ended up winning and 45 students got to go to New York to accept the award. As the school year ended, Erin still wasn’t welcomed into the school community, so she decided to take a position at the local college rather than continue on at Wilson High. Many of her students went on to college as well. Erin and some of the Freedom Writers planned a trip to Europe to visit Zlata and Anne Frank’s countries. About 50 students ended up going on the trip, which was funded primarily by John Tu once again. Many of the sights were hard on the students because memories were still real for a lot of the Holocaust survivors. It was definitely a learning experience for the students as well as Erin and her family.

I am a little surprised that Erin actually took the job at the college after everything she went through at the high school. It sounds more like she gave up the fight, which is too bad because she could have helped many more students just liked she helped her senior class. It was also had to believe that she was able to pull off the trip to Europe, but after receiving even more of John Tu’s money the trip was planned. I think it was good for the students to experience the lives of others and to be able to relate to the material in the books they read.