I have one parting thought on my trip to Memphis. If you have ever been to Memphis, you probably “get” this song. I know I “get” it now.

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[tags]Marc Cohn, Walking in Memphis[/tags]

Before I forget I have to set down my thoughts on visiting Sun Studio. Wow. Ellie was right. Best part of the trip. To be in the room and see the equipment so many famous songs were recorded with was nearly spiritual. Johnny Cash used the same mic that our tour guide showed us, and he guide even let us touch it. Why couldn’t I touch the mic like the kids did? Too much reverence I guess.

The outside of Sun Studio:

Our tour guide in Sun Studio. In this room, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis recorded hit songs:

Microphone used by artists who recorded at Sun from 1952 to about 1960, including Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and presumably Elvis, though the guide didn’t mention him by name:

I wish the weather had cooperated so we might have been able to sit next to the river. I wanted to connect with Jeff Buckley [before Buckley fans get too excited, yes, I realize that he drowned in the Wolf River, not the Mississippi, but he was in Memphis] I guess. I suppose there is next time. I want to come here with Steve.

Looking toward the river at night from the top of the Peabody Hotel:

I really enjoyed Graceland, too, but again, our tight schedule didn’t allow us to really enjoy our trip through a museum — I guess you could call Graceland a museum.

Some of our students waiting to enter Graceland:

Elvis’s grave:

I ate fries alone at the Pig on Beale. I was the only customer for a while, so I chatted with the waitress. She was really nice. We talked about what we (the students) had seen and done. Very friendly.

The Pig on Beale:

Billy was right. Memphis does get under your skin. I think it’s the river, the blues, and the lights.

How do I begin to describe seeing the balcony where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot? So many times I’ve seen it in photographs and film. The Civil Rights Museum was interesting. I was especially moved by the Rosa Parks bus exhibit.

View of balcony where Dr. King was assassinated:

Memorial plaque:

As far as our discussion with Jacqueline Smith, I found her ideas interesting. She was nice to talk with us. I found it intriguing to learn she was an opera singer. She mentioned that Carmen was what made her want to sing and that she tried out for the Met. Considering she’s been protesting the museum for 19 years, I doubt Steve knows her. He might have heard of her protest.

Protester Jacqueline Smith:

Best day of the trip. I hope the kids learned as much as I did.

[tags]Elvis, Sun Studio, Jacqueline Smith, Martin Luther King, Civil Rights Museum, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee[/tags]

After Midnight.

At night we went to the Rum Boogie Café — a blues bar at 3rd and Beale. It was great to hear live music again. I really wanted to dance, and I wished Steve were here to dance with. It was fun to watch the kids dance.

The Rum Boogie Café (sorry for the poor quality):

Inside Rum Boogie:

Serendipity once again — I turned on PBS and Kelly Richey — a phenomenal woman guitarist is on. She could hold her own with any man and proves women can rock. Too many female artists aren’t doing what she’s doing. They sing pop tripe or go too heavy metal glam. Kelly Richey is blues rock. Never heard of her before. Now I’ll look her up online when I get home. This program is at the Master Musicians Festival. Her group is the Kelly Richey Band. Why haven’t I heard of her? [Note: check out Kelly Richey at her MySpace page, too; you can listen to a few tunes there.]

Tomorrow we go to Graceland, which is what I was really looking forward to. I wish I had a real day off between this trip and school.

[tags]Beale Street, Rum Boogie Café, Kelly Richey[/tags]

The old saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. I asked if the seniors might share the video they created to document their trip last year. They went to the same places and met with the same people on their trip as our current juniors did. Here is their video:

[tags]Memphis, Tennessee, Tupelo, Mississippi, Montgomery, Birmingham, Alabama, Civil Rights, Rock and Roll, Elvis[/tags]

5:30 P.M.: Preparing for Shabbat

We passed through Tupelo to see Elvis’s birthplace. I was struck by how small it was — much smaller than I imagined it would be.

Elvis’s birthplace:

When we arrived in Memphis, I was struck by how dilapidated many of the buildings we passed were. Of course, I suppose we drove through some rough parts of town, and the same could be said of much of Atlanta. We saw some very nice areas, too. Downtown was probably nicer than Atlanta’s. Beale Street was electric. The first glimpse of the Mississippi was breathtaking. I saw the bridge spanning the river to Arkansas. The Mississippi is so many things — a symbol of the frontier, the West; an artery pumping the lifeblood of our nation. Tennessee is a place of magic and meaning for me. I met my husband in Tennessee. Memphis reminded me of Nashville.

I wish I’d had more time in the Rock and Soul Museum. In the first area a table stood on a replica of a sharecropper porch. An empty can of Prince Albert Tobacco was displayed on the table. It made me think of Pa Pa [my great-grandfather, Herman Cunningham, whom I called Pa Pa, smoked Prince Albert Tobacco in his pipe; his farm was littered with discarded Prince Albert Tobacco cans]. I had this urge to touch the can, but I restrained myself. I would have liked to have spent more time there listening to music [the Rock and Soul Museum gives visitors mp3 players to listen to music and learn about the exhibits].

Tennessee. Sometimes when I come here I can feel the soil is still in my blood, even though I’ve never lived here myself [many of my ancestors were from Tennessee].

Lunch at Rendezvous was amazing. Those ribs are so good. The dry rub on the ribs was delicious. I also really enjoyed being with Sarah, Paul, Ellie [my colleagues], and Billy [our tour guide].

I don’t think I’ll ever forget Beale Street. I wanted to be here with Steve.

[tags]Memphis, Tennessee, Beale Street, Rendezvous Ribs, field trip, Elvis, Tupelo, Mississippi, Prince Albert Tobacco, Rock and Soul Museum[/tags]

“Pick up your pen and be a catalyst for change.” These words end The Freedom Writer Diary. If I ever do anything close to what Erin Gruwell accomplished with her students, I will call myself successful. Am I doing what I should? Is education really a war? Teachers like Erin Gruwell were at the front and fighting bravely. Other teachers on the front don’t fight at all. And if education is a war, I am in some cushy office on the homefront.

I don’t want to leave Weber. I think I’m doing good things there. I am happy. But all kids need good teachers, and too many of my peers are not willing to be like Erin Gruwell. In fact, I’m not. I have a family I already feel I don’t put first often enough. I could not take on an extra job like Gruwell did.

Maybe my blog is helping me in some way to pick up my pen and pass on my message. I think maybe I do help others. Maybe more than I realize. I do know the power of having a voice and an audience for my voice. I wonder if any of the Freedom Writers blog? They should.

In spite of how much I loved and was inspired by The Freedom Writer’s Diary, I was bothered by two things. First, Erin Gruwell left the classroom. In my opinion, she personified the famous poem’s message in that she burned the candle at both ends. There is no way she could have kept going the way she was. She would have died or burned out. Perhaps establishing her foundation and teaching college was what she needed to do to preserve her sanity. I shouldn’t judge. But it bothers me she left. I suppose it is true she can spread her message more quickly through educating future teachers. Why, then, does it still bother me she left? The second thing that bothers me are the proofreading errors. There were a few. I realize these are journals, but it bothers me to see that proofreading errors made it into print. This is my guess because of the types of errors I noticed. For example, “then” for “than.” I want to focus on the book’s message and turn off that English teacher. I can’t.

Part 2 of Day 2 will appear tomorrow.

[tags]Erin Gruwell, Freedom Writers, Freedom Writers Diary[/tags]

I am back from trip, and I’m tired. I chaperoned a trip to Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama and Memphis, Tennessee. The trip centered around two important revolutions in our history, both orchestrated by African-Americans — the Civil Rights Movement and Blues and Rock and Roll music. I wanted to share some of my journal with you. This is part of my journal from Day 1:

I think it is strange sometimes how serendipity can lead to life transformation. I hadn’t heard of Erin Gruwell two weeks ago. Then I saw Freedom Writers. Tonight I’ll finish their [the Freedom Writers] book. I am impressed by how relevant their stories are to the lessons and history I’m learning about today. Seeing the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) was probably the most moving experience for me because I know what they have done [moreso than the students]. I admire Morris Dees for his courage. I never thought of the SPLC as a physical place before. It seemed like more of an ideal. But it’s real and made of reinforced steel to protect its workers from the people who want to kill those workers for what they do.

Billy [Billy Planer, who runs Etgar 36, a touring company for Jewish teens] asked us this morning if knowing that Rosa Parks’s famous protest was “set up” somehow diminished its value. I think that the fact that Parks knew what she was doing and that it would result in arrest — knew that she would become the poster child for Civil Rights — makes her more courageous. If I were asked to do such a thing, could I stand up (or rather, sit down) and do it? Is that not braver than acting on impulse because one feels tired? I think she showed true courage in facing arrest in order to help her community and society become a better place [note: we had visited the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery].

I enjoyed hearing Colonel Stone Johnson speak (read more). He is so sincere in his love for people and God. His message of tolerance is not new, but hearing from an ordinary man — not a King or Abernathy or John Lewis — a real character, a storyteller — brought the struggles in Birmingham alive. If I had walked in that park and looked at those statues without his guidance, I doubt I would have thought as much about them. I will, I hope, always remember the four pillars representing those four little girls who died in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. They were placed in front of a statue of three kneeling pastors. Looking over the statues, I could see the church across the street. I touched one of those pillars and felt like I was really patting the head of one of those little girls. [Note: Colonel Stone Johnson was our tour guide through Kelly Ingram Park. You can see some of the statues here.]

[tags]field trip, education, Birmingham, Alabama, Civil Rights Movement, Colonel Stone Johnson, 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park, Rosa Parks, Southern Poverty Law Center[/tags]

I will be incommunicado until Monday, as I am accompanying our juniors on their grade-level trip.  We are traveling through Montgomery and Selma, Alabama to learn about the Civil Rights Movement.  We will travel north to Memphis to learn about the Blues, visit Beale Street, and see Graceland.  I have been looking forward to this trip, and I’m really excited.  I’ll tell you all about it when I return.

I don’t have the opportunity to go to the movies very often, and I am choosy about which movies I see in the theater. Let’s face it, when movies cost $9.50 a pop, and I have two small children who can’t sit through most movies, I suppose it isn’t surprising that I might go only once a year. Do you remember being a teenager and going to the movies with your friends every weekend? I digress. My boss gave each faculty member gift cards to Starbucks and Regal Cinemas for Hanukkah — nothing extravagant, just enough for a cup of coffee and one movie ticket. However, I have always appreciated these gifts more than he might realize because I rarely get to indulge in going to the theater. I suppose for that reason, I also hang onto my movie gift card until something really looks good. Last year, I saw The Chronicles of Narnia with my gift card. This year, my gift card burned a hole in my pocket for some time. There really wasn’t anything out that I wanted to see. I saw a few commercials for Freedom Writers and decided it looked good, so I decided to use my gift card on this film rather than wait to use it on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as I expected I might have to do. I was not disappointed, and I believe I would have paid to see the film.

The film begins as Erin Gruwell, a fresh-faced, naive first-year English teacher is given her classroom assignment of remedial freshman classes. She carefully chooses her outfit for the first day, confidently adding a string of pearls her department head advised her not to wear to school. When she peeks in her classroom for the first time, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own first look at my classroom in my first year teaching. She writes her name in neat cursive script, and as she waits for her class to file in, her excitement is palpable. The very first day, a fight breaks out in her class and it is clear that this experience is not going to be what she thought it would be. A short exposition reveals the violence and despair that are a daily part of her students’ lives. She resolves to keep fighting, despite the advice of her father and worries of her husband. When she finds a racist cartoon drawn by one of the students, she uses the moment to teach the students about the Holocaust. The classroom is gradually transformed into family, a safe zone, and a vibrant writing lab. Students begin to chronicle their lives in diaries given to them by Ms. Gruwell. Students read literature like The Diary of Anne Frank and begin to see how others have dealt with living in war zones that resemble their own home in Long Beach. They write letters to Miep Gies, who sheltered the Frank family in her home during the Holocaust, and raise funds enable Gies to come and speak at their school.

The reviews on this film are mixed, mainly because Freedom Writers is not the first film to feature a white teacher transforming the lives of students — in this case, Cambodian, African-American, and Hispanic (along with one very scared white kid). I can’t deny that it’s true that this story has been done before; however, don’t let that discourage you from seeing it. I thought the movie was incredibly moving. I think if you have ever taught a difficult group of students — or perhaps if you’ve ever taught, period — and this movie fails to make you cry at some point, then you have a heart of stone. I think all of us walk into a classroom at some point, believing we will be crusaders who change the world. We have these little mugs that say “2 teach is 2 touch lives 4 ever,” right? Or the little poster that says, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” I think many of us begin the profession with the same eager optimism that Hilary Swank as Erin Gruwell captures so well in the film. Many of us gradually become more like Gruwell’s department head — convinced the kids are bad, unteachable, and ultimately going to quit school anyway, so why bother? Or we become like the teacher in Erin’s department who refuses to teach anyone but Honors students or upperclassmen. I read at least one review that took exception to the portrayals of Erin’s colleagues, but anyone who has ever taught has run into teachers just like them. However, one simply doesn’t run into teachers like Erin Gruwell often.

[tags]Freedom Writers, Erin Gruwell, Hilary Swank[/tags]