20 differences. In this case, the racial and social discrimination was caused by some
mockery actions, negative stereotyping inside the class, and history of gang and gang and race loyalty that had an effect inside the class.
4.2.1. Mockery in the classroom
Mockery in classroom 203 was clearly shown in the scene depicting Mrs. Gruwell’s first day of teaching. She was checking the students’ attendance by calling
their names one by one when suddenly Jamal, an African-American student yelled and revealed his hatred for being in that class. After that, Andre Bryant African-
American student responded to Jamal’s statement by calling Jamal the dumb. As the story continued, Jamal responded to Andre’s word in anger by calling him a dumb
too, as he was also in the same class. 10minutes: 25second Jamal
: Yeah, and that’s some bullshit. Andre
: It’s the dumb class, coz. It means you are too dumb. Jamal
: Man, say it to my face, coz. Andre
: I just did. See what I mean? Dumb. Jamal
: Man, I know you aint’t talking to me Andre
: Okay… After that, both of them almost got into a fight each other until Mrs. Gruwell
asked for help and someone came to separate them. This is an interesting case because both Jamal and Andre were both African-Americans, but they still mocked each other
and were almost involved in a fight. Here, although they are both African-American, Andre considered that from a higher class-level than Jamal, so that he came up with
the mockery statements. Another example of racial discrimination shown in the film is in the class 203
when Tito Hispanic-American student, drew and distributed an illustration picture of Jamal African-American student. In the picture, Jamal portrayed as a big fat lip boy
21 and as the result, all member of class laughed at him. However, Mrs. Gruwell knew
and tried to relate Tito’s picture with the example of Holocaust. 27minute: 44second Mrs. Gruwell : What’s going on? What is that? Give it to me. What is this?
Jamal : Just leave it alone.
Mrs. Gruwell : You think this is funny? Tito? Would this be funny if it were a picture of you?
Tito : It ain’t
Mrs. Gruwell : Close the workbooks. Maybe we should talk about art. Tito got real talent. Don’t you think?
Students : Yeah, yeah. Go, Tito.
The dialogue above shows the racial discrimination through a picture of African-American Jamal that was drawn by Latino-America Tito. Indirectly
implied that Tito stereotyped all African-America as having a big fat lips, just like the picture he had drawn. This case proved that there was racial discrimination inside the
Woodrow Wilson High School. This matches Scott and Shade’s statement 2005 that said discrimination still exists in the community in general, no matter how the school
is built and where the school is located, most neighborhood school will still remain live in the discriminatory life.
4.2.1.1. Teaching Techniques in dealing with mockery problem in the
class
Facing the racial discrimination through mockery between students of class 203 forced Erin Gruwell had to do something in order to control her class, she had to
use certain techniques. In the other words, she could not apply ordinary method of teaching in her class; however in dealing with mockery inside multicultural class 203
Mrs. Gruwell applied different ways of teaching. There are some unorthodox teaching techniques that being useful in
controlling “unteachable” varied students of class 203, the first one is Cultural Differences that tries to introduce other culture and its problem that has similarity
