Introduction A Creative Teacher for Problematic Students: An Individual Psychological Study on Freedom Writers Movie

The 2nd International Conference on Science, Technology, and Humanity ISSN: 2477-3328 174 A Creative Teacher for Problematic Students: An Individual Psychological Study on Freedom Writers Movie Abdillah Nugroho Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta abdillah_nugrohoums.ac.id Abstract The paper analyzed a creative teacher handling some variously problematic students in her classroom reflected in Freedom Writers movie. Based on the problem, the paper was aimed at analyzing ways that the creative teacher took to solve the students’ problems. The theoretical framework of the analysis was the Individual Psychological approach by Alfred Adler. Teacher has an important role in human life. As a teacher, he or she not only teaches but also educates the students. To teach means transforming the teacher’s knowledge to the students. Through interaction with students, a teacher gives them various materials of knowledge. The knowledge can be language, mathematics, biology, physics, history, and so on. Meanwhile, to educate means a teacher can educate the students about social norms, ethics, proper manner, morality and the like. To play their roles, teachers often face a lot of problems. The problems ranged from students’ personal problem, their environment problem, lack of facilities of teaching learning process, to their own private problem. Freedom Writers movie, in which the creation was inspired by a true story, delineates complex problems experienced by both the teacher and the students. The teacher, Erin Gruwell, faced her students who had various and complicated problems, which later motivated to find a solution for her students’ problem. Her students’ problem might be racial discrimination, social oppression by the dominant group, social injustice experienced by the marginalized group, and so on. With her creativity of teaching technique, Gruwell created some ways to understand their students’ private problem and found a wise way out of their problems. Keywords: creative teacher, problematic student, racial discrimination, social oppression, social injustice

1. Introduction

A creative teacher has a great role to guide bad-tempered students. Bad-tempered students are problematic students who always make problems in the classroom as well as outside the classroom. They often do something amassed. They fight with their own friends and disturbed others with their behavior. They are basically trouble makers. They do not respect their teachers and disregarded them. Looking at such a phenomenon of bad-tempered students, the school will need a teacher who can listen and understand them wisely. A creative teacher might find a reason of why they behave in such bad behavior and they will also try to look for a way out of the problem. The phenomenon described above is reflected in the movie entitled Freedom Writers. The film making was inspired by a true story of gang violence and racial conflict in New Port Beach, Long Beach, California, USA in 1992. What happened in New Port Beach influenced the behavior of the students in their day-to-day activity including at school. Mrs. Erin Gruwell came to Woodrow Wilson High School due to the integration program at that school. On the first day she met her students, they disrespected her because she was a white woman. They hated white The 2nd International Conference on Science, Technology, and Humanity ISSN: 2477-3328 175 people because white people always oppressed them in their lives. Gruwell was very shocked and surprised of those facts in the classroom. The students’ behavior at classroom β0γ of →oodrow →ilson High School was very cruel and brutal. They fought each other just because of trivial matters. They could even kill other students for the sake of revenge. The students were oppressed with their social condition in that region. They struggled for their life and tried to survive. They lived under pressure and it was not a good place for them to grow up. Mrs. Gruwell as the teacher tried hard to find a solution for their social and also psychological conflict among her students. She felt concerned and finally tried to create a conducive situation for them by teaching and educating them peacefully. This paper tri ed to analyze Mrs. Gruwell’s efforts to harmonize her students’ lives at school, in society as well as at home.

2. Theoretical Framework