Erin Gruwell is an English teacher who enjoyed extraordinary success teaching high school students in an impoverished, gang-ridden neighborhood in Long Beach, CA. The journey made by she and her students is chronicled in the best selling book, Freedom Writers and the Hollywood blockbuster by the same name. Ms. Gruwell’s capacity to connect, to empathize, to create safe space, and to challenge her students to become positive forces for change–regardless of the obstacles they faced–is a shining example of pedagogy of leadership. The Founder of the Freedom Writers Foundation, Ms. Gruwell was the closing keynote speaker at the gcLi’s Symposium in the Pedagogy of Leadership held in collaboration with the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, Columbia University in October 2014.