Film Summary: Stand And Deliver

Film Summary Stand and Deliver (1988) is a film that discusses and is based on Jaime Escalante. It starts with Escalante becoming a math teacher at James A. Garfield High School, a school whose student population is primarily Latino. The school is underperforming academically, which causes many of the teachers to feel like the kids are a lost cause. Unlike the other teachers, Escalante is undeterred by this obstacles and believes his students are capable of doing well if they are given good motivation and a drive the achieve; what he calls in the movie “ganas”. At first his students aren’t as receptive to his teaching style, but they soon learn to work with Escalante. He then thinks about teaching calculus to his students and have them take the AP Calculus exam, much to the ire of the other teachers. This requires him teaching during the summer, as well having his students come in early, stay late, and have no vacations or Saturdays off in order to get his students ready for the test. The students then take the test and get their result, with many passing. However, they are accused of cheating because of similar wrong answers, so are required to retake the exam in only a couple of days. They take it again and they pass again. At the end, we are shown the increasing number of …show more content…
Escalante says the movie is mostly true to life, with “90 percent truth, 10 percent drama”. One main issue Escalante has with the movie is that the movie glosses over the actual amount of time it took for the students to learn calculus from their math level. While the students learning math in the movie was done quickly, for me, it does get across the hard work it took for the students achieve greatness. Overall, Escalante served as an inspiration for teachers to teach well and see the potential in every student. (Sanchez,