Mr Escalante's Identity

A large aspect of an individual is their identity. An identity is made up of many different characteristics, ranging from personality traits to an individual’s background. No matter what the trait is, it impacts an individual’s identity severely. Identity varies from person to person, so no one identity is ever the same. For Mr. Jaime Escalante, a high school teacher in the movie Stand and Deliver directed by Ramon Menendez, his identity is shaped by nonconformity and his universe of obligation, as well as how others see him. Mr. Escalante’s ability to nonconform is a large aspect of his identity. Most teachers at Garfield High School were uneducated in the subject being taught or just didn’t try to teach the students. He went against the normal school classes, and even though “There [were] some teachers [there] that couldn’t pass the AP calculus exam”, Mr. Escalante begged to teach the the students calculus. Not one of the teachers at the high school even knew calculus, but Mr. Escalante knew it would help his students, …show more content…
Escalante has powerful identity traits, the way others see him is vastly different. Most of his students disrespect him as a teacher. One student doesn’t take a quiz that Mr. Escalante handed out, telling him “I’m not taking the quiz”. She decided not to follow orders from her teacher simply because she did not like his style of teaching. This didn’t affect Mr. Escalante, however, his identity allowed him to punish the student until she took the quiz. Another student went so far as to respond to a question from Mr. Escalante with “I know one’s...two’s...and three’s”, and give Mr. Escalante the finger. He completely disrespected Mr. Escalante, even though he was just trying to teach the student some math. Mr. Escalante’s identity, however, contradicted the poor attitude of the student and he fought back with a witty comment. The students that Mr. Escalante teaches see him differently than the identity that Mr. Escalante