Urban schools are most always portrayed in a negative light. Such is the case in the movie called Stand and Deliver which takes place in a high school in East Los Angeles during the 1980’s. This movie is based off a true story about a teacher by the name of Jaime Escalante, played by Edward Olmos, who worked diligently with a group of roughneck students because he thought that every student has the potential to learn. He believed that if the students and teacher had enough “Ganas” or motivation that students would supersede the expectations of any educational setting. Armed with his motivation he set out to teach 18 students far more math than they ever imagined they would learn; he taught them Calculus for them to take the AP Calculus Exam.
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The environment is rough since it is deeply impoverished and many of the teenagers resort to gangs life and other deviant behaviors for lack of alternatives. A new teacher was hired to teach computer science, but he soon found out that the computers were never purchased due to budget constraints so he would be teaching math instead. After school, he finds that his car had been broken into and his stereo stolen. The schools in these types of areas are crime ridden and lacking in all levels of academics due to the sparsity of good teachers willing to work in them, this is evident in the movie from the apathy expressed by the administrator named Raquel Ortega who has little confidence in the student’s ability to rise to the expectations of Escalante. In a scene of Jaime taking the trash out at home, we learn that he had quit his prestigious job as a computer engineer to become a teacher which proved that he was committed to being a teacher regardless of the self-sacrifices. Escalante uses his charisma to teach students in a performing arts type style. He dressed up as a chief one day and started cutting apples, and on other days he would use different accents to draw their attention and these methods worked. He managed to gain the respect of the students who in return were willing to fully devote themselves and their free time into learning the difficult material. After much studying, the students take the advanced placement calculus test and pass with above average scores, but questions arose as to whether or not the teens had cheated on the exam since they all seemed to have similarly mistaken answers. The students felt as if this suspicion was racially motivated and insinuating that Hispanic students didn’t have the ability to do well on such a difficult exam. Due to this inquiry, the students were made to retake the test with no time to study ahead of time, and the students
The environment is rough since it is deeply impoverished and many of the teenagers resort to gangs life and other deviant behaviors for lack of alternatives. A new teacher was hired to teach computer science, but he soon found out that the computers were never purchased due to budget constraints so he would be teaching math instead. After school, he finds that his car had been broken into and his stereo stolen. The schools in these types of areas are crime ridden and lacking in all levels of academics due to the sparsity of good teachers willing to work in them, this is evident in the movie from the apathy expressed by the administrator named Raquel Ortega who has little confidence in the student’s ability to rise to the expectations of Escalante. In a scene of Jaime taking the trash out at home, we learn that he had quit his prestigious job as a computer engineer to become a teacher which proved that he was committed to being a teacher regardless of the self-sacrifices. Escalante uses his charisma to teach students in a performing arts type style. He dressed up as a chief one day and started cutting apples, and on other days he would use different accents to draw their attention and these methods worked. He managed to gain the respect of the students who in return were willing to fully devote themselves and their free time into learning the difficult material. After much studying, the students take the advanced placement calculus test and pass with above average scores, but questions arose as to whether or not the teens had cheated on the exam since they all seemed to have similarly mistaken answers. The students felt as if this suspicion was racially motivated and insinuating that Hispanic students didn’t have the ability to do well on such a difficult exam. Due to this inquiry, the students were made to retake the test with no time to study ahead of time, and the students