Stand and Deliver

Mr. Escalante starts his first day teaching at a high school that is falling apart. The students are undereducated and unruly. The faculty has no belief in the student. The faculty also does not want to try to make a difference.

When Mr. Escalante gets to the school he is expecting to be teaching computer science and is informed that there was no funding for computers again this year. Therefore, he is informed that he will be teaching math 1A.

When he gets to the classroom the students are all over the classroom and have no respect for teachers. The students could care less about learning. Mr. Escalante finally gets the students to settle down and the bell rings.

In his efforts to calm the class down he notices a group of Mexican students standing at the back of the class and figures out that they cannot speak English. He speaks to them in Spanish and asks them to sit in the front row of the classroom. I believe he did this to make the got a chance to learn.

The second day he comes to class wearing a chef outfit with an apple and a butcher knife. He cuts a slice out of an apple to show a representation of a percentage of the apple that is missing. He is trying to make the class fun so he can get the students interested in learning.

Mr. Escalante is trying to connect with individual students. It seems that he is starting with the most troubled students. A group of Mexican gangsters walk into the classroom trying to intimidate him and he does not let them. In fact he sent back the same message that they were trying to send them.

Mr. Escalante keeps pushing the students to participate and learn, by making learning fun and interesting.

The faculty of the school is having a meeting discussing the fact that if they cannot bring the students grade average up by the end of the year the school will be shut down. The school staff does not believe in the students and they don’t even want to try to help the students or save the school. Mr. Escalante does and he will not give up.

One of the gangsters comes to Mr. Escalante and expresses that he wants to learn but cannot been seen by his gang carrying books. He asks the teacher if he can give him an extra book so he can keep one at school and one at home. Mr. Escalante tells him that he can do better than that and gives him three books, one for class, one for home, and one for his locker.

Mr. Escalante is still pushing to get the students interested in learning. He is doing everything he can to make it fun and exciting, yet still educational. He is starting to connect with his students.

            He goes to the restaurant that the father of one of the students owns to talk to him because the girl had told him that she was not going to school anymore. Her father was making her drop out of school because he wanted her to work in his restaurant.

           He has got the whole class participating and wanting to learn.