Stand and Deliver and Outlier - Essay Example

Stand and deliver and Outlier Introduction Escalantes knowledge of the culture legacy of his is connected to his teaching. His knowledge of cultural legacy about Anas family and Claudias family and Angels gang molded his teaching strategies around his understanding of these cultural legacies that were influencing these children’s behavior and attitudes in the classroom. The students in his class had cultural legacies affecting them just like the people in Harlan, Kentucky had cultural legacies changing their behavior. Therefore, in this paper I will showcase the cultural legacies of Ana, Claudia and Angel and how Escalante used his knowledge of their cultural legacy to help them see that education was important. Body Escalante knew of the Garfield High School as one of the most East Los Angele’s notorious barrios from the onset. He knew it was a place whereby poor, hardened street kid were never supposed to master mathematics, algebra, trigonometry and calculus based on their cultural legacies. However, the prior knowledge shaped Escalante mode of teaching. Accordingly, he believed that a teacher should at no point, let his students give up. He therefore, decided to love the subject and children he taught to make the kids see that they have an opportunity to become whatever they wish to be in the future. Therefore, Escalante inspired, cajoled and taunted young kids who were troubled to see themselves as they could be and never as they were. Subsequently, for Escalante to accomplish this, embraced a teaching strategy based on the ganas that meant drive or desire in Spanish terms. Therefore, ganas became his battle cry, as he always chided apathetic administrators’ as well jaded teachers alongside being a powerful word for motivating his students. We see how other teachers thought Escalante (played by Edward James Olmos) was joking when he ultimately declared his interest in teaching calculus. The knowledge of the kids cultural legacies made him adopt such a teaching strategy in which his children ate, slept and lived mathematics. He made it a rule that the children were to arrive an hour before school and stayed two, three hours after school. He drilled his students on Saturdays as well as made summer school mandatory. This was hated by some parents who were harboring cultural legacies who even went further to let Escalante know the dissents. He became successful and by 1991, 600 Garfield students were taking Advanced Placement exams. This was not only in mathematics but also in other subjects, something unheard of at the time. Escalante had a lot of run-ins with the colleague who perceived him as a prima donna but vowed to help change the unbecoming and uncalled cultural legacies of the children. At some time in 1961, he was even forced to resign but it pained him later when he had parents’ complaints about the abandonment of mathematics curriculum. Therefore, his memories of Garfield High remained alive with him and vowed to be remembered as a teacher, picturing that potential everywhere. Subsequently, this motivated him as he developed a strategy in which he believed that no one could worth teaching without the ability to see the potential for every student and held on to this as his core driving force. He, therefore, believed in ganas for students to be successful. He therefore, focused on results. His students had a cultural legacy in which they had been told all their lives that they were never good enough. This is because they were poor Latinos hence no one anticipated them to excel at advanced mathematics. However, Escalante arrival reversed the situation and removed such legacies already implanted in the children minds as he embraced teaching with hope. He told his kids that they only needed ganas or drive and desire could grasp mathematics principle and apply such principles as the key to a well-paying career. Hence, he vowed to do whatever it was to make the children achieve their wishes so longs as they had ganas. He made enemies due to his dedication to some parents resenting the high standard that produced low grades for their children. Moreover, they disapproved the long hours that took students away from after-school jobs as well as family chores (Farber 34). On the other hand, Escalante colleagues became jealous of the extra resources he attracted from the corporate sponsors who were willing to support the program once the movie had made Escalante a popular celebrity. He also received frequent complaints from the faculty colleagues and union officials about his extra hours and large class sizes. His complainants hinged on the fact that large class and long hours portrayed unhealthy precedents for the other teachers and that they even violated existing work contracts. Moreover, some complained that Escalante had gone much of the time on speaking trips, leaving other teachers to stand in for his classes after the film had come out. However, Escalante remained steadfast despite these complaints as he was aware that these were only meant to harbor the uncalled for cultural legacies. He became blunt in criticizing other colleague’s performance that magnified the contentious points. After, he was elected a chairman of the mathematics department in 1981, he steadfastly neglected the administrative obligations that were contradicting his teaching strategies. He even failed to answer calls and letters from the district headquarters and almost never came to meetings of the department. Moreover, his focused on results made it easily to tattle on colleagues who were caught skipping out early on Friday. He even quickly tattled his fellows who were caught doing work for their second job in the teachers’ lounge. He set high standards in school, long hours, as well as relentless consistency as the sole approach to transforming the students’ belief in their own abilities and potential. He thus knew all about the discrimination of low expectation already pumped into the Garfield High school children by both parents and teachers who promoted cultural legacies. For example, the film reflects how the specific culture from where the student comes from influenced their behavior and attitude towards success. Escalante knowledge of the cultural legacies makes him answers the question from the child from the Angeles gang effectively when he claimed that it was been better robbing a gas station rather than knowing mathematics to work at one. Ana becomes another character used to showcase the cultural legacies barriers to academic success. Ana is soft spoken and intelligent student. She is forced to drop out and become a waitress on a full-time basis by her father at his Mexican restaurant joining her mother and sister. Claudia, a girl who must get her father ready for work every night, bath as well as put all the siblings to bed also reveals the cultural legacies. Claudia still ganas to do her homework late in the night. Still, she is disrupted when the mother comes from work. She has to be forced to switch off the light since her mother is tired and claims headache. Escalante knew very well that Claudia had a ganas and hence had the potential to pass AP test. Conclusion In conclusion, the Escalante’s legacy at Garfield High School emerged from his teaching strategies. He set a higher expectation for his students. He believed that his children had equal potential and set his standards. Thus, removing the cultural legacies leveled by policymakers at Garfield High trapped in the wrong assumption of poor Latino students inability to learn calculus. The children families’ lives were disastrous, middle schools which had not prepared them and even their shaky English making the lack cultural capital. They had no books in the home, trips to the museum enjoyed by more fortunate kids. Such a lower expectation culminated to low standards. For example, the tenth-grade math curriculum at Garfield High had been taught by Escalante to fifth-graders in Bolivia. Therefore, setting the higher expectation successfully worked for Escalante as his kid had ganas. Work Cited Farber, Paul. Schooling in the Light of Popular Culture. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1994. Print. Read More