Stand and Deliver, by Ramon Menendez, is a film about a high school math teacher named Jamie Escalante who begins teaching calculus to a class of students who are likely to drop out; I learn that I am afraid of disappointing my mentor. Initially, most of his students were very difficult. Later on, Escalante goes to a faculty meeting and finds out that the school is about to lose its accreditation. He begins teaching algebra in place of basic math and starts testing students more often to ensure they understand the material well. Escalante then proposes teaching advanced placement calculus to his fellow faculty members. The principal decides to give Escalante a chance, but the math department head quits her job in protest. Most of the students …show more content…
They are accused of cheating by copying answers off of each other due to having the same wrong answers. When Escalante asks to look at the tests to see whether or not the students have the same incorrect answers, they do not allow him to view the tests. The students take the test again, and they all pass without being accused of cheating. As a whole, the work is about how a teacher transforms the futures of his class of challenged students and overcomes false accusations of cheating, and I learn that I am afraid of disappointing my mentor. Stand and Deliver helps me find out why I am afraid of mentors, and it is due to my fear of disappointing my mentor with my incompetence. The moment that resulted in this discovery is the scene where the math department head resigns because she believes that the students are too incompetent to learn calculus. She says, “Our kids can’t handle calculus.if this man can walk in here and dictate his own terms over my objections, I see no reason for me to continue as department chair” (37:40). When I hear “Our kids can’t handle calculus,” I think about how the department head does not have any faith in the students because they have already disappointed her to the point where she does not believe in …show more content…
Escalante, you put these kids under an awful lot of pressure. They would have gone to any lengths to please you” (1:16:30). When I hear “gone to any lengths to please you,” I realize that the students are very likely terrified of disappointing Escalante, as both he and his students put in a great deal of effort for them to do well on the advanced placement test. In all, I learned that I am intimidated by my mentors because I cannot bear to disappoint them with my incompetence. Stand and Deliver combined with my experiences, Karate Kid by Christopher Murphey, “Rat Ode” by Elizabeth Acevedo, and Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom, resulted in the creation of the following insight: I begin doubting myself and feeling that my mentor is disappointed with me when they belittle me because I believe that I have fallen short of their expectations. Disappointing a mentor with my ineptitude is what the work adds to my realization. To begin, like Dre, I am afraid of not meeting my expectations, but in addition to that, I also carry a fear of not meeting my mentor’s expectations, unlike Dre. When I received negative feedback without justification, I started believing the words that were included in the feedback I was
A fresh recruit to a discarded system is Mr. Jaime Escalante. In the film, Stand and Deliver, he had to adapt in his environment in James A. Garfield High School when, without prior notice, he was assigned to teach Mathematics instead of Computer. Quickly, as he set foot in the classroom, he had, most probably, a better discernment in human behavior. The reality of the high school he was employed in, he understood and tried to completely remove the universal gap between a traditional teacher and a disregarded student.
The movie ,“Stand and Deliver”, is about a bad high school that is having money problems and have bad behaving and lower level thinking students. When the new teacher, Mr.Escalante, is hired, he starts to teach math to the students and persuades the students to do better. After the school year is done, summer comes around and Mr.Escalante wants his students to attend summer school with longer hours, so he could teach them calculus. His boss disagrees because she worries if they don’t pass, they’ll lose what’s left of their self confidence. He gets the students to attend summer school and manages to get them to learn Calculus. Afterwards, they all take the advanced AP calculus test and pass but, they get questioned for cheating afterwards since they all had the same wrong answers. Later on they want to prove that they didn’t cheat so they take the test again, which is harder, and they have to study the whole course in a day. After the students take the test, the teacher later on finds out that they all had passed the test through a phone call the principal had. Over the years, more and more students from the same school pass the advanced AP calculus test.
The manner in which Poe addresses the topic of class differences and the struggle for power with his fictional characters resounds of his own struggles in his personal life. However, unlike in Hop Frog and the Masque of the Red Death, he was never himself able to emerge wholly victorious over his adversaries, including the publishing industry. In addition, Poe’s characters appear to hint that while wealth may be the source of power for many, the correct use of information itself is the surest path to the acquisition of power.
Introduction Teachers have become gateway keepers to providing education to students. Over the span of several years, teachers have been criticized for being unprepared, unable to adapt to different learning styles, and are increasing the number of students who aren’t learning. With this achievement gap increasing, it brings up the idea of what the education system is doing wrong and what improvements it needs to make. The education system needs to be redesigned to strengthen its curriculum, it’s connection to both practice and theory, and the idea of a powerful educator. The first aspect of this memo contains an interview with Diana Regalado De Santiago, a math teacher in the Socorro Independent School District for the past six years.
Cheating can be a common routine in a classroom—from copying work on homework to copying answers on a test. “Cheating by teachers and administrators on standardized tests is rare, and not a reason to stop testing America's children” (Standardized Tests). This statement is proved false by the fact that thirty-seven states have been caught cheating by “encouraging teachers to view upcoming test forms before they are administered” (“FairTest Press Release: Standardized Exam Cheating in 37 States And D.C., New Report Shows Widespread Test Score Corruption”). If teachers can view a test before it is administered, they can teach to the test so that their students’ scores are higher. Teachers who have viewed the test can then “drill students on actual upcoming test items” (“FairTest Press Release: Standardized Exam Cheating in 37 States And D.C., New Report Shows Widespread Test Score Corruption”). This is morally wrong since teachers who do not have the access to an actual test or those who refuse to view it do not know what would be on the test and cover a broad domain of material, not just specifics.
To teach to the test or trust the child; is the question in today’s education. Over the past twenty years state curriculum standards have changed. Teachers need to make the choice on how to teach the children in their classroom. In today’s society where testing runs the educational world, a teacher must decide how to prepare students for standardized testing.
Both Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers and Jamie Esclante in Stand and Deliver faced students stuck in low-income backgrounds and neighborhoods of crime. Despite the low achievement of these students, both teachers were able to foster a mastery of a subject to their students. Even though the subjects of English and math are extremely different, one method united both teachers and allowed them to teach their students effectively— trust. Erin and Jamie were successful because of the trust they put in their students.
“If you would just get up and teach them instead of handing them a packet. There’s kids in here that don’t learn like that. They need to learn face to face. I’m telling you what you need to do. You can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell ‘em.” Texas student, Jeff Bliss, decided to take a stand against the lack of teaching going on in his class (Broderick).
Standardized tests, and student results in general, are viewed as a reflection of how well a teacher is able to educate their students. So when a student fails, it is the teacher that takes the blame. Perrin recalls being under similar circumstances, even being told that any failure in her room is her fault (53). During my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity to discuss these ideas with my senior english teacher, Mr. Sundling. Since he only teaches seniors, Mr. Sundling does not have to prepare students for any Keystones, but I found that he is still affected by the mentality that comes with these exams. When a student fails, he is still held accountable for their lack of success. Even teachers that are not a part of the standardized testing system are still pressured by schools to make sure students are producing high quality results. I remember how Mr. Sundling expressed his anger towards a system that makes him take the blame for a student’s failure. Perrin describes how frustrating this can be by comparing it to a scenario where a doctor is blamed for not being able to cure a teenager’s ailment, even though the doctor had done his job, and it was the teenager that had failed to listen (52). Students are able to escape failure by making the teacher look at fault. Mr. Sundling only wanted us to succeed, but when the occasional failure did slip through, he was the one being held
In the contemporary American education system high-stakes standardized testing has resulted in a focus on extensive test preparation, as well as a large increase in the numbers of teachers cheating by alternating their students' test scores. Both these phenomena are a direct consequence of the incentives and punishments directly linked to standardized test results.
He begins teaching algebra in place of basic math and starts testing students more often to ensure they understand the material well. Escalante then proposes teaching advanced placement calculus to his fellow faculty members. The principal decides to give Escalante a chance, but the math department head quits her job in protest. Most of the students agree to attend the intensive calculus program. After a lot of intense preparation for the advanced placement exam, Escalante has a stress-induced heart attack.
Throughout this paper, I will be discussing how important high stakes testing is to our country. First, I will show how these tests prevent students from moving on to the next grade level or graduate without the skills necessary. Secondly, I will discuss how they improve students’ achievement. And lastly, I will describe how these tests keep teachers and schools accountable.
Deloza, L. (2014). Good teachers fail all the time: Straight talk from Rafe Esquith. Reading
Coming into this class, I figured we would learn about how to handle different kinds of situations from a teacher’s standpoint. As it turns out, the class is much more than just that. I figured there would be group discussions consisting of some controversial issues, but I had no idea how the course would make me feel as a person and as a future educator. So far, this class has brought to light the incredibly difficult decisions I will have to make as a teacher. Not only will those decisions affect the child and parents of that child at hand, but myself as well.
Testing is one of the big issues in our education system. The idea that the whole school curriculum should be planned around tests is a foolish one, if we want to get a quality education that we can actually learn something valuable from. Having students cram empty facts and memorize test answers is not teaching them it is just encouraging more stress and late nights. On some occasions, tests are a necessary evil to see if the student has actually learned anything from what they have been taught, but to gear the whole class a...