Stand And Deliver Essay

805 Words2 Pages

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

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