Blog post with Cami, Lucas, Patty and Dan "Is Mr. Escalante a Good Teacher (Group Post 10/24)

There were two scenes from the movie "Stand and Deliver" that we focused on that we felt showed that Mr. Escalante was a good teacher:

The first was one was when Jaime Escalante was taunting Tito(?) about his use of his fingers.  He called him 'Finger Man"
          Jamie approaches Tito and holds up his hands and proceeds to show him how he uses his fingers to multiply.
  "Are you the Finger Man? I'm the finger man too. You know what I can do? I know how to multiply by nine.  9 X 3 - 1,2,3.  What do what you got?  27.  6 x 9 - 1,2,3,4,5,6.  What do you got? 54
Yeah.  You want a hard one? 8 X 9.  1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. What do you got?  72"
Although in most places we would not consider this to be an instance of good teaching, in the environment of East Los  Angeles it was a way for Mr. Escalante to make more of an impact with Tito.  Mr.. Escalante knew he had to approach each kid differently. He also took the opportunity to show Tito that he was not easily intimidated.

The second scene we selected was the restaurant scene where Mr. Escalante has just finished dinner with his wife and the owner of the restaurant asks him if he enjoyed his taquitos.
  Mr. Escalante says "Muy benento.  except for one thing." He shows the receipt to the owner who is Anna's(Anita) dad.  Someone doesn't know how to add"
Dad looks at the receipt and calls Anna over and talks to her in Spanish.
Mr.. Escalante says " She should be going back to school."
Anna introduces her father to Mr. Escalante as her math teacher and Mr. Escalante invites the dad to have a seat.  He does and asks Anna to bring a couple of beers.  When she leaves Mr. Escalante tells the dad he should get another  waitress.  Dad laughs.
Mr.. Escalante says " Anna can be the first in your  family to graduate high school, go to college. "
Dad "Thank you for your concern, her mother works here, her sisters, her brothers.  Its a family business.  She is needed."  Mr. Escalante responds that's she can help the family more  by getting an  education.
The conversation continues and the dad is starting to get defensive.  Mr. Escalante tells him that his daughter has talked about going to  medical school and that she will waste her life if she doesn't go back to school.  "She is top kid!" says Mr. Escalante.  "She could go to college and come back and teach you how to  run the place."
From there it is down hill and as Mr. Escalante gets up to leave he puts his money on the table but the dad gives it back to him saying that he does not need his money or his business.
This was a good example of the passion that Mr. Escalante has for his students.  He sees the potential and drive in Anna and wants her to succeed.
As far as any instances of bad teaching, we really did not have any examples.   The only thing that might be questionable was the references to  sex and gigolos but then one needs to remember where the school is and the rough environment that the students live every day.  Again Mr. Escalante is interacting with the students on their level.