Stand and Deliver

As a child our teachers had us watch the movie Stand and Deliver and I never understood or even cared enough as child to look into what it was about. Like the rest of the students I laughed and forgot it right after it went off. Now that I am a young adult I have took it upon myself to view this movie again. It reminds me of Freedom Writers and is also about youth in the Los Angeles community but this particular story primarily focused on the Hispanic culture. As it is today, Hispanics are considered apart of the minority and are viewed as "illiterate" and incapable of reaching an intelligent peak to achieve success in school. This teacher Jamie Escalante starts working at this school but realized these students have way more potential then what the school assumes they have. So he takes it in his hands to start teaching them a more difficult curriculum because he knew they were capable of doing so and he wanted to open up the possibility of them earning college credit their senior year. These students also had big responsibilities in their homes helping out their parents and siblings taking on big responsibilities which sometimes clashed with this but the teacher helped them work through their situations. Faculty didn't agree with him and often were against him. When the students took the AP test to earn college credit, they all worked so hard but were accused of cheating because though they passed they got all of the same problems wrong but Escalante knew it was because they were Hispanic and were underestimated. They agreed to retake the test over the summer and passed again. This movie has such a big impact not only on Hispanics but other races as well. Our students shouldn't be underestimated by the background of their culture or the color of their skin. This movie opens your eyes to not what the students need to change in order to learn but what the teachers should change in order to teach. Our children are capable of so much more we must give them the opportunity to prove it.