Escalante vs. MacFarland

Yes and no.  I see Mr. MacFarland as similar to Mr. Escalante in a couple of ways such as the way he turns the outbursts of disruptive students into the petulant cries of one that is lacking intelligence then immediately showing them a better way.  The way that he gets personally involved with the students by letting them visit him at home in order to further educate them and instill the desire to learn is akin to Mr. Escalante’s methods.  However it seems to me that Mr. MacFarland only does this for a select few whereas Escalante was not picky.  Furthermore Mr. MacFarland does not take a disparaged bunch of kids that the rest of society gave up on and turn them around he just teaches well and inspires a few to want to learn and write. Both teachers are somewhat unimpressive to begin with but are able to impress the students enough with their knowledge and teaching ability that it doesn’t matter.  Now there is no knowing that if Mr. MacFarland was thrown into a situation like Mr. Escalate that he would show the same tenacity and passion, but as far as the story of Mike Rose and the movie compare I just do not see the same level of passion. 

Mr. Escalante's success

               Tying the second half of the movie into my opinion of Mr. Escalante only builds upon the foundation that I gave in the last blog entry.  The passion that he shows when teaching these kids that the rest of the world had given up on is meaningful for reasons beyond that of the immediate.  His selflessness and sacrifice were felt for many years and the results of his work only grew as the years went by.  Not only were his adaptive methods of teaching paramount to his success, they also enabled him to breach the divide of the socio-economic stigmas of the time (which unfortunately still exist today). 

               During the second half of the movie I witnessed the passion that I spoke of before when Mr. Escalante suffered a heart attack.  Despite this serious health issue he still reached out to the kids with the help of a nurse and continued to teach.  He even returned to work before the doctors recommendations because the students were in a crunch time for the AP test.  There were numerous occasions where the students were about to descend back into the depravity they had ascended from yet they were saved because of the mere influence that Mr. Escalante had had on them.  His passion is what they needed in order to acquire the desire to learn.  So all in all I believe that the key to his success was his passion from which stems all the attributes mentioned earlier and in other blogs posts.

Mr. Escalante's journey

            So far it appears to me that Mr. Escalante is the epitome of what I look for in a teacher.  When we wrote about what I value in a teacher I told you of the ability to inspire the desire to learn as well as a sense of duty to the students.  Mr. Escalante has demonstrated those traits and so many more that all add up to make him a superb teacher. 

My first glimpse of Mr. Escalante was as he was driving to work through a seemingly seedy side of town.  This was depicted with graffiti and a rundown look to the neighborhood he drove through.  When he arrived at the school, I saw conditions that were similar to the neighborhood to include vandalism, theft, and feces.  As you picture the scene as I have explained it, remember back to when I said that kids are a product of their environment.  It is no different in this case.  In his first class the students are unruly, disrespectful, and completely uninterested in learning.  The class is interrupted by an obviously mistimed bell which the students gladly take advantage of.  They even go so far as to physically assault Mr. Escalante! 

The first part of the movie progresses to show Mr. Escalante whipping the kids into shape through various methods.  That is what I think makes him such a good teacher is his adaptability.  He is able to use different methods for the variety of issues that arise, and at the same time he inspires the desire to learn in the students.  That normally would be enough but he goes even further and personally intervenes in several students’ lives in order to ensure they are able to succeed.  What more could you ask for in a teacher.

how to write an essay

               How do you write an essay you ask?  Well I am here to enlighten you.  There are a couple of guidelines/steps to writing an essay.  Typically you start out with some prewriting techniques which I will explain in further detail later.  Then you jot down your introduction paragraph which contains your thesis and some hints at the supporting paragraphs.  Speaking of which, the supporting paragraphs are next closely followed by the concluding paragraph. The concluding paragraph is the easiest because you basically just sum up the gist of the supporting paragraphs with an affirmation of your thesis.

               So now let’s dive into the prewriting ideas that I mentioned earlier.  Now for some of us we could go almost our entire educational career without using these but they are definitely helpful.  The first idea is brainstorming. You need to ask yourself a couple of questions so as to know what the flow of your essay is going to take.  What is the target demographic?  What do you hope to achieve with your essay?  Now that you have those answers in mind you need to develop your thesis statement.  Notice that it is called a thesis statement.  That means that it should not be a question and should be very direct and to the point.  An example is the one I used in our writing strategies lesson “Fast food will be the downfall of America” the thesis was that fast food is unhealthy.  I followed this thesis statement with some supporting facts to include referencing a health professional’s article.  Now that lesson only required a paragraph but I could have easily followed it with some supporting paragraphs and ended it with a conclusion. another useful tool would be to use an outline which you can use to guide yourself in the general flow of the paper.  There you go you now know the basics of writing an essay.  Good luck.

what i value the most

               What I value most in a teacher is not particularly their teaching ability; it is their ability to inspire the desire to learn.  Sure there are teachers out there that have classes with high test scores with the ability to make their students remember a subject; however that is only relevant for the tests that the students must pass.  In order for a person to be successful in life they must be knowledgeable.  As Mrs. Williams, my first grade teacher, told me time and time again “knowledge is the key to success”.  She made the difference in my life by putting me in the SMART program (Start Making A Reader Today).  Although my educational career was fraught with laziness and inattentiveness, I still read books on my own time and expanded my knowledge in that way.  I owe that to Mrs. Williams for inspiring me with the desire to learn.

                Another aspect that I value in a teacher is involvement, or maybe a sense of duty, a teacher that is invested in the education of their students.  The worst kind of worker or mentor is one that does not care about the quality of their product.  If the teacher actually cares then the students will most likely excel and will be less likely to be involved in negative activities.  Of course a teacher’s technical knowledge, ability to present that knowledge and their interpersonal skills are important as well.  All the same, without the ability to inspire and the involvement in the students’ wellbeing, I think a teacher would be unable to make the desired impact on students.

how the teachers are portrayed

     I see three teachers in Audre Lorde’s essay, Mrs. Baker, The kindergarten teacher (a.k.a. Miss Teacher), and Sister Mary of Perpetual Help.  From what I read, Mrs. Baker was the best and most memorable.  In a way she reminds me of my first grade teacher, Mrs. Williams.  Miss Teacher and Sister Mary were abhorrent teachers though and there are a few glaring examples that I will explain later.

     I have read thousands and thousands of books ranging from technical books about physics and psychology all the way to science fiction/fantasy.  I owe my enjoyment of reading to Mrs. Williams and the SMART Program (Start Making A Reader Today).  I believe that I have learned more about life from fiction books than I have from any real life sources.  This is what Mrs. Baker gives to Audre Lorde which is intimated by her statement of “I was sold on reading for the rest of my life" (From Zami 65).

     As far as the other two teachers go, it seems to me that they did everything in a manner that was harmful instead of helpful.  To start, Miss Teacher punished Audre Lorde for overachieving.  Sure I can see the not listening to instructions part but why was she punished for being able to use a real pencil and writing her whole name instead of just the first letter?  Sister Mary seems to be the worst, the way she segregates the class as an attempt at motivating the students to learn instead of doing some one on one tutoring is seriously wrong.  The degrading way she handled the whole glasses incident blew my mind especially at such a young age.  Both these teachers should take a leaf out of Mrs. Baker’s Book. I got these impressions because of the way Audre wrote about the teachers and what she decided to tell us about.  I am sure that there were some positive aspects to Miss Teacher and Sister Mary, but for the most part Audre recounted the negative aspects.

2nd paper brainstorming

So you have asked me to brainstorm ideas for my second paper.  My second paper will be a compare/contrast between two teachers.  Seeing as I have not seen the two movies, which have the teachers I that I will be writing about, I do not know what to tell you.  My paper depends entirely on the roles they portray so as of yet I do not know if I will be comparing or contrasting.  I could write about two teachers from my past but none of them really stand out except my first grade teacher.  Seeing as that happened about 17 years ago, all I have is a general idea that she was a good teacher. I am hoping that the teachers in the movies are in line with what was said by Robinson though as he has some very good ideas on the path that the education system is going with respect to creativity.  I was also very impressed with his idea of academic inflation, because I have sensed this fact for a while now.  In the end I hope that the teachers portrayed in “Stand and Deliver” and “Dead Poets Society” play the roles necessary for me to contrast one as promoting creativity and the other as an advocate of the university system.