Stand and Deliver

Introduced with the teacher driving from home to his new place of employment. He drives what seems like quite a distance from the suburbs through the inner city. His new job is supposed to be that teaching computer class, turns out there is no computers for the kids at Garfield High school in East LA. The school seems to be worn down. He arrives there and takes a job teaching math to students who have little to no desire to learn it. The classroom majority is Latino kids, some speaking only Spanish. The teacher quickly realizes this and puts effort forth to reach them. The kids do not expect to have a teacher who will care. They have been used to a school where they are not expected to perform well, and in turn the teaching has reflected that with teachers who do not have the motivation, interest, drive or control in the classroom. He shows no fear with the students. He makes it very clear that he is there to teach them, and he cares enough to do so. He brings in cultural aspects to get their attention, like stereotypes and generalizations that the kids should surpass. "don't settle for flipping burgers" They learn from him quickly that he is there to stay and not just for a paycheck. The teacher is very observant throughout the whole movie. He is always watching the students and most likely trying to come up with ways to help them to learn. He is confronted with the lack of resources in the school; lack of books, and no support from staff. He immediately begins to make changes. He shows them math, then takes them on a field trip to see what kinds of careers they may use these skills in. Many, many examples of the other teachers being negative, unmotivating, laughing at his efforts, and showing no faith in the students. The other teachers attempted to discourage him from teaching calculus as they thought the students could never accomplish such things. You see in this movie the students outside lives as well. They are confronted with adult responsibilities and faced with controversy when living what they see as normal lives. Most of them don't have home lives that are fit for studying. One example is a young girl forced to work, and her teacher goes out of his way to try to get her family to support her decision to better her life with schooling. The students develop respect for their teacher, they begin to really like him. He pushes them to want to learn calculus and has them even go as far as signing something to say they will commit to his class. He shows many different teaching styles and dedicates most of his time to helping either them, or others trying to learn. Between volunteering, teaching class, and teaching night school, he tends to neglect his own family a bit.  After wearing himself thin he suffers from a heart attack. He returns to class even after doctor orders him not to. He and the students spend so much time preparing for a test that they end up working through the summer. After the students pass the test they are accused of cheating because no one can believe that these inner city kids have learned the skill of calculus so well. They all miss the same questions, since they all were taught by the same teacher. Being accused of this initially causes upset. The kids decide with the help of their teacher to ignore the racism and judgement placed upon them and retry to prove everyone wrong. They succeed. The feeling of defeat that they had before disappears and presents them with a feeling of completion. They worked so hard and it paid off. Being accused of cheating put doubt in even the teachers mind that maybe he made the wrong choice. But ultimately he had changed so many lives. He showed students that he cared when they had never seen that before. Years follow with similar results and the trend continues. He shows more and more students that through hard work, they can earn college credits early and prove to themselves and society that they can too.