Best and Worst of Tech and Topics

My favorite part of Tech and Topics was when Jaime and I were working on our videos and they made us sound like chipmunks! But really, I loved how laid back the environment was. I learned so much during this semester, but never felt stressed about the work load or dreaded coming to class. I will definitely take what I have learned here and apply it in my classroom.
My least favorite part was the time of day. By the time 7:00 PM rolls around on a Thursday, I'm pretty tired and ready for the weekend. However, this class was definitely exciting enough that it didn't put me to sleep! While I would have preferred to take it at a different time, I am still glad that I was part of this section. Mr. Becksfort did a great job with the class and I benefitted from being here each week.

Movie Review

            Stand and Deliver tells the inspiring story of Julio Escalante, a teacher who had a significant impact on a high school in East Los Angeles. Escalante was originally hired to teach computer science, but learns on his first day on the job that the school does not have computers. As a result, he has been asked to teach a math class instead. However, he is not just given any math class, but a class full of students that the other teachers have given up on. He is very hard on these students because he wants them to show everyone who has given up on them that they are capable of succeeding. After teaching these students for a year, he approaches the math department and tells them that he wants to teach his students AP Calculus. The rest of the department told him he was crazy, but he ignored their comments and was determined to prove them wrong.

            Before Escalante began teaching AP Calculus, he made his students sign a contract that included the following rules: (1) they would arrive at school before the school day started and stay after the day ended, and (2) they would come to school on Saturdays, holidays and during the summer. Surprisingly, all of the students agreed to his terms. After about a year of hard work, all of the students took and passed the AP test. However, since they were from such a low performing school, they were accused of cheating. Escalante was furious. After putting up a fight with the people who issued the test, the students all took the test again, but were only given one day to study for it. Despite this, all of Escalante’s students passed once again.

            Lean on Me tells the story of Joe Clark and how he transformed a low performing high school in Paterson, New Jersey. After being fired from the school twenty years earlier, the mayor of Paterson rehired Clark as principal of a school that has turned into a den of drugs and violence. Clark’s job was to keep the school open and bring their test scores up to 75%. In order to do this, Clark added security to the entire school, told his teachers what they were doing wrong and expelled the lowest performers. This final action infuriated many parents.

            One mother in particular made it her goal to rid the school of Clark. She got her chance when she found out that he put chains on the school doors to keep drug dealers out. Claiming this was a safety hazard, the mother pressed charges and had Clark put in jail. Despite this mother’s position, the students protested while Clark was in jail, as they wanted him back in school. Clark was eventually released and managed to bring up the students’ test scores and keep the school open.

            Julio Escalante and Joe Clark are similar in a number of ways. First, they both more or less single-handedly turned their respective schools around. They had a number of coworkers who were not supportive of their initiatives, yet they rose to the challenge and did not give up. Additionally, they both developed great relationships with their students. While they were still seen as the authority figure in the classroom and school, it was clear that their students truly admired and respected them.

            Despite their similarities, Escalante and Clark had a number of differences too. First, since Escalante has left his school, the students there have continued to flourish. At the end of the movie, the statistics of the number of students who passed the AP Calculus test since that first year were shown. The results were incredible – they continued to increase every year. However, when Clark left his school, it quickly returned to its previous ways. Drugs, violence and test scores are still an issue and they are known for being a low performing school.  Additionally, these two men had very different approaches of how to turn a school around. Escalante began with the students who other teachers had given up on. He showed them that he believed in them and upon their passing the AP test, showed the rest of the school that if the lowest performers could succeed, then so could they. Clark, however, began by eliminating the lowest performers. He thought that if he got rid of the students who were causing problems or simply not succeeding, he would then have an easier time raising the schools’ scores as a whole.

            Julio Escalante and Joe Clark were two incredible individuals and serve as great role models for current teachers and administrators. Through their example, educators can be reminded how important it is to believe in and encourage their students. When I finally become a teacher, I hope to emulate Escalante and Clark in the way that they treated their students.