In the area of East Los Angeles, California, in 1982, in an environment that values a quick fix over education and learning, Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos) is a new teacher at Garfield High School. He is determined to change the system and challenge the students to a higher level of achievement.
Leaving a steady job for a position as a math teacher in a school where rebellion runs high and teachers are more focused on discipline than academics, Escalante is at first not well liked by students, receiving numerous taunts and threats.
As Jaime’s first year progresses, he is able to win over the attention of the students by implementing innovative teaching techniques. He is able to transform even the most troublesome teens into dedicated students. While Escalante teaches basic arithmetic and elementary and intermediate algebra, he realizes that his students have far more potential. He decides to teach them calculus. To do so, he holds a summer course of what is implied in the movie as pre-calculus material, such as advanced algebra, math analysis, and trigonometry.
It’s the story of a man who begins teaching at a high school in the slums of Los Angeles, expecting to teach Computer Science. When he arrives what he instead finds is that there is not computer department, and he’s stuck teaching basic math to a bunch of social misfits. The beginning of this movie sets the stage wonderfully by showing us the kind of people who inhabit the city as he drives through it on the way to the first day of school. When he arrives at the school we see the students in their natural environment (and a rough one it is). What is a teacher to do?
The protagonist of this awe-inspiring story (Jaime Escalante) is a wonderful example of what can happen when a person chooses to adapt to certain environments and not apt to others. When he’s given the task of educating a group of kids that includes some scary gang-member type looking kids, instead of acting like a teacher he acts tough right back (reminding them that they’re in his domain). Yet, when he’s brought into a room with the other teachers and school staff, he goes against the grain.
When the school’s head advisor tells the principle that everyone is doing their best, he immediately says that he’s not. And when she tells the principle that Escalante is asking too much of his students, he boldly tells her that the students will rise to the expectations of their teacher.
Director: Ramón Menéndez
Year of Release: 1988
Character to watch: Edward James Olmos as Jaime Escalante.
Journal your answers to the following questions after you watch the movie.
- How does this particular character’s journey compare with yours?
- Did the character develop certain characteristics during the movie that you have or that you would like to have? If so, what are those characteristics?
- What obstacles did this character face? What was his or her biggest challenge?
- What would you have done differently if you had been in the same position as the character?
- Is this character the type of person you would be friends with? Why or why not?