Film Analysis on Stand and Deliver (1988) Essay

The film Stand and Deliver (1988) tells a powerful real-life story that is set in an Est Lost Angeles school. Garfield High School is where this story is set where eighteen students overcame extraordinary social, economic, and political challenges to pass the Advanced Placement (AP) test in calculus (Menendez). The movie depicts the school as one that is faced by a myriad of problems. One of such challenges is a complacent faculty that firmly believes that it is a waste of time in trying to get the best out of the students. The students also seem rebellious and have given up on college life due to the socio-economic challenges that they face. Their parents have a similar attitude because of their Latino background within an American system where they are a minority community. They school has common problems that face disadvantaged institutions like a high number of student dropouts, demotivated students, and funding challenges that translate to poor, inadequate, or no facilities. The film portrays the school as likely to record a poor academic performance due to the problems if faces.

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The new mathematics teacher takes over a class where the students have all but given up on their academic future. They film portrays them as people who do not see the value of being in a class as the social system has already ostracized them as losers. Jaime Escalante, their new math teacher, has a daunting task of trying to change the attitude of the students because the majority of them wish they would be out of class. The high rate of school dropouts is a clear indicator of the disinterest that the students have towards their education (Chavez). Not only are the students unmotivated to study but also they are unruly and undisciplined going by the frenzy that they create during the class sessions. It takes Jaime Escalante to adopt various clever approaches to handle these students, which include banishing them from his class and assigning extra work that would require at least thirty hours in a week to complete (Dembski and Thomas).

Garfield High School is located at the heart of East Los Angeles where the majority of the population comprises of Latinos. Even the majority of the students enrolled at the school are the children of the working class Latino community. The parents of the students in the school consider schooling to be a waste of time for their sons and daughters whom they feel ought to drop out and help with other economic activities. They are economically disadvantaged position which lowers their social status in the larger American society. They are neighborhood is portrayed to have financial and socio-economic challenges which are evident in the parents and students of the high school. Even the new math teacher thinks that the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which had initially cancelled the well-performed results of the eighteen students who had passed their AP calculus, was doubting the performance of the students because of their social status as the Latino community. Issues related to drug use and gangs are also seen in this Los Angeles neighborhood.

There are various underlying issues that the film tackles as the thematic messages that it sought to convey. The movie identifies certain matters that are amiss in both the school in particular and the wider American education system in general. The same issues are hinged off the socio-economic system and have been known to contribute to the disengagement of the students from academic success. The education system is depicted as a broken one in which teachers in various schools have given up on their students, the schools themselves lack crucial learning facilities, and the students have no desire to engage in their studies (Menendez). These challenges come from the social system in which the Latinos are considered to be among the minority communities and worse, they are seen as unwanted immigrants. This means that social services and facilities tied to the economic system are likely to be inadequate due to the lack of priority from the American political leadership. Seclusion from economic opportunities in the mainstream society has made the Latinos to despise academic studies.

The various socio-economic challenges that affect the education system as presented in this fill can be solved through different means. One of them is the political goodwill to embrace equality to all American citizens irrespective of their racial background. The Latina community should be included in the various social, economic, and political spheres to have a direct influence on the social, and to some extent educational, issues affecting them. Teachers and education administrators have an instrumental role to motivate their students into working hard in achieving their dreams. Complacency has no place within the school environment as they should all make sacrifices like Jamie Escalante, who resigned a lucrative job, to mentor the high school students (Mathews). As for the students, the solution to their poor academic performance lies within themselves as it only takes their self-belief that they can achieve whatever their minds conceive. The onus is on them to work extra hard in beating the odds for them to emerge victorious.

Works Cited

Dembski, Bill, and Thomas, Alex. It Take Ganas: Jaime Escalante's Secret to Inspired Learning. Erasmus Press, 14 Nov 2016. Print.

Law, Lindsay et al. Stand and Deliver. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 1998.

Mathews, Jay. Escalante: The Best Teacher in America. New York: H. Holt, 1989. Print. BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Stand and Deliver. Dir. Ramon Menendez. Perf. Edward James Olmos. 1988. Movie.