Stand and Deliver (1988)

It Delivers Alright... (Rating: 9 out of 10- -4.5 stars)
Saw this movie for class, and thought it was a very good movie. It's about a teacher who comes to teach at a school out in East Los Angeles, back in 1982. It focuses on students who have failed to receive proper education while they were at school for various reasons, mostly due to lack of motivation from prior teachers. The teacher, Mr. Escalante (spelling?), helps motivate the students to come to class everyday and learn. One day, he decides to teach Calculus to the class to help them pass a test that they are required to take. His hard work and motivation has brought the students together to learn and try to pass the test and graduate high school. Although there are many hurdles that he has to try to get over, such as teaching the class during the summer, he succeeds in many ways in reaching every goal that he has set out.

As for the acting of the characters, they were great. You can tell that the characters were pretty consistant during their parts, to make this movie convencing (since it is based on a true story).

This movie teaches many morals in life, such as motivation, planning ahead, goal setting, negative reinforcement, and a lot of other topics in organizational behavior. This is a movie I recommend everyone to check out, whether for a class or for leisure, because it's a good one. Peace.

If only I had their incentive...
I was first exposed to the story of this film as a sevnt grader. Strangely enough, it was first read to my classmates in paperback form (this book has elluded me for now). [I was part of a select group of midle school kids that were assigned to a "team" of teachers; they shared the responsibility of reading the story.] I naturally found it very moving, especially in the hands of my math teacher (the story is about students in accelarated math).

As soon as the teachers finished reading, we were given the pleasure of watching the film, itself. In fact, my father had already rented the movie for my personal viewing pleasure. While I didn't give it its due attention, the film was an undeniable influence on me as time passed. The year was 1994, and I was just begining to learn how to play music. The following year, I began playing the guitar. And though Jaime Escalante, himself has pointed out that he would never have obligated his students to sit the AP Calculus exam after only 2 years of study, the story was an underlying inspiration to me, as far as an interest in learning to play the guitar as swiftly as I could.

I just wish I could've applied that same incentive in my more traditional academic efforts. I was never a good schoolboy, even though I knew how much potential I showed. Even in college, when music was my major, I only ended with a C average. If I'd watched this film a few more times at that point, I might've been better motivated.

It was also great to see the on-set reunion of Lou Diamond Phillips and Rosanna DeSoto, who had both graced the silver screen in 1987, as key cast members of La Bamba.

To understand people who are different, you have to be one
Along with Music of the Mind, Dangerous Minds and Radio and others, this is the message. Real people are making real differences and it is on DVD. Play this at home, often. It has enough threat of violence to meet the average American mind, then slips the fact that an effort invested pays great social dividends;