Mr.
Keating from the movie “Dead Poets Society” and Mr. Escalante from the movie “Stand
and Deliver” are both dedicated teachers.
Although they are both good at what they do there are some differences between
the two. These differences swayed my opinion of which is the better teacher. I originally believed that Mr. Keating was
the better teacher because he worked continually to bring the students up to
his level without causing undue stress on the students. Mr. Escalante
seemed to be causing excessive amounts of stress to the students as well as
himself.
To begin
with Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante came from two different cultures.
Although Mr. Keating may not have come from a well off family, as this is
not addressed in the film, his family had enough money to send him to a private
boarding school. The school Mr. Keating attended was Welton Academy a
boys preparatory school. Private schools give the students the
opportunity to focus on school work thereby giving students a chance to excel.
Mr. Keating is hired by Welton Academy to teach English after having been
employed at another school to teach English. Mr. Keating being an
alumnus of the school is accepted by the staff at Welton Academy at first.
Frequently throughout the movie Mr. Keating says "Carpe Diem"
or "Seize the day." This is his motto. He further
says in order to illustrate its significance "We are food for worms
lads...believe it or not each and every one of us in this room are going to
stop breathing, turn cold and die." Mr. Escalante comes
from Bolivia and was poor growing up, he makes a comment in the film that
he washed dishes when he first came in to the United States. Mr.
Escalante quit his job working with computers to teach school and he is hired
to teach computer science at Garfield High School. When Mr. Escalante
arrives at the school he finds that there are no computers in the school to
teach computer science with. Mr. Escalante is then assigned by the
mathematics department chair person to teach mathematics.
There are
many different aspects to the methods of teaching that Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante
use. Firstly the language is different. Mr. Keating inspires and brings
students up to his level using his style of language and eloquence. In
Mr. Keatings opening classroom scene before he utters a single word to the
students he casually walks through the classroom
whistling Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, and then exits the classroom
and escorts the students to the lobby. While in the lobby he brings up
“Carpe Diem” and explains the meaning of it. Later on when he is discussing
the Dead Poets Society he says “In the enchantment of the moment, we’d let
poetry work its magic.” Mr. Escalante uses the urban slang language of
the students to pull the students along. "This is basic math, but
basic math is too easy for you burros. So I’m gonna teach you algebra because
I’m the champ. And if the only thing you know how to do is add and subtract,
you’ll only be prepared to do one thing – pump gas." This probably
makes it a little easier for him to fit in with the students, and be accepted
by them, as we see in the film that the other teachers do not do this.
Mr. Escalantes modus operandi is "Students will rise to the level of
expectations"
Both Mr.
Keating and Mr. Escalante involve themselves in the personal life of their
students. For Mr. Keating it was with Neil and Todd. In the case of Todd
it was to help him to bring poetry to life. In the case with Neil it was
coaching him to deal with his father. For Mr. Escalante it was primarily
Ana, Angel, and Poncho. In the case of Ana it was going to the restaurant to
talk to her father and make the case for her to come back to school. In
the case of Angel it was helping him to learn while at the same time hiding his
desire to be better academically from the other students. In the case of
Poncho it was to help him to realize that if he desired to he could succeed at
doing high level mathematics just like the other kids in his class.
Both
teachers push their students to excel. Mr. Escalante devotes a lot of
time and energy in the classroom focusing on basic Math, Algebra, and then
Calculus. Mr. Escalante tries to bring math to life for the students by cutting
up apples for fractions and using word problems involving humorous things the
kids can understand such as "Juan has five times as many girlfriends as
Pedro. Carlos has one girlfriend less than Pedro. The total number of
girlfriends between them is twenty. How many does each gigolo
have?" Mr. Keating devotes time in and out of the classroom focusing
on poetry, but involving physical skills to make the poetry more of a living
thing in their mind. Using walking to illustrate how hard it is to be
independent in thought when with others. Mr. Keating used kicking balls and
other activities while reading poetry to help make the poetry more alive for
them, making it a fun activity instead of a function in academics.
The way Mr.
Escalante teaches and what he is trying to accomplish is very stressful to him. Mr. Escalante’s wife Fabiola tells their
oldest son “Your father works 60 hours a week then he volunteers to teach night
school for free. Now he’s visiting
junior high schools in his spare time.” Mr.
Escalante’s workload eventually leads him to have a mild heart attack. He
teaches the students that they do not have to just exist in the barrio
continuing the status quo, they can also achieve great things if they put their
minds to it. Mr. Escalante tells them that they just need to have the
desire "ganas." The way that Mr. Keating teaches is light
hearted as he teaches the students to express themselves and to live life to
the fullest. He taught them not to just accept what is handed to them but to
have a questioning attitude.
Both
teachers want to give back to the students, by that I mean that they are both
successful academically and they want to help the students become successful
also. Mr. Escalante was apparently poor growing up and came back to teach
in order to help the minorities living there to achieve. Mr. Keating was
an alumnus of the school and he wanted to give the joy of poetry and life to
the students, knowing the dreariness that existed in the school's curriculum
and their methods of teaching in the school.
Both
teachers fought or challenged the schools administration or institution.
Mr. Escalante because he believed the students could achieve if they were
shown that there was an expectation that could achieve, “Students will rise to
the level of expectations.” Mr. Keating was unorthodox in his teaching
methods challenging the academic mediocrity or lifelessness of what was
expected of him in the classroom and out of it.
Both
teachers had to deal with parents that wanted to restrict the kids to the
status quo, however Mr. Keating left the issue completely up to the student(s)
to solve with the parents. This may have been to help them grow as
individuals.
In the
end after analyzing the individual characteristics I would say that both
teachers are good teachers, but I would say that Mr. Escalante is a great
teacher. He works very hard to help the students to succeed and expects
the students to work hard as well. Mr. Escalante gets the students to
achieve things they did not believe they were capable of. Mr. Keating
gets the kudos for helping the students to enjoy school more and to inspire
them, but I'm not sure how much he helped to improve them academically.
We are shown in the movie that the kids are enjoying themselves but not
necessarily that they are excelling. That I think is the key difference.
When you compare academic skills versus happiness. You can be happy being
a ditch digger if you enjoy it, you cannot be happy being a mathematician if
you don't know math. That is the end on the analysis, but I feel that I
must make the comment that the character of Mr. Keating was not really
developed as the movie was more about the kids.
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