Teaching Style Comparison

Movie Teacher Style Comparison

I chose to watch Stand and Deliver and To Sir, With Love in my comparison of the teaching styles of two movie teachers. Both movies portray teachers that work with underprivileged student populations. Stand and Deliver is based on the true story of East Los Angeles teacher, Jaime Escalante. To Sir, With Love stars Sidney Poitier as Mr. Thackeray, an engineer-turned-teacher working in a lower class London high school.

Although both Escalante and Thackeray both deal with underprivileged students who socially sit outside the mainstream of society’s concerns, I feel the similarities end there. Escalante comes to his student population as a part of their own culture. Thackeray is from British Guiana and comes to his class in London via the United States. Thackeray’s teaching style is very authoritarian. He tells his students in one class, “I teach you truths, my truths.” He throws his textbooks in the garbage can and decides that what will serve his students best is to learn about life, about how to be an adult. He teaches them about cooking, takes them to the museum, and talks to them about what it is to be a real man. I wondered what he’d say to the girls about being a real woman. In his classroom, his voice is the only one that is correct.

Escalante’s teaching style is much more egalitarian. Although he does hold himself up as an authority figure, his attitude toward his students is as a guide and mentor. He does just the opposite of Thackeray; he gets out the heavy-duty math books! He feels that for students to succeed in life they must know more than just how to live. Most of his students are already more mature and carry more responsibility that they should. What he feels they need from him is a chance to get an education and more than a dead-end job. Escalante does not hold himself up as the highest authority; he puts his subject matter and his teaching before his own authority. He’s a strong enough figure that in one scene, he chastises his students for getting the wrong answer when he, himself is the one who is wrong.

Of the two teachers, I think that Escalante’s teaching style is the better one. Of course, I say this because Thackeray’s experience is purely fictional and it would be unheard of in today’s society for a teacher of seniors in high school to throw out the books in order to teach students how to make a salad. Escalante’s style and dedication are an inspiration and show how a teacher’s attitude toward the importance of learning and education can positively affect his or her students.