I liked viewing the film "Shooting for Success" which was background for the movie "Stand and Deliver" in our last class. I have seen the movie before and it was interesting to finally see the real teacher who inspired it. I have not seen the movie since high school and immediately did not remember what the movie was about. I did however remember that the math teacher, Mr. Escalante, was an influential man who greatly believed in his students. I was astounded when I was reminded how 18 of his students in Garfield High School took the A.P. Calculus test exam, passed, and then was immediately accused of cheating. It was completely wrong of the Board of Education to ask those students to retake this difficult test. Being the most difficult test in the nation, those students put much hard work and effort into studying and preparing which they should not have been asked to do again. If not for their ethnicity and racial standings this would never have been asked of them.
             Something that was very inspiring in this film was that Lou Diamond Phillips who played the role of Angel Guzman, a gang member, did a lot of research to fulfill his role. He went to "Danny" who his character was based on for help with mannerisms, clothing trends, and pronunciations of words. He used those things as well as "Danny's" neighborhoods' characteristics in a unique combination to make the character more "alive." The end product was an extremely believable character that pushed the limits in this movie.
             The year of the film, 1988, there were 180 students from Garfield High School taking the A.P. Calculus Exam which was a dramatic change. This impressive shift was solely due to one man's remarkable talent for teaching. He constantly enforced students that they can do the work, and if they do try they are guaranteed to be successful. His students were required to put in a lot of ex...