First of all, Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a Hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods help gang members and no-hopers pass the rigorous Advanced Placement exam in calculus. …show more content…
He gave up a job as an engineer to take a job at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. The school is on the verge of being decertified by the school district due to poor academic results and Escalante's philosophy is that students will respond to expectations and those at the school are so low that they perform poorly. After several years of success he decides he wants to teach them calculus, driving his students as hard as he can. He also drives himself into having a mild heart attack. Working with the students and also their parents, many of whom think schooling is a waste of time, 18 of them eventually pass the Advanced Placement calculus exam, giving them college credit. The Educational Testing Service finds a number of anomalies in the scores and suspect they have cheated, leading to a crisis. When the students re-write the exam and pass - again with high marks - they and Escalante are exonerated of any wrongdoing and their marks are …show more content…
She gradually begins to earn their trust and buys them composition books to record their diaries, in which they talk about their experiences of being abused, seeing their friends die, and being evicted. Determined to reform her high school students, Gruwell takes on two part-time jobs to pay for more books and spends a lot more time at school, much to the disappointment of her husband (Patrick Dempsey). Her students start to behave with respect and discover a lot more. A transformation is specifically visible in one student, Marcus (Jason Finn). Gruwell invites various Jewish Holocaust survivors to talk with her class about their experiences and requires the students to attend a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance. Meanwhile, her unique training methods are scorned by her colleagues and department chair Margaret Campbell (Imelda