Motivation and Engagement
Introduction
A majority of public schools can be made better in different ways. Often, known as places where learning entails gaining competence, young adults usually encounter victimization and the lies that there is nothing to being smart. No other place experiences this acute crisis than it happens in the inner-city American school, Garfield High School, which the movie “Stand and Deliver” accurately describes. This paper examines the various approaches that Mr. Escalante successfully used to handle the plight of one class.
Motivation and Engagement
The class environment symbolizes the conflict between students’ daily lives, educational motivations, and the influential impact of Mr. Escalante. Many of their parents spoke little or no English and had never finished high school themselves. And yet Escalante became the most famous and admired teacher of his time by cajoling students to excel regardless of their poor preparation in junior high, difficult home situations, inadequate study habits, drugs, gangs, and other daunting obstacles. This displays allusions to the motivation and engagement unit, referring to the self-determination theory, goal orientation theory, and extrinsic motivation.
Mr. Escalante’s approach towards his students showed us that he emphasized their competence and their capability to have a sense of control over their education. In the film, Escalante proposes to the school staff that he should teach his students calculus in the summer. The other teachers never believed that these students could learn this because they had perceived them to have low standards based on the socio-economic setting. Escalante clarified his belief that his students had the skills to master this complicated subject and follow his plan. During this process, he boosted his students’ self-esteem to get them to demonstrate their abilities and mastery over the tasks at hand. He believed higher mathematics was the key to a good job, a promising student’s ticket out of the barrio, and into a successful career by preparing them for the Advanced Placement (AP) exam. Escalante put them in an elite group, typically opening the door to earning credit to prestigious colleges. According to Woolfolk (p.466), self-determination theory focuses on the motivation and human needs of an individual, emphasizing autonomy, and competence. The students showed that their need for autonomy was being met by an external perceived locus of causality source. Mr. Escalante motivated them to come to class and get good grades. Using verbal persuasion, he encouraged their potential and telling them to consider their abilities when nobody raised their self-efficacy. By teaching the students calculus, Mr. Escalante set up an environment that would satisfy their competence. Mr. Escalante gave the students an optimal challenge that matched their skills to get them into a flow with the classwork. He also gave immediate feedback, especially when he had the students worked math problems out loud or on the board. Failure was tolerated since no one got kicked out for getting a problem wrong. He also gave the students clear goals and guidance, which encompassed passing the AP exam and teaching them calculus step-by-step. Integrating all these components would allow the students to fulfill their competence. Relatedness engaged Escalante’s students to connect emotionally and become extrinsically motivated to create goals of academic achievement.
The strengths of Mr. Escalante’s approach appeared by developing a curriculum for his students. Everyone in the class followed and understood that they could achieve anything desire by working for it. He also found ways to help Non- English speaking students to set personal goals.
Escalante’s approach to instruction was to help his students become independent, strategic, and to meet goals. He makes the students show up during summer an hour early for school, stay late daily, and even attend Saturday classes. Many students who slacked got a changed idea of education, and the strict teaching style encouraged his class to put equal effort into succeeding. The oppression and political structure enabled students to recognize their capabilities by taking the AP calculus test. The Goal Orientation theory is viable for persons focused on reaching a specific objective or accomplishing a given task driven by purpose. Escalante used this concept by setting direct attention goal; he removes distractions by engaging the class to participate in every session. His energizing effort enabled the students to challenge themselves, thus attaining outstanding results. Escalante also showed persistence by stating that hard goals demand effort. As Frank Garcia performed a math problem in front of the class, he claimed that he could not complete it because everyone knows him as the “dumb” one. Escalante tells Frank that he can finish the problem by telling the class, “don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t do this; he’ll sacrifice us to benefit the team.” Escalante’s persistence shows his focus on improving new skills despite how out of proportion someone feels (Woolfolk, p.470-471). Contrarily, the emphasis in his class is not the love for the subject; the primary motivation is the benefits of becoming successful.
Escalante feels that when both the teacher and the student work hard, the program’s elements and the success experienced can be duplicated anywhere. He believes the teacher must bring out the ganas in each student, which he accomplished by entertaining, challenging, cajoling, encouraging, praising, warning, scolding, and threatening. He used gadgets, gimmicks, and a specialized vocabulary; he played music, handed out candy, told jokes, had the class chant and clap to keep going. Amidst this fun and creativity, existed high expectations of the students and how much time they spent on mathematics. According to Woolfolk (p.463), extrinsic motivation is created by implementing external factors, including rewards and punishments. Escalante’s students are extrinsically motivated, which determines if their participation lacks interest because of the goal that has extrinsic reward value, which is also referred to as integrated regulation. In one scene, the net head and his classmates go into the ocean for a celebration after taking the test. Escalante changed his students through verbal praise and complimenting their hard work when they had trouble getting started.
The weakness of this theory was that Mr. Escalante did not show how the students could have learned to be extrinsically motivated by this subject. The students looked at this class as a way to get out of poverty, and there is more to math than reward. The strengths of this theory were that it motivated his class to succeed and prove that they were capable of.
Conclusion
These theories showed that the movie illustrates the difficulties that Jaime and his students faced to balance the desire to teach and learn in their daily lives. This was by no means easy as it involved sacrificing a lot to reach their goal, thus achieving more than math skills. They gained confidence and pride. By teaching the class calculus, Jaime not only changed how his students perceived themselves but also changed the way others saw his students.