How Mr. Escalante and Mr. MacFarland are similar

Mr. Escalante from “Stand and Deliver”, and Mr. MacFarland from Mike Rose’s “I Just Wanna be Average”, are similar in many ways. Both have a very bold way of teaching. Mr. Escalante shows up to his classroom and immediately puts the student’s minds to work. He was constantly asking students questions during class, and urging them to learn difficult math concepts. Mr. MacFarland also had this approach when it came to teaching. He frequently assigned his students large workloads. “We wrote three or four essays a month. We read a book every two to three weeks” Mike rose said of Mr. MacFarland. Rose also talks about his teacher constantly asking his class questions.  This bold teaching style was effective for both teachers. They both gained the respect of their students and challenged them to do their work. Students gained respect for Mr. E because he wouldn’t let them fail. He would make student look foolish by not answering the questions, mocking them into doing their work. For example, when Lupe states she is not going to take the Quiz, Mr. E makes her sit in a chair in the front of the class and whispers “You’re the show, now.” Macfarland also uses this same technique to gain his students respect. Mike Rose says “If nothing else, we all recognized MacFarland's considerable intelligence and respected the hours he put into his work. It came to this: the troublemaker would look foolish rather than daring.”

The most significant similarity between the two teachers was their ability to make the students strive for knowledge. They genuinely wanted to learn. In Stand and Deliver, we see the students being accused of cheating, but even so, they do not give up. They want to succeed just as badly and Mr. E wants them to succeed. In I Just Wanna be Average, Rose states in the last paragraph, “It enabled me to do things in the world” speaking of the knowledge he gained during the time Macfarland was his English teacher. Reward and success came upon both the students and the teachers in both of these incredible stories.