- Set in a city of many Mexican workers, possibly illegal immigrants
- There are students in the class who don't speak English
- School is on the verge of decertification
- The secretary says, "You can't teach logarithms to illiterates"
- Jaime's car was broken into and the radio was stolen after his first day of classes
- "Students will only rise to expectations" - Jaime; if they know they are expected to fail, they will fail
- "Hairnet" takes care of his mother; likes doing his homework
- Girl Student takes care of the kids while her mother and father are at work
- "It's not that they are stupid, it's that they don't know anything" - Jaime said to administrators observing his lesson
Instances of Good Teaching
- Interactive lesson with the apples to teach fractions, percents
- Didn't let the student show his up after the student flipped off Jaime
- Gets the class involved; asks questions; relates the lesson to real life situations; has the class repeat concepts (a neg times a neg equals a pos)
- Testing them to make sure they work hard and know the material
- Anna was going to drop out but Jaime went to her family's restaurant to convince her father to let her come back to school; committed to his students
- Gets the students involved and excited about lessons
Instances of Bad Teaching
- On the first day Jaime was passive; let his students run out of the classroom at the bell
- Humiliating student as punishment for not taking the test
- puts the students down - 'go to wood shop" "you are going to wind up pregnant and in the kitchen"
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