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Popular Culture Review
teachers realize the effect that low expectations are having. Some, like
Escalante’s colleagues, believe that there is a link between low socioeconomic
status and students’ low academic performance. This link is made explicit by the
chair of Escalante’s math department. “If you want higher test scores,” she tells
the principal, “start by changing the economic level of this community.”
Clark makes a similar point about the detrimental effect of low expectations
on student performance. Clark objects to the principal’s description of them as
the “the bottom of the barrel” and argues that the problem is not with them or
their abilities: “The problem is what you expect them to achieve.”
The “outsider” teachers, unhampered as they are by preconceived and
negative attitudes toward their students, are able to earn their respect because, it
becomes clear, these teachers really believe they demonstrate their concern by
putting the students at the center of their own lives. All Clark’s time outside
work is devoted to helping his students. At one point he even cooks dinner for a
student’s siblings so she can work on her essay. He spends large amounts of
money on them, going so far as to reward his students, and some parents, with
tickets to an evening Broadway performance of The Phantom o f the Opera. He
is even willing to sacrifice himself. Five weeks before the day of the big test,
Clark contracts pneumonia. Ignoring doctor’s orders for a month of bed rest he
shows up in class and collapses. Recognizing that he cannot conduct class in
person, he has a friend videotape four hours of lessons daily at home which are
shown to his students.
Johnson, who is getting divorced, also puts her students at the center of her
personal life. As one student says, she has plenty of time to be “always in
everybody’s else’s life.” She tries, unsuccessfully, to save one student from a
death in the streets by having him spend a night at her house, a gesture which, in
the real world, would almost certainly lead to a teacher’s criminal indictment.
But not so in the cinematic glow of Dangerous Minds. Here, Johnson spends her
money on classroom supplies and candy bars which she uses to bribe her
students. She holds an academic contest, and the winning team earns a dinner
with her at an expensive restaurant on her credit card. The rest get consolation
prizes—which she bought.
Escalante has a wife and