At first I didn't think there were too many similarities between Mr. Escalante and Mr. McFarland but I went back and reread "I Just Wanna Be Average" by Mike Rose a third time and I had to change my opinion.
If one can look past the obvious exterior differences - rumpled vs. neat clothing, white vs. tobacco-stained teeth, clean family home vs. book-cluttered apartment, than one can see that these two teachers are indeed very similar.
With Mr. McFarland you read the story of Mike Rose in "I Just Wanna Be Average". You read how he set a higher bar for them to get over than they had been used to and a higher bar than was expected of them.
With Mr. Escalante it was an entire class of lower income Hispanic students. Mr. Escalante took a bunch of students that no one expected anything of and turned them into a group of young men and women that finally excelled at something that would help secure a future away from the way of life that was expected of them or at least give them a peek at what was possible.
Each of these teachers had a passion for actually teaching kids regardless of their backgrounds. It wasn't just a job for them. It was caring enough about each student and recognizing their potential especially when they didn't recognize it themselves.
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