Similarities/differences between Mr. Escalante and Mr. MacFarland, how or how not?

 

Similarities:

Quizzing students on a regular basis.  Giving them plenty of work.  Mr. MacFarland brought a prep school curriculum to the school; Mr. Escalante brought the calculus to his school.  They both walked around the room and asked questions to get the students thinking.

Mr. MacFarland  “slowly and carefully built up our knowledge of Western intellectual history-with facts, with connections, with speculations.”

Mr. Escalante would work the problems using some similar methods, connections and speculations, like the apple demonstration, where he cut part of the apple out and asked what was left? 

MacFarland's barbs were literary. “If Jim Fitzsimmons, hung over and irritable, tried to smart-ass him, he'd rejoin with a flourish that would spark the indomitable Skip Madison - who'd lost his front teeth in a hapless tackle - to flick his tongue through the gap and opine, "good chop," drawing out the single "0" in stinging indictment.”  “The notorious Voc. Ed. crowd settled down as well when MacFarland took the podium.”

Mr. Escalantes took control of his classroom from the first day, by rearranging the seating, speaking on the kids level, having a reply to every student’s smart-alecky remark.

Mr. MacFarland tapped Mike Rose’s oId interest in reading and creating stories giving him a way to feel special by using mind.

Mr. Escalantes tapped into the students minds and made them feel like they could do it.  His attitude was, “Students will arise to the level of expectations”.

Differences:

Mr. Escalante lived in a home, had a family, he was neat and tidy, had come to the college with

Mr. MacFarland  was single, lived in an apartment which was cluttered with cigarette butts all over.  He was also a “tobacco-stained intellectual”.  He seems like a frumpy, disheveled teacher.