Using Movies to Learn How to Motivate Students

                The motivational styles of Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver and Melvin Tolson in The Great Debaters share some similarities but are different at their roots.  The classroom style of Escalante attempts to hit at humor while also maintaining an element of toughness that demands respect.  He tries to bring laughter into the classroom, at times by his own expense though he is does not shy away from opportunities to mock students.  In fact, mocking students is one of his primary motivational tactics, using it combined with peer pressure to keep students in line and doing their work.  Escalante also brings a physical toughness that he is not afraid to utilize in the rough school district where he finds himself working.  Tolson on the other hand does not need to resort to physically toughness.  Instead, he can use his superior intellect and speaking ability to quell any challenges to his authority.  Confidence oozes out of Tolson in every word he speaks.  Whether he is right or wrong, the way he speaks inspires you to believe him and want to follow him either way.  He also is a man of strong though controversial moral convictions.  Tolson stands up for what he believes in and expects his students to do the same for their own beliefs.  

                What the two approaches have in style is that they both push students to a level that they have never been pushed before.  Escalante in Stand and Deliver firmly believes that if he challenges the students, they will rise to meet the challenge.  Despite numerous hesitations from his peers and significant doubt of his students at times, those students do push themselves well beyond what society as a whole expected of them.  Though it meant throwing away their summer and working late every night, the students continued to meet the challenges being thrown at them by their demanding professor.  Tolson in The Great Debaters also challenges his students, but he focuses on overcoming the challenges faced before them.  In a preseason motivation tool, Tolson requires his students to repeatedly answer that “the judge is God,” that their opponent “doesn’t exist” and is “merely a dissenting voice to the truth I speak.”  In essence, these words are trying to inspire the confidence that, despite whatever their debate opponents are arguing, they cannot distinguish their true voice in the debate.  The opponent, therefore, is an obstacle which can be overcome.