Jaime Escalante

Jaime Escalante

Jaime Escalante (born December 31, 1930 , † March 30, 2010 ) was an American teacher of Bolivian descent who campaigned for better learning conditions for disadvantaged young people. A central episode of his activity as a teacher was the subject of a book and the film Stand and Deliver in 1988 , in which Edward James Olmos played the leading role.

Life

Escalante was nine years old when his parents, who were teachers, separated and he was raised by his mother. He attended the prestigious Jesuit high school San Calixto in La Paz , then did his military service and enrolled in the Bolivian college Instituto Normal Superior . Before he graduated, he taught at various schools. At the urging of his wife and due to the birth of their first son Jaime Jr., he tried to gain a foothold in the USA in 1963 . There he initially worked in a wide variety of jobs, learned English on the side and obtained an associate degree in mathematics and physics. That earned him a well-paid job as a technician in an electronics company in Pasadena . With a scholarship , he was able to continue studying at California State University in Los Angeles. Since his heart was still attached to the teaching profession, he accepted a substantial drop in his salary to finally start in 1974 at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles , a socially disadvantaged district, mainly inhabited by Hispanic immigrants.

Irritated about the poor learning level of the students and the insufficient equipment of the school, Escalante initially toyed with the idea of ​​returning to his old job. Determined to change this situation, Escalante had to convince the early students that through education they could take their fate into their own hands. He promised them that if they learned math, they could get jobs in tech, electronics, or computing:

“I'll make a deal with you. I'll teach you math, and that's your language. With that you're going to make it. You're going to go to college and sit in the first row, not in the back, because you're going to know more than anybody. "

“Let's make an agreement: I'll teach you math, that's your language. You will do it with that. And then you will go to college. You then sit in the front row, not at the very back, because then you can learn more than anyone else. "

He soon gained a reputation for inspiring even hard-to-motivate students to learn.

On the other hand, Escalante had to contend with resistance in the first few years, especially from the school administration. He later reported on a deputy rector who criticized various approaches. Sometimes he complained that he was early, then he complained that he was late. He was then accused of soliciting donations for his students' exam fees without permission. This opposition did not end until a new rector, Henry Gradillas, took office. In addition to letting Escalante work undisturbed, Gradillas revised the curriculum at Garfield, reduced the number of basic math courses and decreed that in addition to basic math, algebra should also be taught at the same time. Extracurricular activities were forbidden for students with a grade below 3 (“C average”) and for new students with poor basic knowledge.

Escalante offered the first Calculus course in 1978 as part of the “ Advanced Placement ” (AP) . The students learned calculus and were prepared for a college-level exam. The results are used to waive some of their standard college courses for high school graduates if they have already proven their ability in a subject through an AP exam. He speculated that this could serve as an incentive for the lower classes. Escalante brought Ben Jimenez, a teacher friend, on board and started the first course with five students. Two of them passed the AP test. The following year the course had nine students and seven passed the exam. In 1981 the course increased to 15 students and 14 passed the test. Escalante made the test a top priority and constantly encouraged students to study the content in order to pass the test. He organized several weeks of tutoring during the summer vacation, which were held at East Los Angeles College by math students. The referring schools were also encouraged to teach algebra in the lower grades.

National celebrity

By 1982, 69 Garfield High School students took the AP exams, including Spanish and History. Escalante came into the focus of the public when all 18 students of his course passed the Advanced Placement Calculus Test for advanced students , seven of them with the top grade 5. The external examination commission ( Educational Testing Service ) criticized the result because there was a conspicuous correspondence with errors and they all used the same unusual names for variables on one question. From this group, 14 students were asked to retype the test. Twelve of them agreed and passed the exam again.

By 1983, the number of participants had continued to increase and the number of those who passed the test had doubled. This year, 33 students took the exam, 30 of whom passed. By 1987, 73 students had passed the AB version of the test and 12 had passed the advanced BC version. This was the absolute highlight of his program so far, as only about 3% of all students in the United States passed the test in the 1970s. In the same year Gradillas left school for a sabbatical to write his doctoral thesis. He hoped to return to work as principal and with the same program at Garfield or another high school when he returned. Instead, he was given the task of overseeing the asbestos removal.

In 1983 Jay Mathews published the book Escalante: The Best Teacher in America , and a film, Stand and Deliver, about the 1982 events premiered. Teachers and other interested observers asked if they could attend his class. When asked about the reasons for his success, he replies:

"The key to my success with youngsters is very simple and a time-honored tradition: hard work for teacher and student alike."

"The key is very simple and has a long tradition: hard work, both for the teacher and the student."

Escalante commented on the film that it contained "90% truth and 10% fiction". He noted that significant points had not been shown, such as the fact that it actually took several years of preparation and work to achieve the success shown in the film. He also pointed out that no student who lacks the basic knowledge of multiplication or fractions can learn calculus within one year. In addition, he suffered an inflammation of the gallbladder and not, as shown, a heart attack.

Over the next several years, Escalante's funding program continued, but at a high cost. Tensions that had already existed beneath the surface in the first few years of his activity now emerged openly. During his final years at Garfield High School, Escalante received threats and hate letters from various people on a regular basis. In 1990 he lost the chairmanship of the mathematics department. His support program grew to over 400 students, which in some cases increased the class size to over 50 students. That was well above the limit of 35 students set by the school board, which in turn provoked criticism of Escalante's work. In 1991 the number of students attending the preparatory course increased to 570. Due to petty school politics and some jealousy, Escalante and Jimenez dropped out of school that same year. Escalante transferred to Hiram W. Johnson High School in Sacramento for the next seven years . Here, too, he was able to increase the number of participants in the AP exams, but at a much lower level than in Los Angeles.

consequences

At its peak, Escalante's program was so successful that Garfield High School graduates made up the highest number of freshmen at the University of Southern California of any school in the working-class East Los Angeles. Even students who failed the test often later became successful students at California State University, Los Angeles.

After Escalante, Angelo Villavicencio took over responsibility and taught the remaining 107 students in two classes. Of these, 67 finally registered for the exam and 47 passed. Villavicencio's request to be allowed to open a third class due to the number of students was rejected. The following spring he too left school. After the departure of the teachers who had set up and directed the program, interest in it decreased significantly. In just a few years, the number of students who passed the test fell by 80%. When Angelo Villavicencio contacted the new principal of Garfield High, Tony Garcia, in 1996 and offered to return to the school to revive the program, this was rejected.

Although the emphasis is no longer on promoting as it was in Escalante's time, the program is still intact. In 2001, 17 students passed the AB version and 7 passed the advanced BC version. According to program director Paul Powers, approximately 1,000 high school graduates benefited from accelerated college courses in 2000. With the attention Escalante received, there was more demand for the advanced placement program overall. Among other things, the number of participating schools has more than doubled since 1983 and the number of participants has increased sixfold. This is a marked difference from previous figures as the program previously had a reputation of being used only by students in elite private schools.

A 2014 study compared 2,386 students in the Escalante program with 7th and 8th grade students in the neighboring Garvey School District over a two-year period to find out differences between attending and not attending additional algebra classes. When evaluating a test published by UCLA , it was found that Escalante students scored significantly higher than those who received no additional instruction. This effect was particularly evident among the participants in the summer courses. It was also surprising that these courses had a particularly positive effect on girls.

Next life

In the mid-1990s, Escalante supported the “English-only” campaign. In 1997 he joined Ron Unz and his “English for the Children” initiative, which ultimately led to the abolition of bilingual teaching in California schools.

In 2001 Escalante returned to Bolivia. He moved to Cochabamba , his wife's hometown, and taught at the local Universidad Privada del Valle. He kept returning to the United States for public appearances and to visit his children and grandchildren.

death

In 2010 he fell ill with leukemia and ran into financial difficulties due to expensive medical treatment. The cast of the film "Stand and Deliver", including the lead actor Edward James Olmos and former students, then put together a fundraising process. He died that same year, aged 79, at his son's home in Rancho Cordova, Sacramento, California. On April 1, 2010, a memorial service was held in his honor at Garfield High School, where he had taught between 1974 and 1991. Escalante was buried in the Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier Lakeside Gardens.

Trivia

Escalante's parents were from the Aymara tribe . As he liked to say later, " The Aymara knew math before the Greeks and Egyptians."

His students nicknamed him Kimo , named after Kimo Sabe from the television series Lone Ranger .

In 1993 the comet Escalante was named after him.

In Portland , Oregon , he was remembered by an April Fool's joke in 2010 when a stranger pasted street names over and renamed a street to "N Jaime Escalante Ave."

In 2016 the American Post issued a special postage stamp with his portrait .

Publications

• Henry Gradillas Standing and Delivering: What the Movie Didn't Tell (New Frontiers in Education) - The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing - 2012 - ISBN 978-1-60709-943-7

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Jaime Escalante dies at 79; math teacher who challenged East LA students to 'Stand and Deliver' . In: Los Angeles Times , March 31, 2010. Retrieved November 15, 2017. 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Something More Than Calculus . In: The New York Times , November 6, 1988. 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Jay Mathews: 'Escalante: The Best Teacher in America' . Henry Holt & Co Publishing House - 1988 - ISBN 9780805011951
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Jerry Jesness: 'Stand and Deliver Revisited' . In: Reason , July 2002. 
5. ↑ Gerald Campbell: The 8 Laws of Learning . CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2017, ISBN 978-1542368384 .
6. ^ [1] East Los Angeles College, August 29, 2015, accessed November 16, 2017
7. ↑ [2] San Diego Tribune, August 5, 2016, accessed November 16, 2017
8. ↑ Legendary East LA Math Teacher Jaime Escalante Dies . In: LA Times . March 30, 2010.
9. ↑ Garfield High Pays Tribute To Jaime Escalante . In: LA Times . April 1, 2010.
10. ↑ Anne E. Schraff: Jaime Escalante: Inspirational Math Teacher , page 12/13 - Enslow Publishers - 2008 - ISBN 978-0766029675
11. ^ Lutz D. Schmadel: 'Dictionary of Minor Planet Names' . Page 415 - Verlag Springer - 2015 - ISBN 978-3319176765
12. ↑ [3] Portland Mercury Blog, April 1, 2010
13. ↑ [4] US Postal Service