Jaime Escalante

The story of Jaime Escalante is one of a dedicated and passionate teacher, fighting to change the prospects of `troubled` and `unteachable` students, who attended Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. A mathematics teacher from Bolivia, Escalante taught physics and maths for twelve years in his home country, before emigrating to the united states in the late 1960`s.

Born on December 31st 1930 in La Paz, a city noted for holding highest administrative capital in the world (being more than 3500m above sea level), Escalante was the second child of Zenobio and Sara Escalante, both school teachers, and both poorly paid and overworked. Growing up in cramped conditions, sharing a small home with four brothers and sisters, the young Escalante amused himself by playing football, basketball and handball, while also visiting his grandfather, a retired teacher and philosopher.

Over the years Escalante`s father descended into alcoholism, eventually becoming so abusive their mother took the children and moved to an neighbouring district in La Paz. At the age of 14 Escalante attended San Calixto, a jesuit High School with a distinguished academic record. Despite a haphazard prior education, Escalante immediately excelled at mathematics and engineering. Unfortunately he was unable to complete his courses at San Calixto, being forced to leave the school after only a couple of years, as the death of his father meant the fees could no longer be met.

To help with the family`s finances Escalante undertook odd jobs around town until the age of 19, when he had a brief stint in the army fighting left wing insurgents. With his service completed he entered college, enrolling at the Normal Superior to become a schoolteacher.

The young student`s abilities in physics and mathematics were immediately apparent, and despite having no prior experience as an instructor he was offered the job. After a few different teaching posts at various schools in the region, Escalante left Bolivia in the late 1960`s to find work in America. For a few years he undertook administrative work, and sought to improve his English, before returning to teaching, and in 1974 found a post at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles California.

The School was situated in a deprived part of the city, and was notoriously run down, with violence and drugs a constant fixture. Upon arriving at the school Escalante was dismayed to discover the attitude of the other teachers generally being one of apathy and indifference. The general consensus amongst his colleagues was that the students were `unteachable.` Escalante`s own administrator had even criticised him for asking each student a homework question before allowing them into class, instructing him to `just get them inside,` indifferent to  Escalante`s complaints that `there is no teaching, no learning going on.`

Escalante was desperate to improve the morale of his pupils, who consisted largely of working class Mexican-America students. During his lessons he sought to convince them that they could have fulfilling and accomplished futures only by making the most of the education offered by the school. He told then that if they applied themselves and became proficient in mathematics they could find lucrative employment in engineering, computing, and electronics.

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

Despite his laudable ambitions, many of his colleagues opposed him, the assistant principle threatening him with dismissal because be was coming in to school too early, and leaving too late. He had also failed to get administrative approval to raise the funds for his students` Advanced Placement tests.

Escalante`s teachings had already improved both the confidence and ability of most of his pupils, many of them electing to sit Advanced Placement tests. These exams, which were similar to further maths A-Levels, were highly regarded by universities, but required schools to pay extra money for their pupils to sit them. Escalante had assumed Garfield High School would be willing to pay a few extra dollars for some of its pupils to take these higher level papers - but he was once again let down by his colleagues.

Escalante first came to the media`s attention in 1982, when eighteen of his students passed the Advanced Placement calculus exam. Any joy felt by Escalante for his pupils` success would have been short lived however, after the Educational Testing Service decided their scores were invalid. Apparently all the pupils had made the same mistake in a certain portion of the test, leading the ETS to believe cheating had taken place. As might be expected the students were completely disheartened: after putting so much of their own free time into studying they had been denounced as cheaters. Escalante was absolutely furious, believing the ETS were behaving in a prejudicial manner, penalising the students simply because they were were studying at a poor school and were hispanic. Of the fourteen who took the test twelve retook it, all of them achieving such high marks that their passes were reinstated.

The following year the number of pupils enrolling for Escalante`s class doubled, and of the 33 who took the Advanced Placement test 30 passed. In the same year Escalante took on extra work, teaching calculus at the nearby East Los Angeles College. Over the next five years Escalante helped hundreds of pupils pass maths exams. In 1988 the story of Escalante at Garfield High School was made into a movie: Stand and Deliver, and over the following years he received visits from celebrities and politicians, including actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Ronald Reagan. To them, like all others who wondered how he had achieved such success with his pupils, he modestly answered:

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