Jaime Escalante (b. 1930)

It is early in the fall term at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, once a crime-ridden school filled with low achievers but now famous for outstanding calculus students. It is the morning after the second game of the World Series, and, as he enters the class, the teacher, known as el profesor, shouts out his first question: "Who won the game?" After a pause, the students begin to chant enthusiastically, "Dodgers! Dodgers!" Having captured their attention, Jaime Escalante moves to the math lesson. Slapping a baseball into his mitt, he says, "As X approaches A, F of X is the trajectory. Could be a curve ball." And they are off—teacher and fifty-nine students—on a journey into the mysteries of calculus.

Jaime Escalante, the son of an elementary school teacher, was born in La Paz, Bolivia, and began his own teaching career before age twenty. While he was a high school math and physics teacher, his students began to accumulate prizes, and soon, he gained national recognition. Still in his twenties, he organized the first Bolivian national symposium of physics and math teachers. In 1963, amid growing social strife in Bolivia, Escalante, now married with two sons, decided to take his wife and young family to the United States.

The next ten years were years of adjustment and struggle, years when Escalante learned English, went back to college, and worked as a busboy and a cook. When he finally graduated, he took a job in the fast-growing computer industry and studied for the California Teaching Certificate in his free time. When the news came that he had passed the test and would be assigned to a rundown, troubled high school in the barrio, Escalante turned his back on a substantially larger paycheck and headed for Garfield High School.

When the school’s accreditation was threatened because of its students’ low academic performance and high dropout rate, Escalante made his move. Supported by reform-minded administrators, he began setting high standards and making serious demands on students. They were not allowed into his class unless they proved that they had done their homework. He skillfully used the time-honored carrot-and-stick approach. The carrot was college and the world of opportunities higher education opened up for them. The stick was his constant challenging of them: "You burros have math in your blood! Our Mayan ancestors were the first to develop the concept of zero!"

Jaime Escalante, the subject of the Academy Award–nominated film Stand and Deliver, taught at Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento, Calif. He has received numerous awards and has hosted the PBS series, FUTURES with Jaime Escalante, produced by the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education. But he is more than the man who has helped hundreds of Mexican-American children discover self-discipline and learning and the enormous self-pride that comes with those accomplishments. Escalante is a tide turner. He has set an idea in motion, the idea that the poor and immigrant children in our country are capable of great intellectual feats. He has shown how remedial, slowed-down education can be replaced by demanding, accelerated education. "My skills are really to motivate these kids, to make them learn, to give them ganas—the desire to do something—to make them believe they can learn." He has always been clear about why he taught: his love of young people and his love of his subject. Although he has recently retired from active teaching, Escalante remains a clear and forceful spokesman for quality education, especially for minority children. Believing it handicaps rather than helps Latino students, he has taken a strong position against extensive bilingual education  Instead he urges a demanding education that will give minority students the knowledge and skills they need to compete in a demanding world. His educational views are captured in his famous motto, "Determination + Discipline + Hard Work = Way to Success."

Visit the following web sites for more information on Jaime Escalante:

Mr. Inspiration

http://www.paccd.cc.ca.us/75th/alumni/escalante/escalante.html

This profile is part of a series from Pasadena Community College, honoring famous alumni.

National Teachers Hall of Fame

http://www.nthf.org/escalante.htm

The National Teachers Hall of Fame posted this profile of Jaime Escalante when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999.

Interview with Jaime Escalante

http://www.govtech.net/magazine/visions/feb98vision/escalante.phtml

This 1998 interview with Government Technology magazine is part of a series on visionaries.

Conversation with Jaime Escalante

http://www.thefutureschannel.com/conversations_archive/escalante_conversation.htm

In this interview with The Futures Channel, Jaime Escalante discusses his views on technology.

Stand and Deliver Revisited

http://reason.com/0207/fe.jj.stand.shtml

This 2002 article in Reason Online explores the decline of the famous math program at East Los Angeles’ Garfield High after Jaime Escalante left the school, and the myths about Escalante and about teaching that were created by the movie Stand and Deliver.

Jaime Escalante On Being a Teacher

http://www.thefutureschannel.com/profdev/jaime_escalante/be_teach.htm

Watch a video interview in which Jaime Escalante talks about what it takes to succeed at one of life’s most important jobs.