Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutierrez, was born on December 31, 1930 in La Paz, Bolivia. Born into a home with teacher parents, he realized that his true passion was teaching and following their footsteps, he became a physics and mathematics educator. For 14 years he taught in his home country and in 1964 he emigrated to the United States.
His first stop was Puerto Rico, where he took science classes and mathematics courses at the college. He then arrived in the United States without knowing how to speak English and without official certification nor license to teach in U.S. schools.
Professor Escalante stood up to the obstacles that came his way despite his immigration status and was determined to overcome those inequalities. He enrolled at the University of Pasadena and studied at night until he graduated with a degree in electronics. He continued working during the day and studying at night until he earned his degree in mathematics.
In 1974, Escalante took a job at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, California. There he found himself in a challenging situation: teaching math to struggling students in a run-down school known for violence and drugs. While some had dismissed the students as unteachable, Escalante struggled to reach his students and get them to live up to their potential. He began an advanced math program with a group of students, wich included extra classes in advanced algebra, trigonometry and calculus.
In 1982, his largest class took and passed the Advanced Placement Calculus exam. Some of the students’ test scores were invalidated by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) because it was believed that those students cheated. Escalante protested, arguing the students had been disqualified because they were Hispanic and came from a poor school. A few months later, many of the students retook the test and passed, proving that they knew the material and that the ETS was wrong.
Escalante’s challenges and successes in the classroom were the subject of public discussions in 1988. However, that same year he was awarded the President’s Award for Educational Excellence by former President Ronald Reagan. His story was the subject of a book titled Jaime Escalante: The Best Teacher in America and a movie called Stand and Deliver starring Edward James Olmos.
In 1990, he lost the presidency of the Mathematics department. Over the next few years, his calculus program continued to grow, despite receiving threats and hate mail from various individuals. The following year, he left his job at Garfield and got a job at Hiram W. Johnson High School in Sacramento, California. However, he did not seem to find the same level of success in the new job as he had in his previous position so he retired from teaching in 1998. That same year he received the ‘Free Spirit Award’ from Freedom Forum, also won the ‘Andres Bello Award’ from the Organization of American States and in 1999 was inducted into the “National Teachers Hall of Fame”.
After many years of preparing teenagers for the Advanced Placement Calculus exam, in 2001 he returned to his native Bolivia and began teaching at the Universidad Privada del Valle. A year later he became a member of the “President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans” in the United States.
In 2005, he was awarded the Highest Office Award by the Center for Youth Citizenship. The same year, he was honored with the title of Best Teacher in North America by the Freedom Forum. He has also received several honorary degrees from prestigious universities around the world such as the University of Massachusetts, California State University, Concordia University, University of Northern Colorado and Wittenberg University.
Today, Jaime Escalante is considered one of the most famous educators in the United States. His work has been a source of inspiration for teachers and students by demonstrating the exponential growth of his advanced mathematics program and the positive impact a good teacher can make on a young person. All of his efforts made him a reference and a source of inspiration for Latino students who struggle with the inequalities they face because of their race and ethnicity.
He died on March 30, 2010 in Roseville, California, at the age of 79, after suffering from bladder cancer. He was buried in Rose Hills Memorial Park, Whittier Lakeside Gardens.
References:
Biografía de Jaime Escalante – Hechos, Infancia, Vida Familiar y Logros (thefamouspeople.com)
BIOGRAFÍA DE JAIME ESCALANTE – Trabajos – EMMANUEL76 (clubensayos.com)
Jaime Escalante: Ganas es todo lo que necesitas. • LatinxHistory.com
Recent Comments