Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Today we remember a man who was considered one of
the best teachers in the United States. Jaime
Alfonso Escalante was born in nineteen thirty in La
Paz, Bolivia. Both his parents were teachers. He
taught math and science in his home country for
twelve years. In the nineteen sixties, Jaime
Escalante and his wife Fabiola came to the United
States. During the next several years, he learned to
speak English and repeated his college education and
teacher training. In nineteen seventy-four, Mr.
Escalante was hired at Garfield High School to teach
mathematics. The school was in a poor area of Los
Angeles, California. Many of the students had
serious problems with illegal drugs, gangs and
violence. The school was in danger of losing its
official approval to operate.Mr. Escalante's
students were mostly Mexican-Americans from a
Spanish-speaking area of the city. Many were the
worst students at the school and thought to be "unteachable."
But Mr. Escalante pushed the group to work hard. He
told them basic math was too easy and that they had
the ability to do harder work. He told his students
that he believed in them, but they must have the
desire to be successful.Jaime Escalante started an
advanced math program with a small group of
students. Advanced Placement is a program of
college-level classes and tests. In nineteen
eighty-two, eighteen of his students took the
Advanced Placement test in calculus. They all
passed. Officials at the testing company suspected
the students of cheating. Mr. Escalante protested.
He said the students were being rejected because
they were Hispanic and from a poor school. He urged
his students to take the test again. Twelve of the
students repeated the test. And again, all of them
passed. Five earned top scores. Mr. Escalante's
students went on to become engineers, scientists and
university professors. The advanced math program at
Garfield became extremely successful over the next
several years.Jaime Escalante received many teaching
awards including the Presidential Medal of
Excellence in Education. A movie about his success,
"Stand and Deliver," was released in nineteen
eighty-eight. It influenced other teachers to use
his methods. Jaime Escalante retired from teaching
in nineteen ninety-eight and later moved back to
Bolivia with his wife. He died earlier this year. He
was seventy-nine years old. For VOA Special English
I'm Alex Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
