Ron Seagal’s Post

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Founder, True Curriculum

If you want to raise the bar of your teaching skills, one possible source of inspiration is to look at the accomplishments of Jaime Escalante. Traveling to America from Bolivia, he ended up teaching at Garfield High School in the city of East Los Angeles, California. At the time, few people had the expectation that students there—low-income minorities—could master more advanced mathematics. Mr. Escalante believed differently, and he filled his students with high expectations and a high level of motivation and purpose. In 1982, every one of his advanced math students passed a calculus advanced placement test. This was so shocking to some people that it resulted in the test company refusing to accept the results. The students were forced to retake the test, and they again achieved good scores. [A movie was made about this called Stand and Deliver.] The entire level of expectation and belief in the students at Garfield High School changed. By 1991, about 600 students were taking advanced placement tests in math and other subjects—a huge change. Mr. Escalante was dynamic, caring, and highly committed to his students. He was able to connect with and inspire them. While the class was highly productive, there was always an upbeat, fun environment with lots of humor. Mr. Escalante exuded the belief that his students would reach a high level of achievement, and he backed up this confidence with effective teaching techniques: a competency-based approach with lots of practice done on a step-by-step basis, group learning and collaboration amongst students, providing students with real-world examples, etc. Mr. Escalante firmly believed that, with proper instruction, he’d make an exceptional learner out of every student. I bet he would also believe that, with proper instruction, every aspiring teacher could reach or surpass his level of achievement with his students. In fact, Mr. Escalante wrote the following: “I always have to laugh when someone suggests that my program is dependent upon one teacher’s personality (my own) and could never serve as a model for use in other schools. It just shows how far away we have drifted from the fundamentals of teaching.” https://lnkd.in/ezn9DwBi

Jaime Escalante

Jaime Escalante

garfieldhs.org

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