Tag: Jaime Escalante

Posted in Challenge, Feedback, General Inspiration, Get Psyched!, Hope for Teachers, Note to Teachers, Pep Talk, Perseverance

Fed Back and Tested (get back up, Teacher)

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Made with http://www.mememaker.net.

Dear Teacher,

I don’t know about you, but yesterday was a rough one for me.  Not bad, so much, just rough.  You know those kind of days?

I gave a test.  I had high expectations.  It went horribly wrong.  My prediction of high averages were dashed on the rocks of reality.

I gave the students an opportunity to give me some feedback about behavior.  They rated me, themselves, and the class.  It is never nice to have to look into the mirror of perception!  Nothing surprised me too much, but it doesn’t feel good to know what you thought is true.

So here I am this morning left with two things to come to grips with:

  • The students didn’t learn what I thought they learned.
  • I have as much to work on in myself as I thought I did.

So, what do I do with that?  Do I beat myself up?  Do I wallow in it for a while?  Or do I pick my teacher hind parts up off the floor and get to work?

I have shared this quote before, but I love it and am going to share it again.  It is from Jaime Escalante, the teacher the move Stand and Deliver was about (I wrote about him here).  He said this:

“Life is not about how many times you fall down. It’s about how many times you get back up.”

It does not matter what a dose of real does to me.  It does not matter if it knocks me down.  It matters if I learn from it and change.  It matters if I find a way to make what I need to do or teach work.  It is more than an idea.  It is a necessity.

It is a necessity as a human being.  It is a necessity as an adult.  It is a necessity as a teacher.  But more than these, it is a necessity as a role model to my students.

I must get up.  I must brush myself up.  I must make changes.  I must try again.

I must because one day the must do the same.

It is not about me.

It is about them.

I will get up today.  I will brush myself off today.  I will make changes.  I will try again.

I will do these things because I am going to ask my students to do the same.  I ask them to do this every day.  They need to see me do it first.  They will see me do it today.

How about you?  What do you do when you are knocked down as a teacher?  How do you handle it?  How do you teach your students to get back up?  Do they see you do it?  Do the see you do it with grace?  Do they see you do it with style?  Will they and can they see you do it today?

I know that you get back up.  You are a teacher.  You have to.  Can you get back up better today than yesterday?  Can you show your students what it takes to bust through failure to get to success?

You are awesome!  You do get back up.  You do it with awesome.  Help you students to that with awesome today!  You are amazing!  You are making a difference!  Keep on teaching and getting back up, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

From venspired.com (shared by Edutopia).
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Posted in Challenge, General Inspiration, Pep Talk, Teacher Testimony

Teacher Rockstar: Jaime Escalante

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Jaime Escalante – Teacher Rockstar

Dear Teacher,

Today I want to build on my posts from a couple of weeks ago (It’s Not Me, It’s You; The Power of Real Encouragement; and Apple Influence) and talk a little more about change and the drive to change ourselves in order to spark change in others (namely, our students).  To do this, I want to focus in on someone I would definitely call a Teacher Rockstar: Jaime Escalante.

If you are not familiar with Mr. Escalante, he is the teacher portrayed in the movie Stand and Deliver (if you haven’t seen the movie, you need to…great inspiration for teachers!).  He taught at a high poverty high school in a Latino community in Los Angeles in the late 70’s through the early 90’s.  At a failing school that focused on remedial and low level math, he pushed students to take AP Calculus.  The students, starting in small groups and growing in the large groups (in the hundreds), succeeded in his class and passed the AP exam.  There is much more to the story, but you can go to Wikipedia for that.  🙂

What makes Mr. Escalante a Rockstar Teacher is not his accomplishments.  The results of his teaching strategies and methods were amazing, but they are not what makes him one of the great teachers of all time.  What makes him special is his drive.  It was his willingness to stand up and do more, to be more, to expect more.  One of my favorite scenes in Stand and Deliver illustrates this drive perfectly.  It shows in what he is willing to say (and backup with action) at a department meeting.

In a school of under-resourced, overworked, beat-up, worn-out, and burned up teachers with students that have a history of being under-performing students with the threat of losing district accreditation looming on the horizon, he stepped up and said, “I can teach more.”  He volunteered to do more.  To take on more students.  To be more.  I love what he said, “The students will rise to the level of expectations.”  He looked resolutely at administration and expected more of himself and of the students.

His response to the question of what he needs in order to do more really shows his drive and why he had unbelievable success with students.  “Ganas.  All we need is ganas.”  Ganas was the key for Mr. Escalante.  Ganas made the difference.

According to Urban Dictionary, “ganas” is a slang word for desire or urge that is most likely based on the Spanish word “ganar,” which means to gain or win.  Ganas is desire.  For Escalante, it was a little more than that though.  It was desire backed by the willingness to go after what you desired, no matter how hard you have to work to get to it.

He talks about it again in another quote from the movie, and this time he is speaking to his students:

You’re going to work harder here than you’ve ever worked anywhere else. And the only thing I ask from you is ganas. Desire… If you don’t have the ganas, I will give it to you, because I’m an expert.

He desired for his students to learn, achieve, and truly be successful.  He expected his students to have that same drive for themselves.  He did what he could to inspire that in his students.  He worked hard at it.  Year after year he took a look at his students and himself, and then pushed harder the next year to improve.  He took a lot of flak.  He arguably made a lot of risky choices and decisions, but it was his “ganas” that gave him the ability to focus on his students and their future success.  That is what was in his blood.  He passed this on to his students.  So many of them went on to lead successful lives because of what he instilled in them.

I wrote a good bit and shared a lot from the movie about Jaime Escalante.  Let me let him speak for himself.  This was an interview he did while he was still teaching.  It is so inspiring to me!  I hope you feel the same way!

Now that you have learned more about this teaching rockstar, what can you learn from his example?  Can you be one of the teachers in your school, in the midst of all of the finger pointing on what is wrong in education, to stand up and say, “I can do more,” and back that up with action?  Is your teaching and relationships with students marked by “ganas” about their achievement and success?  What can you do to be different and make an even bigger difference than you already do?

You are awesome!  I know that you probably already think a lot like Mr. Escalante.  Your students and their learning and success is of utmost importance to you.  You do so much already and make a big difference!  But can you do more?  I know that I can!

You are amazing, and never forget it!  Find the more that you can do, and do it!  I know that you can!  Keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher