Jaime Escalante: PBS’ Math Motivator

Until three years ago, most of America hadn’t heard of Jaime Escalante, a mathematics teacher at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. That all changed in 1988 with “Stand and Deliver,” a feature film dramatization of Escalante’s inspirational teaching methods that led his students from low-income families to beat the odds and pass an Advanced Placement Calculus Test.

The film became one of the surprise box-office hits of the year and Edward James Olmos, who played Escalante, received a best actor Oscar nomination.

Now students and teachers can catch the real Escalante in action in the new PBS series “Futures,” which begins Monday. The series was first released in September on video for use in classrooms.

Each 15-minute episode focuses on how math skills are used in different careers, such as aviation, fashion, space travel, sound engineering, sports/performance and architecture. Celebrity guests include Olmos, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jimmy Smits, architect Frank Gehry, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee, composer Hans Zimmer, photojournalist Mary Ellen Mark and astronaut Bonnie Dunbar.

Escalante, who still teaches at Garfield High, talked with Susan King after his last class of the day about “Futures.”

How did the series come about?

I always used some posters of famous (sports) players or celebrities to motivate the kids. What I try to do is for them to see the relationship of what they are learning in the classroom and what they will be doing in life.

Before “Stand and Deliver,” Steve Heard from (the production company) FASE visited my class and he told me the things I was doing were really interesting and it was one way to motivate these kids. He said it would be nice to put this on tape.

(The program) is not just teaching math; it’s motivating these kids because in some cases the teachers don’t know how to motivate these kids. These kids are not exposed to the different things we can do in life with chemistry and physics. The kids can not distinguish their (chemistry and physics) applications to life. So I said to (Heard), “OK, no problem.” We got together and had a chance to have celebrities in my classroom and we used my kids, no actors. They just put the cameras in (my classroom).

Did you ask the celebrities to be in the series?

No, the producers are the ones who approached the celebrities. But the inspiration (to use celebrities) was the posters I have in my room because when you walk into my classroom you see posters of famous players.

What subjects do you cover in the series?

We have (an episode) on fractions. We invited a famous lady (Mary Ellen Park), who likes to take beautiful pictures, to introduce fractions and explain how you use fractions to focus the camera to be able to get the good picture. And Danny Sullivan, who won the Indianapolis 500, introduced the concept of distance and velocity.

Is this series being used in schools?

It’s becoming real popular to help the students. In fact, I saw in New Jersey the teachers are using the tapes to motivate these kids. It motivates the kids and teachers to stay away from the daily things we do in the class like using books and handouts. My philosophy is that doing mathematics is fun.

But why do most teachers make mathematics so boring?

Well, in some cases, we do not want to work hard to motivate kids. Secondly, we concentrate more on the textbook. That makes it real boring for the students.

Once you complete the math requirement, kids say, “That’s it. I am through taking math.” In order to avoid that kind of thing, it’s nice to have some toys to motivate these kids and keep them alive, keep them interested and capture their attention. That’s exactly what this tape does.

Plus in the classroom, I have fun with the kids in order to avoid that negative image of math. Kids have a negative image of it because the teachers make it boring. On top of that, we flunk too many kids. A high percentage of the students don’t pass the test or the finals and we don’t give them too much chance. You have to have some communication between the teachers and the students.

Isn’t it frustrating to teach when the dropout rate is so high?

I don’t want to say you feel frustrated, but it is negative. I mention at the school that you cannot have 75% of the students suspended, not going to classes. There has to be some reason why the kids are not producing. It’s too high a percentage.

I told the principal here that we have to have a quality control in the school. We have to come out with some specific percentages saying a teacher is allowed to suspend 15% or 10%, but not 70% or 60% or 80%.

How many classes do you teach now?

I teach five classes a day. I shouldn’t say only five because I usually start my classes at 7 a.m. School starts at 8, but I am here one hour early to help kids. The families of my students have a low income; they are below the poverty line. A high percentage of my students’ parents have never been to high school or college so they are not motivated to help their kids. To help them I have to be here early in the morning. I also I have to be here after school to provide that kind of help to keep them going .

Did your life change because of “Stand and Deliver”?

My life didn’t change too much. “Stand and Deliver” doesn’t really show what these kids can do. What really is nice is that many teachers saw that movie and saw that motivating the students can be done.

Two 15-minute episodes of “Futures” airs Monday-Friday through March 4 at 2:30 p.m. on KCET.