Be Inspired By the Best

Some time ago I read a letter (a "letter to the editor" I believe) written by some teacher who said that she was offended by all the attention given to educators like Erin Gruwell and Jaime Escalante. She said that by recognizing them and holding them as role models undermined her as a good teacher because she could never be like them. This teacher's comments disturbed me.

I just finished reading this morning Ron Clark's book The End of Molasses Classes. Even though I may not ever be a Ron Clark, and I don't even agree with all of his ideas, what a loss it would be to use these as excuses to not read his inspiring book and implementing what I can. Ron Clark along with other educators such as Marva Collins, Erin Gruwell, Salome Thomas-El, Jaime Escalante, etc. have inspired me to raise the bar and reach a little higher. I'm a better educator for having learned from them.

If we are going to give our Esperanza scholars the best education I want our educators to learn from the best and be inspired.

The Bumble Bee Symbol

"Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway." Mary Kay Ash

We have numerous examples of people who refused to accept barriers such as Roger Bannister when he ran the mile in less than four minutes and Chuck Yeager who broke the sound barrier. One of my favorite stories is a true story about a student who solved an unsolvable math problem:

One day in 1939, George Bernard Dantzig, a doctoral candidate at the
University of California, Berkeley, arrived late for a graduate-level statistics
class and found two problems written on the board. Not knowing they were
examples of unsolved statistics problems, he mistook them for part of a homework
assignment, jotted them down, and solved them. (The equations Dantzig
tackled are more accurately described not as unsolvable problems, but as
unproved statistical theorems for which he worked out proofs.)

I agree with Jaime Escalante, "Students can learn to overcome any barrier they will ever face." Therefore, it would behoove us to use the bumble bee as one of our Esperanza Elementary symbols.

Ganas

Yesterday I watched one of my favorite movies--Stand and Deliver. It was the umpteenth time I have seen it but once again it inspired me. Jaime Escalante is truly one of my mentors. One of my favorite quotes in the movie by Jaime Escalante: [to his students]

... There will be no free rides, no excuses. You already have two strikes against you: your name and your complexion. Because of those two strikes, there are some people in this world who will assume that you know less than you do...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.*

It was in this movie that I first heard the word "ganas," and it is now one of my favorite words. The best translation for it is a deep desire but even that doesn't adequately describe it.
Ganas is something we want our Esperanza scholars to have so we will have that word posted everywhere in the school as a reminder that they can achieve their dreams if they have the ganas.