[originaltext] Today we remember a man who was considered one of the best te

Today we remember a man who was considered one of the best teachers in the United States. Jaime Alfonso Escalante was born in 1930 in La Paz, Bolivia. In the 1960s, Jaime Escalante and his wife came to the United States. During the next several years, (26)he learned to speak English and repeated his college education and teacher training. In 1974, Mr. Escalante was hired at Garfield High School to teach math. The school was in a poor area of Los Angeles, California. Many of the students had serious problems with illegal drugs, gangs and violence. Many of Mr. Escalante’s students were the worst students at the school and were thought to be "unteachable." (27)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 1982, 18 of his students took the Advanced Placement test in calculus and they all passed. 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. (28) A movie about his success—Stand and Deliver, which was released in 1988, influenced other teachers to use his methods.
26. What did Mr. Escalante do after he came to the US?
27. How did Mr. Escalante make his "unteachable" students successful?
28. What can be inferred about teachers from the passage?