Teachers never get enough recognition, but they are the unsung heroes of our youth. There are some that even go the extra mile to help teach and motivate our young ones to excel in a variety of areas. That was the case for professor Jaime Escalante, whose motivational story was portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the movie, Stand and Deliver. His story inspired so many and now Jaime Escalante will be immortalized in a U.S. stamp.
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Jaime Escalante was a high school math teacher who helped a group of Hispanic students from an East Los Angeles school excel in their academics. Despite the social and economic struggles that the students faced, the teacher never gave up to them and motivated them to excel and even pass an advance placement calculus exam.
“I don’t know any father, any engineer, any sports star, I don’t know any astronaut that could’ve succeeded without the help of a teacher,” said Edward James Olmos during the unveiling of the stamp ceremony that took place in Washington.
Screenwriter Tom Musca told the ceremony attendees that “he wasn’t the teacher that we all wanted. He was the teacher we all needed.”
The stamp features the Bolivian professor wearing his iconic hat and glasses with a stern look in his eyes, the look that everyone that knew him remembers him by. The professor died in 2010 from cancer at the age of 79 years old.
One of his famous phrases was: “If we expect kids to be losers they will be losers; if we expect them to be winners they will be winners. They rise, or fall, to the level of the expectations of those around them, especially their parents and their teachers.”
You can find the stamps at your local post office or buy them online.