WAVE Blog

Jose Rivera, an elementary school Principal, spoke to the Positive Deviants Network at an event in Los Angeles, California. Mr. Rivera was asked to talk about his experience as an educator and how schools should change to be more effective at educating students at risk of failing to graduate. His story and ideas should be required reading for anyone looking for answers to the nationwide education crisis, or for ideas about how to save just one young person from the harsh results of dropping out.

My Name is Jose Rivera and I’m the principal at Clarence McClure Elementary School in Grandview, Washington. McClure is a PreK-5th grade school with 600 students and 60 staff members. Our students are 88% Hispanic, 12% Caucasian, and most are from families living in poverty.

This is my eleventh year as an educator. I started as a teacher’s assistant, taught third grade for six years, was an assistant principal, and now I’m in my second year as principal.

We all want to make a genuine difference in children’s lives. We want to make their futures bright by teaching them what they need to know to be successful learners and accomplished adults. Today, I would like to share my view of the challenges youth face in school, especially minority students.

Before I begin, however, I want all of you to think about a young person you know that didn’t have the support or resources they needed to be successful and may have ended up in trouble. Please write that student’s name on a page in front of you. Picture who he or she is. As I talk and as you work this weekend, keep this student in your hearts and minds. Know with certainty that there are thousands others like them that need you and me more than ever.

Let me begin by telling you a story about Temo, a student who I know well.

His parents left a small rural mountain village in Mexico. They gave the coyote, the human trafficker, their life’s savings of $4,000; then gathered all of their personal belongings, stuffed them in a backpack, and said farewell to their families, never knowing if the would see them again. With limited water and food, Temo, who was just an infant, and his parents and siblings crossed the Sonoran dessert to the United States, hiding in bushes, canals, and caves for eight days trying to avoid detection. Finally, they crossed the border and found their way to the Prosser, Washington where relatives took them in. Temo’s parents took such immense risks in search of a better way of life for their children.

Enduring racial and language barriers, Temo attended elementary school. He desperately struggled to learn English, but the academic content sailed right by him. His teachers made no effort to close the academic gap that developed. Urgently wanting to understand, he used his native Spanish to communicate with bi-lingual students, but teachers would snap, “this is America, we speak English here!” Hope slowly slipped away.

By the time he entered fifth grade, Temo had finally mastered everyday English and had cracked the reading code, but was reading far below grade level and still had a very hard time understanding it all.

Then he entered Middle School, where sports, girls, clubs, puberty, grades, more than one teacher, peer pressure, being popular, and having trendy clothing, all bombarded Temo. The academic gap widened further and he felt even more disconnected from school and the adults there. Still, he wanted to learn, even though his grades were very low, but teachers just weren’t connecting with him. No one seemed to care and he did not feel as though he belonged.

But by the middle of his eighth grade year, someone did seem to care. Someone did want make a connection with him. Temo wasn’t the only Mexican boy going through these experiences. There was a group of other boys who had formed a gang to ensure some of their basic needs were met. They wanted to belong to something, to be honored for who they were, to be respected, to feel connected, to be part of something, and to have people notice them, but above all, they wanted to be successful at something. Finally, as a member of the gang, Temo felt he was cared about and connected. He was happy to join them. Suddenly teachers, administrators, and other students noticed Temo. It was in a negative way, but at least they noticed. He stayed with the gang through his sophomore year in high school.

Then Temo was introduced to WAVE. By now he and his friends had been in trouble with the school many times, he was failing his classes, and on his way to dropping out. As a last chance, Temo was placed in a newly formed WAVE class where he learned pre-employment skills, study and social skills, and most importantly, a positive self-concept. The WAVE teacher really cared about these students and she made every effort to connect with Temo. This teacher fostered meaningful relationships between the young people and others adults in the school, and the lessons were exciting. She accepted students for who they were and what they had to contribute. She acknowledged the fact that every young person has the desire, the ability, and the inherent right to learn and to experience the fulfillment of learning. These are some of WAVE’s core beliefs about working with youth, and Temo soon realized that he didn’t need the gang to feel worthy. He developed a new thirst for learning.

He felt capable, connected, and that at last he had something to contribute to the learning process and to himself. He began to progress as a leader, as a thinker, and a problem solver. Most important, he began to see himself as a leader. Temo was selected be his fellow students to attend the WAVE National Leadership conference in Columbus, Ohio and while their, ran and was elected by his peers from across the country as one of four members of the National Leadership Team. That included a seat on WAVE’s Board of Directors. This greatly reinforced his sense of his skills as a leader and his confidence in his abilities. He was expected to do a great deal of public speaking to large groups and share his ideas with the business people on WAVE’s board of directors—something he was not used to.

Temo cane back from Ohio energized and ready to begin a new life as a true learner. But first he had to appease the members of his gang. They were not happy, but under serious threats of violence and continual harassment, he walked away.

His grades began to skyrocket with the support the WAVE class provided for him. This former gang member ran for student council and was elected vice-president and with hard work, was able to make up his many lost credits. I am happy to report to you that he graduated from high school and in his very last quarter was even made the honor roll.

A school counselor recommended Temo apply to a trade school to become an auto mechanic, but, thankfully, one last time he decided not to listen to an educator. Instead, he applied to college and was accepted at Heritage University. Later he received his Masters Degree.

By now, most of you have figured out what radio broadcaster Paul Harvey calls, “the rest of the story”.

I am Temo. It’s a nickname my grandmother gave me as an infant.

Now, I have the opportunity and the social responsibility, as an educator and a leader, to ensure that the 600 students under my responsibility and the thousands that follow have the same opportunity that I had—to learn, to achieve, and to give back to their community. And to feel they have a place in the world.

Every one of you here today has the same opportunity—to help organizations like WAVE discover how to get their message out, how to finance and sustain their work, and how to ensure that the nearly one million youth that drop out each year can become contributors, rather than users, of public resources. We will all likely agree it’s an economic necessity, but more important, a social and moral imperative.

Don’t let anyone tell you that a young person — brown, black, yellow, white, or red — cannot succeed, because I am proof that they can. And WAVE is proof that it can happen anywhere in America.

Our job as educators is to prepare young people for success. Only part of that responsibility has anything to do with academics. As I told my teachers during orientation before the school year began, “Many times students will not remember what you taught them, but they will always remember how you made them feel. Treating students with dignity, respect, and a profound belief that they can and will succeed may be one of the most important things we can do.”

It is truly because of WAVE that I stand before you as an elementary school principal and not as a gang member, inmate, or someone dependent on public support.

Here is what I now understand about my experience in WAVE:

• First, the WAVE teachers were trained to focus on who I was as a person to help me learn I was a part of something larger than myself. It made me feel as if I belonged.

• Second, WAVE lessons were exciting and engaging, and I had the opportunity to be a teacher, as well as a learner.

• Third, through the community service built into the WAVE Leadership Association, I experienced learned that the more I gave away of my time and talent, the more I got in return in the way of fulfillment and opportunity.

• Finally, and I know this especially well as a school principal, WAVE knew that keeping kids in school was much more about “how” they were taught, than “what” they were taught.

I have heard from you that “different is not always better, but better will always be different.” WAVE helps schools be better by being different. The difference is not very complicated, but getting schools to accept it is. Part of the problem is that, as educators, we continue to do things the way we have always done things. So I guess it is no surprise that we are still getting what we have always gotten. Now we need new methods and innovative organizations like WAVE to help us understand how to create new approaches while we manage the old ones.

Let me end by telling you a story. When I left the gang, a few other members tried to leave as well. Some were successful and some not. I know the road I took has had many, many benefits, but one I least expected became clear to me at he start of the school year when one of my former gang members came to enroll his two young children as students at my school. Without WAVE, where might I have ended up and who would be educating those two young girls?

Thank you for listening and caring.

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