Teacher changing
destiny of students,
entire Warden community

By Editor Ken Harvey

As of the 2000 census, only 36 people in the city had gone to college and achieved a bachelor’s degree. But since 2003, Warden social studies teacher Angie Dorman has been responsible for at least 26 of her students going to college, sharing over $1.3 million in grants and scholarships.

Four of her students have won Gates Millennium Scholarships, funding them all the way through their doctoral degrees, if they want.

For Dorman, education isn’t just a job. It’s a mission and a passion that drives her to spend hours after school in her effort to change lives.

Students in her class feel her passion, and so do their parents. And her passion is changing the destiny of the entire community of 2,600 – over half of whom are migrant.

Dorman, wife of Lt. Col. David Dorman of the U.S. Air Force Reserve, recently was surprised when educators and government leaders honored her at a special school assembly where it was announced she had won the federal No Child Left Behind 2006 American Star of Teaching Award. Cindi Williams, deputy assistant secretary with the U.S. Education Department, and Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., traveled to Warden for the award ceremony.

Each year only one teacher from each state and the District of Columbia are chosen for the award from about 4,000 nominations.

Dorman and her students are changing the community’s self-image, expectations and goals. They have made the community recognize the power of education and realize that even migrant children are able to tap into this power.

Of her former students she’s able to track, 15 are attending the University of Idaho, where Dorman is also pursuing her doctorate; two are at the University of Washington; two at Washington State University; four at Big Bend Community College; and three at Columbia Basin College.

In 2005 Gates Millennium Scholarship winners included migrant students Janette Escamilla and Blanca Elizabeth Rodriguez.

Blanca was 3 when she moved with her parents, Mercedes and Margarita Rodriguez, from Mexico to Warden. Her father, Mercedes, works on a ranch, while her mother, Margarita, works at such jobs as sorting potatoes at packing houses.

Excelling in school has not been easy for students like Blanca.

“Every year we go to Mexico, but we miss about a month of school,” she says.  “Teachers give us the homework we need. We do some homework ahead of time. But then in Mexico we have to do it on our own. There is no one to help us. We have to work really hard at it while we’re over there.”

Blanca credits Dorman with helping her and best friend Janette to both win the full-ride Gates scholarships.

“It was due in January, and I had been gone to Mexico for a month,” Blanca explains. She had started writing the essay by hand while in Mexico, but there was so much to be done when she returned.

Meanwhile, Janette had been busy with other things, too.

“When I finally got around to filling out the Gates information, it was about two weeks before the deadline. I asked one of my other advisers if she could recommend me, but she said "no." As a matter of fact, she told me not to bother even filling out the scholarship because it was ‘too late and there's no way you will make the deadline,’” Janette says.

“The next day, Mrs. Dorman asked me how far along I was on the scholarship. I told her I wasn't going to apply because it was too late. She told me if I was willing to do the work she could help me finish it in a week and make the deadline,” Janette recounts.

That week Dorman had Blanca, Janette and another student come to her house every night to work on their applications. They took turns caring for Dorman’s children as other two students manned the family’s two computers.

On several nights they worked well into the morning, catching catnaps as needed.

A few weeks later, Janette was notified she had won one of the scholarships, so Blanca began going to the Post Office every day, praying for a letter. Finally an envelope arrived from the Gates Foundation.

“I got the letter,” she told a friend. “Well, open it,” her friend urged. “I can’t. You open it!” she responded.

Finally she opened it and read, “Congratulations!” She ran home to her excited mother, then to school to find Dorman.

 “Mrs. Dorman was so excited,” Blanca recounts. “She was going around shouting, ‘That’s two! That’s two!’ And I was just in shock.”

Says Janette, “Others told me to quit, but because of Mrs. Dorman, I will have the money to pay for college and be well on the way to achieving my personal and professional goals.”

NEVER QUIT; IT’S NEVER TOO LATE

Janette says Dorman’s persistence and commitment taught her a very valuable lesson.

“I have learned from her is to never give up and that it is never too late. She never said specifically ‘Never give up’ or ‘It's never too late,’ but she showed me these lessons,” says Janette.

Heidi Dominguez was already married and pregnant as a junior at Warden. That, plus other personal, family and financial concerns would have kept most kids from going to college.

“This is my junior year and I am pregnant and that makes me feel a little discouraged about applying for college,” Heidi wrote last year, “but when I talk to Mrs. Dorman I forget about this fear and she makes me feel like I can do anything I put my mind to.”

Heidi graduated this year with a full-ride Gates Scholarship, and she and her husband Eric are both going to college with their son, Little Eric.

Heidi learned to love history in Dorman’s class and plans to follow in her footsteps in studying history.

Dorman “makes me feel history,” says Heidi. “History is now my favorite subject because of how interesting she makes the class.”

MANY CHALLENGES TO OVERCOME

There are many challenges that must be overcome when helping migrant and other impoverished teens to go to college.

Migrant families go where the work is, and many believe education is good as long as it doesn’t interfere with supporting the family. Gradually, however, Warden families have realized that the investment of allowing their children to go to college will pay off for their families in the long run. In the short run, members of the family who stay home must work harder to make ends meet.

Yaquelin Valdivia says Dorman is always letting students and parents know the consequences of NOT pursing a higher education. “We will suffer if we do not take advantage of the education and opportunities in front of us.”

Dorman has gradually won the confidence of parents. When Yaquelin started skipping an after-school program to hang out with friends, for example, Dorman immediately alerted her mother.

“Needless to say, from then on I stayed at the after-school program,” says Yaquelin. “I knew Mrs. Dorman would keep a watchful eye on me.”

So, when Dorman wanted to take her students on a field trip to the University of Idaho, Yaquelin’s mom asked who she was going with. “I told her ‘Mrs. Dorman,’” Yaquelin recalls. “Her reply in Spanish was, ‘Good, I trust her.’”

That trust enabled Dorman to convince Yaquelin’s mom that her daughter should go to college, which is not common among Hispanic families.

“Even though Mrs. Dorman does not speak Spanish, this does not hinder her from taking the time to speak to my mom about her opinions and concerns about my education,” Yaquelin says.

DORMAN PUSHES STUDENTS TO EXCEL

In 2004 Rolando “Roly” Rodriguez Jr. became Warden’s first Gates scholar. Dorman pushed him to prepare for the college all four year’s of high school.

According to his father, Rolando Sr., once Roly mentioned that he would like to go to the University of Washington, Dorman began using that goal to drive him toward excellence.

“”When she graded his essays, they might have gotten a good grade, but if they weren’t what she considered his best, she would tell him, ‘This isn’t good enough for UW’ or ‘If you are going to UW, you are going to have to do better than this.’ She took time to talk about his goals and his future,” says Rolando Sr.

She then helped Roly prepare his Gates application, and personally wrote a 7,000-word recommendation about her student.

“The Gates made Roly’s dream of UW a reality. He had funding for all aspects of his education -- room, board, books, a laptop and a yearly stipend. This is something we could never ever have afforded to do for Roly,” his dad says.

Roly is now a junior at UW, majoring in Latin American Studies and currently in Oaxaca, Mexico, in a Study Abroad program.

DORMAN CHANGED THE COMMUNITY

Mercedes and Margarita Rodriguez wrote: “Mrs. Dorman's coming to Warden High School has changed the school's reputation on education and attendance. Her assertive ways have changed the way the school runs by being strict, but laid-back at the same time. She holds students accountable. She shows her love for teaching by having her students look at history from different perspectives. Her teaching methods have students improving the way they see the world and life by using technology, as well as textbooks.

“We know for a fact that our daughters have used and learned many skills in her classes; for example, they have improved their reading and writing abilities, they have learned how to use many computer programs for presentations, and their communication skills are constantly improving. Her presence at Warden High School has really improved the school in these past few years, and we have a feeling it's going to get better for our youngest daughter entering high school next year.”

The parents note that in 2005 alone, 20 percent of the graduating class from Warden High were going to have 90-100 percent of their university education funded because Dorman helped them find the money.

Their daughter, Blanca, is now using her Gates Scholarship to become a landscape architect.

She says the scholarship “will change our family dramatically. On my mom’s side, my sister and I are the only ones to have even graduated from high school. So it’s really a big deal. I can’t wait to see how everything is going to be 10 years from now.”

One goal she is certain of. “I want to help my parents so they won’t have to work so hard.”

Warden Principal Leonard Lusk says, “Mrs. Dorman stays in touch with the students she has helped to get scholarships. At this time the 30 or so students that she helped get into college are still there. She knows what they are getting in their classes and intervenes if they need help. With this type of dedication to students who are no longer in our halls paints the picture of what she does for those who still go to Warden High School.”

 “She’s a second mom,” says UI student Tony Garza. “She calls me almost daily to make sure I’m doing my homework before goofing off. She checks with every Warden kid on campus throughout the week and knows exactly what’s going on. If I mess around, she’s among the first to know.”

WHY DOES SHE DO IT?

“There are people who have to really, really work, sweat and labor for a fraction of my pay.  They are the parents of the students in my classes,” says Dorman.  

She has been able to identify a lot of scholarship and grant sources for kids like those in her class.

“In all honesty, I believe God set that out there for me, just to see what I would do with it.  I really didn’t have much to do with it.  I try to stay focused, positive and work hard…simple stuff.  The simple part of it is that is what the community of Warden does every day.  People go to work, try to do a good job, do a little better for their family every year, and they put their dreams and hopes into their children,” Dorman says.  

“They give them to me to work with, and I can be a bit of an old stump revival preacher in the sense that I can get them motivated and believing in themselves and dreaming a little bigger.  You know their parents would do the same exact thing I do for them, but they don’t have the same education or they have to work longer hours to provide.  I kind of step in and try to focus them on being all that they can be,” she says. 

Dorman says her Christian values and the memory of her two grandmothers inspire her to keep going.

“My grandmothers both inspire me.  Both worked in the fields, in all sorts of jobs, all to keep the family floating. They both wound up with good jobs – cooking in the school lunchrooms.  Both lost their husbands. My Granny was 40 years old and widowed with two children at home to support and keep a roof over their heads.  My other grandmother was in her 50s with a teenage son and mentally disabled older daughter to care for.  They kept the roof over their heads and just set a quiet and humble, yet incredible example,” says Dorman.

And now it’s her turn to help those children she has under her care with the passion and dedication of her grandmothers.

TIPS FOR TEACHERS

Motivation is the key to education, says the award-winning teacher.

“Reality is that teaching is a sales pitch to a buyer who is really uninterested in a lot of the stuff you are teaching/selling,” Dorman says. “You have to sell them on the idea of learning. You have to sell them on leaving their comfort zone. If you can’t sell them, you have to push them out of their comfort zone and at the same time have a relationship established with them that will allow you to do that, and there’s no set recipe for that.

Dorman says too many education students want to learn and use recipes. Future teachers want to set recipes, but teaching is more art than science. Another problem is that most education students were themselves self-motivated students, and they have a difficult time with less-motivated students.

“I am one of the less motivated,” Dorman admits. “I was class clown. I missed 38 days of first-period U.S. History my senior year, but I still passed and now teach U.S. history. I know what to do with the bad kid or class clown, because many times that was me.”

 She may be the class clown, but Dorman gives education students and young teachers some serious advice:

o       Don’t expect it to be easy because the kids aren’t you.

o       Many have the distractions of poverty, life, family and the feeling of having very little future to look forward to.

o       Remind yourself constantly that THEY CAN DO IT, THEY CAN ACHIEVE.

o       Remind them that no matter what their situation, someone has had it worse and made it, and they can do it, too.

o       Remind them they have an obligation to their ancestors, like my Granny and Grandmother who struggled, or their grandparents who came to this country with few job options and a future of hard work. Their ancestors did it mainly so they would have a better life, and our obligation is to try to fulfill that dream for them. Look at how much they achieved with very few choices and less opportunities. 

o       Constantly drill in the idea of obligation, which is so prevalent in Mexican culture. “Your obligation is to do the very best you can for your family.”

o       Make things as relevant to their lives and culture as possible.  Then when you can’t figure what in the heck is relevant, tell them that and ask them to learn it anyway. Most times they will oblige.

o       Be tough on grading.  Do your best to help every child succeed, but if you give away grades they will have no value ( a good inflation lesson, too).  Be rigorous because life is rigorous. 

o       They are kids and they do dumb things.  Accept that and move on. You will save yourself a lot of stress.  It is better for them to make mistakes in high school where we can help them with things in life than when they are on their own.