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1、The Professor Is a Dropout PreviewAfter being mistakenly labeled “retarded” and humiliated into dropping out of first grade, Lupe Quintanilla knew she wanted nothing more to do with formal education. Life as a wife and mother would satisfy her-and it did, until she saw her own children being pushed
2、aside as “slow learners.” Driven to help them succeed, Lupe took steps that dramatically changed her life.Words to Watchradical (16): extremeplant (29): a person put somewhere to spyrenowned (36): famousThe Professor Is a DropoutBeth Johnson1Guadalupe Quintanilla is an assistant professor at the Uni
3、versity of Houston. She is president of her own communications company. She trains law enforcement officers all over the country. She was nominated to serve as the U.S. Attorney General. Shes been a representative to the United Nations. Thats a pretty impressive string of accomplishments. Its all th
4、e more impressive when you consider this: “Lupe” Quintanilla is a first-grade dropout. Her school records state that she is retarded, that her IQ is so low she cant learn much of anything. How did Lupe Quintanilla,“retarded” nonlearner, become Dr. Quintanilla, respected educator? Her remarkable jour
5、ney began in the town of Nogales, Mexico, just below the Arizona border. Thats where Lupe first lived with her grandparents. (Her parents had divorced.) Then an uncle who had just finished medical school made her grandparents a generous offer. If they wanted to live with him, he would support the fa
6、mily as he began his medical practice. Lupe, her grandparents, and her uncle all moved hundreds of miles to a town in southern Mexico that didnt even have paved roads, let alone any schools. There, Lupe grew up helping her grandfather run his little pharmacy and her grandmother keep house. She remem
7、bers the time happily. “My grandparents were wonderful,” she said. “Oh, my grandfather was stern, authoritarian, as Mexican culture demanded, but they were also very kind to me.” When the chores were done, her grandfather taught Lupe to read and write Spanish and do basic arithmetic. When Lupe was 1
8、2, her grandfather became blind. The family left Mexico and went to Brownsville, Texas, with the hope that doctors there could restore his sight. Once they arrived in Brownsville, Lupe was enrolled in school. Although she understood no English, she was given an IQ test in that language. Not surprisi
9、ngly, she didnt do very well. Lupe even remembers her score.“I scored a sixty-four, which classified me as seriously retarded, not even teachable,” she said. “I was put into first grade with a class of six-year-olds. My duties were to take the little kids to the bathroom and to cut out pictures.” Th
10、e classroom activities were a total mystery to Lupethey were all conducted in English. And she was humiliated by the other children, who teased her for being “so much older and so much dumber” than they were. After four months in first grade, an incident occurred that Lupe still does not fully under
11、stand. As she stood in the doorway of the classroom waiting to escort a little girl to the bathroom, a man approached her. He asked her, in Spanish, how to find the principals office. Lupe was delighted. “Finally someone in this school had spoken to me with words I could understand, in the language
12、of my soul, the language of my grandmother,” she said. Eagerly, she answered his question in Spanish. Instantly her teacher swooped down on her, grabbing her arm and scolding her. She pulled Lupe along to the principals office. There, the teacher and the principal both shouted at her, obviously very
13、 angry. Lupe wasfrightened and embarrassed, but also bewildered. She didnt understand a word they were saying. “Why were they so angry? I dont know,” said Lupe. “Was it because I spoke Spanish at school? Or that I spoke to the man at all? I really dont know. All I know is how humiliated I was.” When
14、 she got home that day, she cried miserably, begging her grandfather not to make her return to school. Finally he agreed. From that time on, Lupe stayed at home, serving as her blind grandfathers “eyes.” She was a fluent reader in Spanish, and the older man loved to have her read newspapers, poetry,
15、 and novels aloud to him for hours. Lupes own love of reading flourished during these years. Her vocabulary was enriched and her imagination fired by the novels she readnovels which she learned later were classics of Spanish literature. She read Don Quixote, the famous story of the noble, impractica
16、l knight who fought against windmills. She read thrilling accounts of the Mexican revolution. She read La Prensa, the local Spanish-language paper, and Selecciones, the Spanish-language version of Readers Digest. When she was just 16, Lupe married a young Mexican-American dental technician. Within five years, she had given birth to her three children, Victor, Mario, and Martha. Lupes grand-parents l
