GEAR UP students to present bilingual educational play at Washington , D.C. conference

By Tom Moore

 

Students in the local GEAR UP education program are at work rehearsing a play they will present in Washington , D.C. , at the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP) Annual Conference July 25-28.

GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is a national early intervention and college prep initiative aimed at encouraging high school students to pursue post-secondary education. Program components include tutoring, mentoring, parental involvement, and staff development. GEAR UP is administered out of the Office of Special Programs at Texas A&M International University , under the direction of Beatriz Salinas-Riojas.

El Ciclo del Fracaso, The Cycle of Failure, written by Francisco Patoni, tells the story of Junior, who dropped out of school to help support his family. When his brother Johnny graduates as valedictorian of his class and thanks Junior in his commencement speech, Junior determines to return to school.

“The play is about a dysfunctional family, where the student has high aspirations, but because of trouble at school or at home, is not able to achieve his or her goals and dreams,” said Salinas-Riojas.

El Ciclo del Fracaso will be performed in Laredo as well, on Thursday, June 24 at 7 p.m., at the Center for the Fine and Performing Arts at TAMIU.

The cast of the bilingual play is made up of students in GEAR UP, including Henry Cabrera, Cesar Espinoza, Vanessa Lopez, Aldo Martinez, Robert McClure, Alonzo Rodriguez, Liliana Ruiz, and Robert Tenorio. Also performing in the play are Salinas-Riojas, Patoni, and Nixon High School GEAR UP site coordinator Francisco Sanchez.

Francisco Patoni has written mainly Young Adult plays specifically for education programs such as GEAR UP. One of his goals is to get parents involved in the lives and education of students through his work. He has written Young Adult plays for about five years, but has been involved in theater since the 1970s, first in New Mexico , then Laredo , where he relocated 16 years ago.

“The subject matter of these plays are the issues that affect students,” he said. “The play has to take on a critical issue. There has to be an educational point to it. It has to be bilingual. In this case, we're dealing with the issue of staying in school, and looking at different components: sometimes the students themselves are the problem, sometimes it's the home situation, or the school system, or employment.”

Robert Tenorio, 16 and a junior at Nixon this fall, has been with GEAR UP since seventh grade, part of the group of students, known as a “cohort,” that started the program in 2000 in seventh grade at Lamar, Memorial, and Clark Middle Schools.

“It's been a very good experience,” he said. “The program teaches us how to mature and how to advance yourself in you life through education. You take several trips to universities to see how it works. They really give you a lesson for the real world.”

Tenorio has performed in one previous play with GEAR UP. He added that participating in these projects helps him and his fellow students learn to communicate better. “They've also shown me that there are other people in worse situations than I could be in,” he said. “There are people involved in different situations.”