2. SUMMARY:
It is a story where an ordinary
teacher became an extraordinary man in
molding and motivating his students. It
was 1998, when Ron Clark still relatively
early in his career, leaves his stable life
teaching at an elementary school in his
suburban North Carolina hometown, the
school where he is appreciated by both
his fellow teachers and his students for
his innovative teaching methods which
results in raising test scores. Instead, he
decides to look for a teaching job at New
York inner city school where he feels he
can be more useful. Carrying high hopes and
big dreams, Clark embraced the busy life in the
city, working as a waiter for a restaurant as a
part time job. He eventually finds a job at
Inner Harlem Elementary School, where
the students are segregated according to
their academic performances and
abilities.
3. Aside that Clark having good looking
and being nice man, Principal Turner
wants to assign him to the honors
class, especially as Turner's job
security depends on good test scores
of the students.
Suddenly, mr. Clark wants to take the
most disadvantaged class (the
graduating students) because he knows
to himself that everybody has a chance
to learn better by improving themselves
through learning by doing. He quickly
learns that it will be a battle of wills
between himself and his disruptive
students to see who can outlast the
other. But he also learns that he has to
understand them, both individually and
collectively, on their level to be able to
get through to them before he can
teach them the standardized materials.
4. Despite of illness and the behavior of
others outside of his control, he has to
overcome the self-fulfilling prophecy of
failure to instill a sense of worth within
the students. Through it all, he is
supported by Marissa Vega, the
beautiful waitress at the restaurant
where he works part-time. Clark
constantly input always in the mine of
his students about the importance of
having big dreams and making them
come true which inspire the students
do their best to pass the State Exam.
He always does the extra mile in
teaching them and spends almost all of
his time in educating the students. At
the end of the day, one remarkable
result was one of the students;
Shameika Wallace got a perfect score,
which no one in the district ever does.
RonClark was delighted and
enlightened, seeing his students going
one step closer to their dreams.
5.
6. PERSONAL INSIGHTS
Ron Clark Story was an eye
opener for the teachers. It gives a
clearer view of what should be the
real purpose of a teacher on their
students and in the community. It
tells us that teaching is far
beyond the need for
compensation and employment; it
is not a career to work at but it is
indeed a vocation to fulfill. In
order to see the improvement of
our students, we need to look
afterthe potential in every persona
lity and amazingly turns it into
opportunity.
7. In this way, students were
learned the way they are learning. We
as teacher we need always to do an
extra mile in our teaching profession
beyond the measure on the hopeless
circumstances by willingness to
sacrifice for the benefit of each and
every student in the class.
Indeed, Ron Clark should be
commended not only for being a great
teacher and leader but also for being a
person that he is. He is one
extraordinary individual who has a
great faith on our youth today and has
the passion on helping others to uplift
their well being. Furthermore, it made
me realize that being as teacher is not
easy. The only that we can do is
“NEVER GIVE UP ON OUR
STUDENTS”.
