‘America’s Educator’

Speaker urges engagement, enthusiasm in state’s teachers

The leading administrator and teacher of a renowned nonprofit middle school in Atlanta encouraged some of the state’s educators on Monday to embrace relationships in their schools and to lead by example.

Ron Clark gained fame in 2000 when he was named Disney’s Teacher of the Year and became a fan favorite guest on the “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Winfrey encouraged him to write a book about “The Essential 55” rules, and proceeds from the book’s sales allowed him to found the Ron Clark Academy in 2007 in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Atlanta with a group of the nation’s most

innovative teachers.

About 120 students in grades 5-8 attend the school each year. Clark and co-founder Kim Bearden say 100 percent of the school’s former students graduated high school and 99 percent graduate from college.

Clark has been in education for 23 years, and said he felt burned out a year ago because of the grind of the business side of the school. About 600 visitors from throughout the United States and the rest of the world now tour the school each week and more than 43,000 have visited the school since it opened.

Teacher training visits account for 80 percent of the school’s revenue. Funding allows children from low-income families to attend, despite the annual tuition of $18,000. Clark said he was not spending as much time engaged in the relationships with those around him.

“This past year, I said I am going to fix it,” Clark said. “I said I am going to put relationships first. I am going to eat lunch every day with these kids. I don’t care what I have to give up. I am going to visit every home, I am going to talk to these parents, I am going to take my time and I am going to get to know all of my colleagues even better than before.”

Educators from throughout the state filled Horner Hall at the Hot Springs Convention Center on Monday during the Arkansas Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 2017 annual Curriculum and Assessment Conference. The conference is co-sponsored by the AASCD, the Arkansas Department of Education and the Arkansas Department of Career Education. The AASCD is an affiliate of the national Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, which was founded in 1943.

Clark’s career in education began in North Carolina. He lived in England, Greece and Romania before an illness took him back home to live with his mother.

She recommended he check out a job opening for a fifth-grade teacher at a local school. The school principal interviewed him, introduced him to the class and he started the next day.

The opportunity influenced his approach to teaching. He played music in his classroom, wore costumes and used other strategies to make lessons more exciting for his students. Clark said he was able to engage his students in most subjects, but he had difficulty in history and could not understand why.

“Then I looked in the book and I saw a picture in the U.S. history book of a famous white man,” Clark said. “I said, OK, I am trying to get these kids to learn about this white man and I looked at my class and they are predominantly African-American.

“I turned the page and it is another white man and more white men. A hundred pages in — have you ever seen a U.S. history book? It’s a book of white pride about great white, white, white men. It’s like a who’s who of white men.”

Clark said he realized a disconnect existed between the source material and the students in his class. He said U.S. history writers did not attempt to include positive information about the people and countries of Africa.

“If we are taught to believe Africa was primitive during the slave trade, slavery might not seem as bad,” Clark said.

“Once you hear that these slaves came from great civilizations, it is much worse to think about the slave trade,” Clark added. “The people who, 50 years ago, were writing textbooks, nobody was trying to highlight Africa in any positive ways and it has been recycled to this day.”

Diversity and an influence on multiple cultures became a point of emphasis for Clark and he established relationships with his students and their families outside the classroom. Clark taught in North Carolina for five years before he learned about education struggles in the Harlem neighborhood in New York City and moved to New York to seek a new job.

Clark said he was spit on during his first day and he had to deal with a fight early on, but he spent time showing students he cared and developing new relationships. One activity called for him to chug cartons of chocolate milk for every three minutes his students were attentive during his lesson. He said he knew he would vomit and did not eat breakfast that morning.

It took 14 cartons before Clark vomited into a trash can in front of his class of more than 35 students. He said students, teachers, parents and other employees quickly took notice.

“It doesn’t have to be vomit, but what are you doing?” Clark said. “You have got to do something. The more of those things you can do, the more kids will say, ‘Oh, wow, this teacher is really going above and beyond.’

“At the end of the year, the test scores were great in Harlem. We had one of the highest-scoring classes in the district, which is crazy because the class I had was the lowest-performing class in our school.”

Clark said he sought to encourage teachers to go above and beyond, but many top educators are discouraged by their peers. He said bullying is prevalent in education and discourages the best teachers from attempting new methods.

“What happens is that we are dimming our light, because we are afraid of what others are going to say,” Clark said. “The problem is if you dim your light, then we are never going to have a revolution in this profession. We are never going to show it can be young, fun, sexy and hot.

“We are never going to be able to become better. We are going to be the same old, boring profession. We are not going to be able to draw the best and the brightest.”

Clark said he believes teaching can be excited and he wants the profession to undergo a revolution. He said children see other students and parents act disrespectful toward teachers.

“What fifth-grader is going to say, ‘That is what I want to do,’” Clark said. “‘I want to grow up, have people disrespect me, not get paid much, have to sit behind a desk, teach to a test and pass out work sheets.’

“We are losing the best and the brightest in this profession. We are currently 27th in the world in terms of education, in terms of test scores. Why? Because we are not drawing the best and the brightest.”

Bearden was also recognized by Disney in 2000. Clark moved to Atlanta in 2004 and proceeds from his book sales in excess of $840,000 helped them purchase a factory. He said it took three years to fully build and open the school and another seven years to construct an addition.

Clark said students at the school and educators are encouraged to be creative. He said teachers experience a culture shock once they move from the structure of public education and have new creative freedom.

“The first year they work at my school, it’s just re-brainwash,” Clark said. “I have to show them, ‘No, you don’t have to just do this. You can do whatever it takes to make a difference in the life of a kid and teach this content.’

“It takes a year before they finally say, ‘OK, I’ve got it now. I’ve got it now.’ It is so sad.”

Visits to the Ron Clark Academy now cost $450. Clark said many visitors use crowdfunding sources or other streams of funding for their trips. The school has its own mobile application and can be found on various social media platforms.

“I want you all to rest up this summer and I want you to be thinking about this fall,” Clark said. “What are you going to do? It doesn’t have to be vomiting, but you have to do more, you have to find a way to uplift these kids, to expect more of them and to have high expectations, but to do it in a way that you can also lift them up at the same time.

“It is like Willy Wonka. It is love and it is passion and it is fun, but also you are going to make sure you are preparing these kids for the real world. Frederick Douglass said it best, ‘It is easier to build a strong child than to repair a broken adult.’ Make sure you are building strong children.”