Musical way to treat indifferent students

The final day of the Qudwa 2017 Global Teachers’ Forum saw an award-winning teacher demonstrating the power of music to elicit passion for learning in students.

In his keynote speech, Ron Clark, founder and CEO of Ron Clark Academy highlighted the importance of using innovative approaches to help students thrive in and out of the classroom. Based on his own experience, he showed how teachers can engage even indifferent students with music and inspire them to be the best they can be.

Clark recounted how the challenges he faced teaching in an inner-city school in Harlem, New York, inspired him to open his own academy in a rundown area of Atlanta that has allowed him to assemble a faculty of master educators with unique teaching styles. Denouncing the current culture of handing out trophies for participation, he called for raising the bar on student performance to motivate children to explore their full potential. He also played a video demonstrating Clark’s pioneering instructional methods and heard enthusiastic first-hand accounts from students whose lives he transformed.

The man nicknamed ‘America’s Educator’ said: “The global education system is taking the stairs. New teaching strategies are in the hands of teachers, and it is up to them to leverage these strategies to ensure student happiness and ultimately achieve success in the classroom.”