Essay

The Ron Clark Story

Mr. Clark was a new teacher in a public school in NYC that faced a lot of problems with his students and learned how to manage his classroom and motivated his students to become the highest achievers and better human beings, so the process of creating and maintaining a classroom environment that supports students' academic performance as well as their social and emotional growth is known as classroom management. So we saw that Mr. Clark not just made them achieve good grades but he never gave up on them, stood by their side and supported them, gained their respect and trust, he proved to them that it’s not just about scores they must take care of themselves.

 According to Tracey Garret Effective Classroom Management book, the physical layout of the classroom is the first step in the classroom management process. It is one of the key determinants of how much time teachers spend directing and dealing with improper and disruptive behavior. The physical design of the classroom affects a teacher's ability to create an environment that promotes social-emotional and academic learning. Tasks related to the physical design of the classroom include deciding how to arrange the furniture, set up work areas or centers, store common classroom supplies and materials, and decorate the room. So the first thing  Mr. Clark did in the classroom changed the physical design of it. He painted the walls from the basic boring color to blue color, he placed posters on the walls with quotes and rules written on them such as dream big! We are family!...so students can feel safe, they are more engaged in the learning activity, they feel more comfortable and motivated also their academic performance is likely to improve, and it increases the interactions between teacher and students and also minimizes distractions.

The teacher needs to create methods for interacting with children and their parents in a way that promotes fruitful, cooperative interactions, discuss formative evaluations with parents to help them understand what you’re trying to get their children to accomplish and how parents can contribute to that goal according to Cangelosi book, as we saw in the movie also  Mr. Clark before starting he asked the principal to meet all his student’s parents, so he went to every house and met every parent inorder to know each student’s needs more and to discuss it with the parent so he fostered parents’ cooperation, the parent teacher meeting is very important so teacher can learn from parents so that teacher are more knowledgeable about the abilities, requirements, inclinations, and learning preferences of students. explore intervention or enrichment techniques to support kids' development and talk about any problems that might be preventing them from learning and developing.

 According to Cangelosi in a businesslike classroom, both the students and the teacher act in a way that emphasizes the achievement of the set learning objectives is more important than other considerations. Without a doubt, even in a formal setting, activities that are not directly related to academic lessons occur, and participation is taken seriously, so to ensure that students believe their opinions are appreciated and heard, the environment must be welcoming and trustworthy. Encourage good performance by pushing students to take chances and teachers to give students more work than they think they can handle. This will help students develop advanced critical and analytical thinking abilities as we noticed in the film Mr. Clark was able to achieve the business like atmosphere, the first thing he did was welcoming the students when they enter the class with a smile on his face, calling everyone by his/her name, also looked at everyone in the eyes while he explains the lesson, even when students disrespected him for example when Shamika said bad words in class or when she didn’t listen to him and kept talking and she was throwing the books on purpose on the ground Mr. Clark asked her politely to stop doing that. Polite interactions between students and teachers support maintain a classroom that is conducive to cooperation so Mr. Clark achieved in this way also politeness and courtesy, or when Julio was sitting on the desk and giving his back to Mr. Clark and not listening, Mr. Clark displayed withitness in class he was aware of every single thing that is happening in class, he grabbed the attention of off-task students without interrupting the lesson, also he minimized the transition time by distributing material while explaining, even getting the stuff ready before students enter the classroom, and created a safe environment for every students to learn.

According to Cangelosi book a safe-school system's ability to recognize and stop gang activity at the school is a key component. A gang is a bunch of people who work together to commit crimes such as stealing, assault, vandalism, and drug trafficking. Typically, a gang establishes a territory and protects it from attacks by other gangs. Youngsters who are in gangs are three times more likely to use violence than youngsters who are not. Gang violence is a social issue that requires all-encompassing, neighborhood-based solutions. For gang issues, community organizing, outreach initiatives, and job training programs are also required; detention and suppression tactics alone are insufficient. As we saw in the movie the school had a lot of gangs that used violence on each other, one time they painted Mr. Clark’s car, they bullied each other, made fun of each other, they even used to fight in class and a lot of stuff so Mr. Clark's first rule was we are family! He said “ I’m going to be your family, and you are going to be my family”. “ We help each other, we stand for each other, we defend each other, we respect each other”, he taught them how to respect each other and respect him by respecting them, when teacher saw Julio taking bets on something and taking money from his friends he stopped him from doing it and told him that’s illegal, he let Jamaica stand in line to go eat lunch and told her this is a family and family treat each other with respect. Also one time we he entered the class and found two kids fighting he immediately stopped them and told them to go to their seats, Mr. Clark also used to call them by their names, even spoke with them in an informal way outside class to foster a positive relationship between them, finally he also made them know that he is there for them and is going to help them when they face a problem.

In my opinion the only mistake that Mr. Clark did was losing control in class when Jamaica was misbehaving and shooking her desk and knocking on it in a violent way and leaving from class he gave up, but after that he knew his mistake and decided he don’t want to give up on them and he wanted to be the only teacher that won’t turn around from them. Mr. Clark believed in them, he knew that they could achieve high grades and they really made it in the end and all succeeded because of him so he achieved his goal and changed them from being disruptive and off-task students to on-task students.