Bethlehem University
Faculty of Education
SAT English Major
EDUC 202 C
Soft Power in “the Ron Clark's Story”
Professor Alejandro González Cerna FSC, Phd
Jasmin Hamdan
201501982
Bethlehem, Palestine; 20 December 2020
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Soft Power in “the Ron Clark's Story”
The Ron Clark movie is a true story about a teacher who changed students'
entirely at a school in New York city. The story has captured all teachers' attention
until it became a movie to spread to all people around the word. It has become highly
recommended to all people who wish to become teachers, as it's very informative in
showing how discipline works and how it should truly be applied in all schools. And
yes, for all the teachers out there, although it was published in 2006, this type of
discipline is not like any old school methods. In the movie, Ron Clark is a teacher,
who attends a school in North Carolina, carrying with him the spirit of wanting to
change students' behaviour and every negative aspect into a positive one. It is
revealed that Clark becomes a well-known teacher there and a great one as well.
Teachers and students have become to like him because of the positive alternatives he
has made to his students and the school in general. However, Clark wants to step into
more risks. He wants to try a new experience with different students. He leaves North
Carolina and goes to New York, a city that is known as a cruel place. He gets the
chance to work at Inner Harlem elementary school for troublesome sixth grade
students. The teachers of the school has great difficulties teaching this specific class.
Clark takes on the challenge of teaching these students. And what is shown then, is
the major message of the whole Ron Clark movie. In this essay, I'll discuss the main
methods Ron Clark uses during teaching 6th grade students at the school set in New
York city. These methods are mostly related to behaviourism and other
psychoeducational theories that will be discussed in detail further.
Teachers' role should not be focused solely on teaching. There are primary
goals that should become prior to teaching. Most important method is the how to
teach the students, - how to make them get attracted to the subjects they are learning.
To do that, a teacher should first study the students closely and then start the teaching
process. Teachers should not act as a teacher at first, but as a person who can be seen
as a friend. If the teacher knows each one of his/her students, there will be a better
understanding of the way a student acts this way. In that way understanding the
students becomes way easier to know what they are struggling with and the factor
behind a certain behaviour that is caused in the classroom. Teachers also should know
what students' dreams are, what they really like to do, because everybody has a
dream, a hobby, and if teachers find this exactly, they will start shifting their teaching
methods towards what students like in order to attract their attention. As in the movie,
"The Ron Clark Story", Ron Clark was able to know what his students are capable of,
and so he encouraged them and gave them hope. He also learned that these students
are in a way hyperactive - don’t like to sit down and always wants something
interesting and not boring – so Clark was able to deal with that as well. he taught them
grammar while in each 15 seconds, he drank the (milk cacao thing). And hence, he
creates a relationship that is concrete in making the students laugh about him because
of what he’s doing. He succeeded in making friends with them as he is always there to
help them with anything, not solely in subjects related to education. These smallest
gestures, showing that Clark cares about them, make a huge difference later on during
his teachings. That’s the reason why at the end of the movie, students have started to
listen to their teacher, so their interests gradually moved towards the subject itself –
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they didn’t just want to have fun all the time, they started to learn for real. I think it is
a very important task for teachers to give courage to their students to teach them in
this way that everything is possible when they only have the will for it. Once they
have had a positive experience about what they did – as showing in getting high
marks on their target subjects - they will see the vitality in themselves and therefore
will move forward to the next class full of hope, aspirations and goals that are
undeniably possible to accomplish, and as Elbert Hubbard has said once, “The object
of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher” and that is one of
the essential goals Clark has mastered so perfectly well.
To get deeper into the methods and techniques that Clark has used during his
teaching, it is seen that he has applied more than one psychoeducational approach.
One of them is known as behaviourism which was the first Clark has applied in the
school in New York city. To put it more precisely, before attending class, Clark
wanted to see each student's family and how they live because there is always
something beyond misbehaviour that causes trouble at school. The reason for every
action Clark wants to know more about. Hence, behaviour analysis has been applied
as Clark took a glimpse of how the students are treated at home, what their role is, and
how they behave in front of their parents. For instance, we see teacher Clark going to
Shameika's home. What he sees explains a lot about her behaviours at school. The
same applies to Tyshawn, Badriyah and so forth. At home, Shameika's role is more
like that of a grown up, since it is revealed that she takes care of her little brothers and
does the cooking for them. It is obvious that later on when the teacher sees her at
school, she is acting like the boss and more importantly wants full attention and
acceptance from all students of her class.
Moreover, another thing that has become obvious for Clark is that there's no
supporting and encouragement for the students from their families. Tyshawn has a
foster family; Clark recognizes later on that Tshawn is abused by his parents; he also
figures out that Tyshawn is a very talented boy. Also, Shameika and Badriyah got
talents their parents do not know about. Clark encourages them and informs their
parents for Tyshawn, he finds a new foster family, people who really take care of him.
These basic aspects that Clark has accomplished are considered essential because they
are the foundation to build a character. A lack of one of them shifts the student's
behaviour, as it is revealed in the movie, Tyshawn has a temper, he responses with
fighting when he gets angry which is basically caused by the treatment of his foster
parents, as he behaves like his foster father. Low self-esteem is clearly seen in these
students, and Clark wants to strengthen their self-confidence, so he did his best by
setting goals and rules that apply to those types of personalities.
There must be a kind of discipline in class, so clearly Clark implements some
important rules that students must behave upon. On the first day of school, he
introduces a rule stating that they all are a family and should act like a family. It is
mentioned in Ron Clark's book, The Essential 55, on Rule 26, which basically
explains that students should care of each other, respect each other and so on. It is
revealed in the movie, that if one makes a mistake, the teacher comments on it using
this rule that if one does something wrong, then everybody is being punished. On
account of this, all are encouraging the wrong doer to act otherwise. It’s a technique
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to force the one who behaves wrong to follow the rule which comes not only from the
teacher but the other students as well. For instance, Clark uses a technique called
negative reinforcement, which means to take away something that the students like. In
the movie, a student breaks one of the rules, and as a punishment no one is allowed to
go to the cafeteria to eat, which is a place they obviously want to go so desperately.
All students wanted Shameika to return to her place in row to where she has been
standing before. They all want her to follow the rule, so she does it. In Clark's The
Essential 55, Rule number 19 is mentioned in the movie, which illustrates that when
some homework is given to students and they get annoyed by it, homework will then
get doubled. As it is shown in the movie, students groaned when Clark gave them
homework, so he told them to double the homework because of their behaviour.
It is more like an intrinsic motivation that comes out of the students like
Shameika. Although Shameika is forced to, she does it anyway because all students
want her to. The teacher tells her, "It's up to you whether we eat or not" and that they
all are a family, thus, she behaves. To illustrate, Shameika wants to fit in and become
accepted to her fellow students and to her friends as well. She wants to be the boss,
who has her own rules, but seeing that Clark gives her an order and the students are
on his side not hers, she wants to get revenge. Making the classroom into a mess is
one of the acts they do, and it's probably Shameika's idea of getting her revenge.
However, Ron Clark does not give up. He trys his best to counteract the student's acts.
He cleans the messy classroom up and the students are shocked to see him back in
class. There is a scene where Shameika throws her book on the ground which makes
Clark yell at her and leaves the classroom, while the other students cheer her up for
what she has done. The teacher's reaction deeply shocked her, so in the following
scenes she behaves well and later in the movie she starts to like the teacher. Another
example of an intrinsic behaviour is when Ron Clark asks the students to give him
their homework, and Badriyah wants to hand it on. However, when she hears
Shameika saying that "we" don't have time, she put it back under her table. This
shows that Badriyah wants to fit in, because if not maybe she will get bullied by her
classmates. She cares about what they think of her, not about her inner thought.
Since students don't do their assigned homework and have no desire to learn,
Clark starts to look for a certain activity to keep the class more manageable, using
different learning approaches that suits the students' ability and type of learning. He
uses ways that apply to all students with their different cognitive way of thinking an
learning style, as there are visual, kinaesthetic, auditory, and reading/writing styles.
Making a song, for instance, was one of the things that attracted all students, which
makes learning sound more fun. He also realizes that these students are in a way
hyperactive, they don’t like to sit down, always wanting something interesting, not
boring. Clark deals with that, teaching them grammar while each 15 seconds, he
drinks cacao milk. And hence, he makes a relationship which is based on making the
students laugh of what he’s doing and also when he tried to pretend to be sick from
too much drinking. With this method, he succeeded in making friends with them.
Furthermore, assigning a student, who tend to do more troubles and not focusing in
lessons, to do something that is more interesting than staying quiet. Recognizing that
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learning can be more fun if applied with different approaches, they understand that it
is possible to focus on a lecture and pass.
Moreover, positive reinforcement has been applied to students but variably, as
the target person doesn't know how many actions s/he needs to be rewarded or to get
the reinforcement. Clark rewards them at the end and that is because of the hard work
they put into their studies. Furthermore, it is mentioned in Ron Clark's book, The
Essential 55, that in rule number 15, a teacher can give rewards whenever s/he wants,
however, if a student asks for the reward, and since it is disrespectful to say that, s/he
won't get rewarded and the teacher makes it clear to explain the reason for the student.
A similar idea to this is the psychosocial crisis which is built by Eriksons
illustrating the crises and how they are growing through the stages of human
development. For example, he explains that on the age from 6 till 12 years, if a child
is inferior, it would be the cause of the previous treatment by his parents, as when
there's mistrust, shame, and guilt, or just one of these that occurs in a child's life, it
will eventually leads to inferiority rather than stepping in the industrial life. Knowing
their Identity or having confusion with it steps after that. This can be applied to nearly
every student in Clark's classroom. For instance, although they have different
reactions, Tayshawn and Badriyah inhabit the same personality. Both hide their hobby
and they even haven’t figured out if this hobby is a good thing. Tayshawn draws on
the walls on the streets but when he does that at home, he receives bad beating from
his foster father instead of encouraging him to do more of these but on paper. This
won't make him have the bravery to step outside and show the world what he can do,
instead he'll get to do more in hiding like to graffiti on the walls of streets.
Furthermore, it is seen that Badriyah doesn't feel sure if she is accepted by the people
around her. Her parents have told her not to intervene with adults, which could
explain that she acts like a child. She hides her true self in order to become someone
the surroundings want and like her to be. The two are very similar in the way they
hide their abilities, a phenomenon caused by the lack of encouragement and support
from their parents, being in this role of confusion not knowing which path to go,
either the path they want to go or that of others who want him/her to go.
In the movie Clark invents a rap song about US presidents to motivate the
students to be more interested in the subject of their lesson. Clark does this because he
notices that normal memorizing is useless, as they all got bad marks. With the idea of
using a rap song to teach the students the lesson material he gets the attention of the
entire class. Later it is seen that they all passed the test about that topic and as one
could say "success leads to motivation and motivation leads to success", which means
that because the students succeed in something, they've thought they never would get,
which resulted in them getting motivated and encouraged to learn more which
recreates their success again. This can be related to the theory of Motivation. One part
of the theory is called Motives from Interest, as when a person studies out of personal
interest, which is regarded in Clark's class. In short, Clark's students do not study well
for the test well but then they get interested in the song, they start to learn with fun
and to learn by what interests them rather than by effort.
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The intrinsic motivation has been transformed into an extrinsic one. At first,
students wanted to show themselves as superior, cool hence to have the attention of
others and be accepted by them. Later students started to care more about themselves,
as in more about their feelings rather what others think of them. In Maslow's
hierarchy of motives and needs, students need to know that they are loved and that
they belong to a certain group and are taken care of. These factors build up a person
with self-esteem while a lack of any of them build a person with a low self-esteem,
because of these differences they cope with their issues in ways that vary between one
student to another. Parents lack of care causes some students to try to be liked in font
other students, and for some it causes them to feel less conscious about their skills and
abilities – They basically don't believe in themselves. They cannot pass the exam, so
they say, this is mostly caused by their parents like Shameika's and the headmaster of
the school. Encouragement first comes from Clark when he tells Shameika's mother,
and all parents at last got to see their children pass and started to truly see their child's
interests and abilities.
Ron Clark makes a great job in teaching the students at New York city,
however, I believe that due to the big issues that occur in the class, he makes an
accomplishment in developing the students' psyche or applies tools that help them to
think diversely. In fact, he has helped the students to think that they can do better than
they've ever thought before and that’s the important part, but he hasn’t given them a
chance to search for answer by themselves. That’s not a problem, these students
weren’t ready to enjoy and love to learn yet, though Clark has prepared them to. He
has given them more attention to get ready to love learning while later it is up to the
students to search for information by themselves. I believe, it is very important, that
teachers should first alter each students' self-thought and self-esteem, to reveal what
they truly can do, to encourage them and show them that they can do it. Clark has
applied methods which work for everyone to make the target subjects easier to study
and less boring for the students. Since each student varies from the other, teaching
should include a variety of approaches. Ron Clark has added some techniques that
work for all visual learners, auditory and kinetic learners. Giving students different
ways of thinking and different approaches of life is also part of the movie. Because of
the issue that’s been occurring which steps prior to teaching, he lets them realize the
metacognition they have, which means their style of learning and basically to find out
what they are good at. This is considered as basic learning approaches for the students
and is also essential because it encourages them to continue learning even without the
guidance of a teacher. In short, fulfilling the students' basic needs and knowing what
they can accomplish, receive the attention in Clark's plan who has set himself the goal
that students can eventually believe in their abilities.
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Works Cited
Clark, Ron. The essential 55: An award-winning educator's rules for
discovering the successful student in every child. Hachette Books, 2003.