The Ron Clark Academy Experience

For several years, I have been wanting to visit The Ron Clark Academy. I didn't know when or how I was going to make it happen, but I knew I needed an opportunity to see this place that I had only heard about from other people around the world on their blogs, Instagram accounts and Facebook. Well, today was finally my chance! Today was the first of a two day training at this school.

We did not know exactly what to expect as we arrived at the school. We were about 40 minutes early and there was already a huge crowd of people. (Later we counted the seats set up in the gym and found 650 chairs, most of which were filled.) After waiting to register, we got in line to start our day and head through the doors of the most magical school I've ever seen. 

As we were waiting, we were greeted and briefed by staff and well-spoken students who didn't seem to have any trouble mixing and mingling with the "educators" as they called us.
Upon entering the front doors, there was a party waiting. We were surrounded on both sides by two lines of students and staff members. We walked through the middle with them cheering us on, high-fiving and shaking hands too.

We gathered in the gym for an amazing talk from Ron Clark. He told his story and also how the school started. One of the things that stuck with me is that he talked about how students very rarely want to be teachers. He said, "Everyday, I want my students to look at me and think, 'I want to be a teacher...that looks so fun!" He explained the three pillars of their school:  
1. Student engagement: No child is invisible.
2. Rigor: Teach to the top and bring the others up.
3. Climate/Culture: Essential 55 rules.

When his talk was over, Kim Bearden came up to speak to us about our day and how it would go and then we were broken up into groups and sent off on our first classroom observation. My first stop was Ron Clark's room. We just walked in and I must admit, I was a bit confused. He was teaching math without talking and the kids were just following his actions and shouting out answers left and right. He was checking problems from atop the desks and as students got an answer right, they joined him up on top and checked the answers of other students too. What I noticed was that he kept switching the methods up. In the 20 minutes or so, we saw him use several different teaching strategies which kept the students involved and excited to learn. I noticed a lot of mental math skills. He would call out a problem like what is 38X6 and would have the students break it apart saying 30x6, 8x6, add them together...and the students would shout out the answer on his signal. Each math student also had a laser pointer. As they were using math talk to speak about the problem, they could use their pointer to point out a certain part. LOVED THOSE! Another strategy I saw was when he handed the board over to a student (suddenly) and expected her to just get up and teach where he left off. Afterward, the whole class critiqued the student on what she did well and what she could improve on. He had the students give the student teacher a grade. It was shocking to see how low they all scored her when the teachers all thought she had done fabulously...just goes to show how little we expect. He sees greatness in each student and expects nothing less.

My second classroom observation was Wade Kings' social studies class. The students were doing an activity with current events. They could choose any event that happened over the course of the school year. They had to represent the current event in a series of 4-6 hashtags. When all of the hashtags were written, the students would share them aloud with the class and the other teams would need to try to figure out what the current event was. It was interesting to observe the process up close as the students worked with their teams to come up with obscure hashtags that would point to the event but not reveal it completely, making it harder for the other teams to guess. The team I was working with was doing the Korean Nuclear event and when Trump met with the Korean leader. I was only able to stay for the writing of the hashtags. My teacher friend was in the next group and said that as they were reading out their hashtags, Wade would not let them just guess the answer, they had to try to interpret each clue. 

This is the amazing blue slide that is in the middle of the school, linking the top story with the bottom. At the end of the day, we were able to slide down it and become slide certified. 

One of the classrooms I most wanted to visit was Hope Kings. All of the teachers at RCA (The Ron Clark Academy) have freedom in choosing their classroom motif. Hope's room is decorated with an Alice in Wonderland theme. A few days before my trip, I saw that she was doing a room transformation that was a Toy Story theme and that she was incorporating S.T.E.AM. activities to keep up the rigor. I was so happy and surprised to see that she still had it going when I walked through the rabbit hole and into her room. 

There were giant rainbow-colored slinkies all over the ceiling and huge colorful Christmas lights too. She had created posters that looked like something Andy (from Toy Story) would have hanging in his room. There were large dice and also a few monkeys from the Barrel full of Monkeys game.  

Students were learning about the steps to solving a S.T.E.M. challenge and they were working, with Legos,  to create a marble maze. The were building and testing the mazes. They had to keep in mind that they should be challenging, but not too challenging. The mazes were to later be tested by other groups as well. 

She also had a large container of army men. I wondered what activity they had done, earlier, with those. 

In the early afternoon, we were given a snack and a drink. I got this cookie and it was also the house I chose...more about that later. 

There were beautiful pictures and artwork everywhere. One of my favorite displays was this wall where students' faces were inserted into the paintings of famous art from long ago. 

This huge dragon, graced the stairway right outside the gym. It was so great! What kid wouldn't want to be here with art like this?

At the end of the day, right before leaving, we were allowed to choose one of the houses. Each year, the fifth grade class spins a giant wheel that has the four houses on it. Wherever the wheel lands, that determines what house the student is in for the four years they are at RCA (the Ron Clark Academy). I chose the house called Reveur. The word is French, which is one reason why I chose it. I have a French heritage. Also, the word means dream and I am embracing that word because I have a lot a dreams about what next year will hold for me. We are creating a school from scratch. It is to be amazing and innovative. I dream about the impact this school will also have.

After choosing our teams, we wrapped up the day with popsicles and were able to head out. I look forward to tomorrow when I go back to RCA. This time, we will all be wearing our house shirts and I know that the day will be as amazing as today was.