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The closing session's keynote speaker was Ron Clark, founder of the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta. As a young teacher in North Carolina, Clark developed a passion for helping disadvantaged students. In 1998, he moved to Harlem to take a job teaching at an inner-city school. His success there was the subject of a 2006 made-for-TV movie, The Ron Clark Story, starring Matthew Perry.
Clark's innovative, high-energy teaching methods are based on 55 essential rules, which he describes in his 2003 New York Times bestseller The Essential 55: An Award-Winning Educator's Rules for Discovering the Successful Student in Every Child. As Clark points out, some of the rules are obvious and old-fashioned. (Example: "Do not smack your lips, tsk, roll your eyes, or show disrespect with gestures.") But students respond to them if they are consistently applied in a spirit of mutual respect. (Clark authored a second book in 2004—The Essential 11: Qualities Teachers and Parents Use to Motivate, Inspire, and Educate Children.)
Clark grew up in rural North Carolina. Although he had no interest in teaching, he applied to the state's Teaching Fellows Scholarship program and won a scholarship to East Carolina University. Following graduation and travel abroad, he took a temporary teaching position in Aurora, North Carolina. When he was introduced to the class, the words of one particular student touched his heart:
"We walked in and there was a little boy, named Rayquan, sitting just a few feet from the door. He looked up at me with his huge, brown, round eyes and said, 'Is you gonna be our new teacher?' I can't explain the feeling that came over me; it was like an epiphany. The instant trust in his voice, the excitement all over his face, and his evident longing for stability called out to me. I knew that was where I was supposed to be" (The Essential 55, p. xxv).
In the few short years since that first epiphany, Clark's success as an author and educator has garnered appearances on many national TV shows, including two appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show, where Oprah named him as her first "Phenomenal Man." Clark received the 2001 Disney Teacher of the Year award. On October 31, 2008, the students of Ron Clark Academy were named the "ABC Person of the Week" by ABC World News Tonight.
Today the Ron Clark Academy, established June 2007 in a renovated warehouse in southwest Atlanta, accommodates a diverse student body of fifth- through eighth-graders. When students enroll, their parents or guardians commit to regular volunteer work at the school.
Clark's message to the NCPN conference attendees was passionate and high-energy. He insisted that every student has the potential to "be somebody" and that it is possible to create lively, hands-on learning environments without compromising on discipline. Wherever he goes, Clark challenges teachers to "show [students] in every way possible that they are cared for, and make special moments for them that will add magic to their lives, motivate them to make a difference in the lives of others, and, most important teach them to love life" (The Essential 55, p. 196).
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