Cheers, applause and confetti filled House Three Thirty on Monday evening as 100 teachers and administrators from Akron Public Schools received scholarships to attend a workshop at The Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta this summer.
“My whole team is going!” exclaimed Glover Community Learning Center Principal Grace Tome.
She was at the event with four of her colleagues. All of them — plus another colleague they FaceTimed after the announcement — will attend the summer workshop.
The group stood in a loose circle, excitedly chatting about the opportunity and why Clark’s message resonated with them.
It’s a sense of hope, that any kid can be reached, and I think it’s important to always remember that, and I think it’s important for other people to know that, too,” said Glover CLC fifth grade teacher Anna Weyrick.
The scholarships and event are part of Ignite the Classroom, a partnership between Huntington and The Ron Clark Academy that provides professional development opportunities to educators across the country. The program launched last year in Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh. This year it expanded to Akron; Charleston, West Virginia; Charlotte and Minneapolis.
“We feel that we have found the secret sauce,” Clark told a room of roughly 200 educators. “And so now, we’re trying to share it with as many people as possible.”
A teacher for 31 years, Clark is well known for his education philosophy and unique approach to teaching. In his decades-spanning career he’s written four books, visited 300 school systems in all 50 states and been the subject of a movie starring Matthew Perry, “The Ron Clark Story.” In 2007, he founded the The Ron Clark Academy, a nonprofit school serving children in grades four through eighth.
For Clark, success in the classroom means keeping students engaged through hands-on learning.
“But the key then is that once we make it exciting, we make it really hard,” he said. “So it’s [a] challenging curriculum in a fun environment. And we’ve found that balance works really well to help kids become successful.”
Clark shared his story with the audience, from his early days as a teacher in his home state of North Carolina to his years spent teaching at an elementary school in Harlem that changed his career trajectory (and caught the attention of Oprah).
He spoke about the importance of education and its role in the success of the country.
“The biggest indicator of where our country is gonna be in five, 10, 20 years is our education system,” he said.
North High School teacher Eric Matthews was one of the educators selected to visit The Ron Clark Academy. The entrepreneurship and marketing teacher is looking forward to bringing some of Clark’s strategies back to his own classroom.
“I’ve seen him speak three times, so I’m elated to have the opportunity to go down there and be part of the professional development [program],” Matthews said.
Clark’s focus on uplifting and caring for everyone at his school stuck out to Glover CLC kindergarten teacher Grace Craig.
“That’s one of the most powerful things, I think, in my classroom, is just how often we tell each other we love each other and show each other we love each other,” she said. “And I’m excited to see new ways of engaging in those relationships with kids.”
(Editor’s note: Huntington is a financial sponsor of Signal Akron.)