RESEARCH II FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Lectured by Dra. Surya Sili, MAT., Ph.D

AN ANALYSIS OF RON CLARCK MOVIE BASED ON

CHARACTERISTIC OF GOOD TEACHER
Compiled By
Mita Farani Azis
1005085019
A Regular Class 2010

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
MULAWARMAN UNIVERSITY
2013

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RON CLARCK ANALYSIS MOVIE

As the development of global era, every school requires good teacher. Schools
believe hiring good teacher will develop the enhancement of school as well as the
students. A growing body of research encourages this concept. The study, conducted
by economists Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of
Columbia, tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years from a large urban school
district from fourth grade to adulthood in America, making it one of the largest and
most consequential educational studies in recent years. Their findings focus on the
long-term impact of teachers based on their "value-added" ratings. This refers to the
average test-score improvement for a teacher's students, adjusted for differences
across schools and classrooms such as prior test scores.
Most importantly, the effect of a good teacher on a child's life is monumental.
The study discovered that students assigned to higher VA (value-added) teachers are
more successful in many dimensions. They are more likely to attend college, earn
higher salaries, live in better neighborhoods and save more for retirement. They are
also less likely to have children as teenagers.
Based on the research which is conduct by Raj Chetty and others, students
achievement is more heavily influenced by qualified teacher. Actually, the general
requirement that applied in the most school is accepting teacher who has graduated
from University. The basic standard of this kind of teacher is undergraduate teachers.
And the highest standard goes to post graduate teachers. But keeping the attention to
education of teacher is not enough. Because teacher is not just a person who stands up
in front of the class and explains the knowledge to students, the job of teacher is
bigger than that. Teacher also has to pay attention to what students need and how the
teachers are going to present the material in front of the children.
Before we are talking more about the qualified teachers, its better to defined
first what exactly a good teacher is. Generally teacher can be categorized as a
profession who teach someone. The teaching and learning process can be taken place
in the school or private home schooling. But teaching is one of the most complicated
jobs today. It demands broad knowledge of subject matter, curriculum, and standards;
enthusiasm, a caring attitude, and a love of learning; knowledge of discipline and
classroom management techniques; and a desire to make a difference in the lives of
young people. With all these qualities required, it's no wonder that it's hard to find
great teachers. To find out someone who has high passion in teaching and eligible to

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pursue the standardization of good teacher, we need a parameter to identify this kind
of qualification.
According to Beidler in Chris Morgans review, he wrote 10 specification of qualified
teacher. He drew the characteristic of good teacher based on his personal experience
and observation rather than educational theory. He elaborates the characteristic as
below:
1. Good teachers really wants to be good teachers
Endeavor is the proper word for this characteristic. A good teacher never stops to
make an effort and tries very hard in every teaching process. And letting students
know how hard your effort will eventually gain students respect.
2. Good teachers take risks
Good teachers set impossible goal to gain. The purpose of doing this is to allows
teachers to take chance and try different things in classroom based on academic
freedom. It is exciting to try things that may fail; if you succeed then you have
accomplished something and if you dont succeed then you have learnt that you
need to make some adjustments.
3. Good teachers have a positive attitude
We ought to enjoy, not complain about, the hallenges students give us. Good
teachers try not to be cynical or negative about their students or else cast
themselves as victims. We need challenges and there is none if all we have are
smart, self - motivated, hard- working, wide- awake students; these dont really
need to be taught.
4. Good teachers never have enough time
Good teachers dont have enough time is not because they have lots of class to
attend and teach but because they busy to prepare materials that they are going to
presented in the classroom. They prefer to be busy and know that the work of
good teaching expands to fill every moment they can give it. They are in their
office the most hours for students to visit and they get a lot of visits, they put the
most effort into providing students with feedback on their assignments, they are
most in demand for committee work, they put the most work into their class
preparations. They are always trying something different or else refining what
they have previously tried.

5. Good teachers think of teaching as a form of parenting

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Good teachers tend to find that the caring that goes into their teaching feels a lot
like the caring that goes into parenting. It means knowing when to stand firm on a
deadline or a standard of excellence, and when to bend or apologize. They know
that their students, like their own children, have insecurities and problems.
6. Good teachers try to keep students and themselves off balance
You are more likely to learn when your comfort, your complacency, and your self assurance are being threatened. Good teachers detest stagnation and look for fresh
challenges for themselves. They also like to have their students take on challenges
that they are not at all sure they can handle. They like to move their students
beyond their comfort zone to challenge their confidence so they can earn a new
confidence.
7. Good teachers try to motivate students by working within their incentive system
Most undergraduates seem to be eager to make a lot of money. Lingnan University
teachers in the humanities areas may wonder how to use that as an incentive in
their teaching. However you can point out to your students that many business
executives have majors in the liberal arts. That background has given them the
advantage of being able to synthesize things, how to explain things to others, how
to persuade others to their point of view, and how to understand the people that
make any business work.
8. Good teachers do not trust student evaluations
Neither do bad teachers of course, but for different reasons. Good teachers do tend
to get very good evaluations, but they focus on the one or two erratic evaluations
that say something negative about them. They ask themselves what they did wrong
for those one or two students. The not- so- good teachers tend to trust the positive
evaluations they receive and dismiss the negative ones.
9.

Good teachers try to give their students confidence

Our students will likely get along fine without knowing much about the subject
matter we teach. However it is the process of them learning what we teach that
will make a difference for them. The process we take them through such as having
them say something worthwhile clearly, forcefully and with a proper marshalling
of evidence that will give them confidence in their ability to take on tough
assignments. Sometimes we do students a big favor by pushing them to speak up

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in class. When good teachers do this they will find something positive to say about
what is offered.
10. Good teachers listen to their students
Those who have asked their students what makes a good teacher have been told
that they are accessible, available, approachable, enthusiastic, energetic and
excited.
And now after exploring the definition of good teacher and its characteristic, we
will proceed to the analysis items of qualified teacher in Ron Clarck Story. The
overall view of this movie tells about a teacher who has an expertise in rising
standardize score. He gets a low level class in Inner Harlem elementary school. He
chooses that class to prove every student has same capability if they get same
opportunity. At the end, he success to prove his belief and his class gains the higher
score than the honor class who always has perfect score.
From the beginning of the story, Ron Clarcks passion in teaching is appeared.
When he meets Hadley Craig, a boy who stands in the trash because the teacher says
that he cant learn, Ron Clark proves to this kid that actually Hadley can learn
something by remembering Ron Clarcks name. Four year later, he accomplishes
perfect score for the fourth grader in Snowden Elementary school North Carolina. But
then just being good in one particular place cant be categorized as qualified teacher
based on his perspective. He has to move out from the comfort zone to show that he
can be a good teacher in any place. When he knows that New York public schools
desperate for good teachers, he believes it is a chance for him. To convince his
ambition, he delineates a reason by saying, every year, I go tell my students to go for
what they want in life. Dream big. Take risks. It starts to live in up with my own
words.
Based on Ron Clarcks action, he has already implemented the first and second
characteristic of good teacher. Firstly when he feels that it is not enough to be good in
just one particular place and also the feeling to help other schools is the signal of a
teacher who wants to be good teacher. A good teacher cant just say enough for being
good. A good teacher always tries to make an effort to be good teacher as much as he
could. So that is why he moves out of the town to enhance his standard of being good
teacher. Secondly, when he says Take risk, deliberately he carries out the second
characteristic which is Good teacher take risk. He go to New York is one of the risk
that he gets. Ron Clarck starts for new job, with new neighborhood, and without

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someone whom he knows. It is a risk that he accepts at the very first time. And that
actually makes him categorized in the second characteristic.
While Ron Clarck begins his day in teaching low level class, every students
disrespect him. Nobody listen to him when he introduces his classroom rules. But he
still maintain positive attitude. He redecorates the classroom all over even his
students always ruin the classroom again. He manages his attitude. But then someday,
Ron Clarck out of the emotion, he shakes Shameikas table. But then he realizes its
bad thing to do. So he comes back again to the class and starts teacher as he always
does. It means that Ron Clark has deal with the third characteristic which is positive
attitude. Even if it is hard to keep positive attitude toward the children but that is
actually the challenge of become good teacher. And Ron Clarck proves it can be
done.
To cater the job of being good teacher, Ron Clarck doesnt have enough time to
prepare the material which is going to be presented. This is not because he has lots of
work to do in restaurant but because he wants to present a perfect material based on
students need. He doesnt sleep to prepare a rap song for studying the order of USA
president. Not to mention all of his effort to recover the class, Ron Clarck never stops
to fulfill his obligation as a teacher until he gets sick because of tired of working and
has less rest. This action eventually place him in the fourth characteristic which is
good teacher never have enough time. He doesnt care how much time that he spends
to prepare learning process for his students.
Basically his style of teaching isnt put the teacher as a superior over the
students. He precisely places his position as parent who always cares with the
students no matter how stubborn they are. Ron Clarck tries to approach them by
remembering all names of his students. And he never tired to warn students that they
should behave in the good way. Take an example when Shameika is busy to take care
of his brother. Ron Clarck doesnt hesitate to help her to make a dinner and do
Shameikas homework. And this kind of approach put him in the fifth characteristic
which is good teacher think of teaching as a form of parenting.
And how about the sixth and seventh characteristic of good teacher. Mr. Ron
Clarck has already put them in line. When he tries to keep the students behave in
good way and motivate them by using classroom rules such as we are a family, we
respect each other. He directly proves those characteristic of try to keep students and
motivate students to behave in good way.
The core problems of disobedient students begin when the students underestimate
themselves. They believe they cant do anything good. For example couples day
before the state exam, all of students afraid of facing the test. This is the first time

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they really do the exam seriously. They also afraid of being fail and underestimated
by other people again. But Ron Clarck doesnt believe his students perspective. He
believes his students have good potential that had never been explored. In front of
Shameika and Tashawn parents, he rejects the parents notion that those children are
less miserable. By saying that Shameika can go to Manhattan west for middle school
and defending Tashawn in front of his father in law, he wants to prove bad notions
must be stopped. His intention of doing this is to eradicate bad perspective of each
student and let student be confidence of their selves. This is actually the eighth and
the nineth characteristic that Ron Clarck caters in his teaching process.
The last but not the least, Ron Clarck becomes good teacher is because he always
listen to his students. Even the students give harassed comment to him, he always
respect the children who speaks and listen for what they want.
Based on the analysis above, Ron Clasrck has proved to us that he implements the ten
characteristic of good and finally become a great teacher. Hopefully by implement
those characteristic we also can be the Ron Clarck.

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References
Bennett, J. William. 2012. The lasting impact of good teacher. Retrieved from
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/11/opinion/bennett-good-teachers

Morgan, Chris. 2003. Learning matters at Lingnan. Retrieved from

http://www.ln.edu.hk/tlc/level2/td.htm
Colker, J. Laura. 2008. TwelveCharacteristics of Effective Early Childhood Teachers
. Copyright 2008 by the National Association for the Education of Young
Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at
www.journal.naeyc.org/about/permissions.asp