by Kortni Alston, MBA
PhD student, University of Florida
Graduate Teaching Assistant

The desks are narrowly placed though out the classroom, students are starting to arrive, and the teacher is waiting for the audio-visual equipment to warm up.  It sounds like a typical day in any classroom across the country, but there is one factor that differentiates some of the classrooms: the best teachers stand out simply with classroom performance or delivery.  How a teacher performs in the classroom can enable student engagement and ignite passion in a fairly listless subject matter.   Extraordinary teachers understand the value of bringing a lesson to life and using themselves as a conduit to share knowledge and experiences.

Ron Clark has proven that you don’t have to be a college professor to inspire educators.  Clark is the co-founder of the Ron Clark Academy (RCA), the non-profit middle school in Atlanta, Georgia that serves as a training ground for teachers. Clark and Kim Bearden, the co-founder and executive director of RCA are educating teachers from around the world more than 13,000 from all levels of education make the pilgrimage to their training facility to learn best practices from Clark, Bearden, and their team.  Their approach exemplifies passion in the classroom that values student engagement.  To see the school in action visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFSR53NJFAY&list=UUFEx_RwX7lLrwUib0VtfINQ&index=15&feature=plcp

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