Reflections #3

Movie: The Ron Clarks Story (2006)

Reflection Foci:
What is impassioned teaching? In what ways did this teacher use reflection to inform his
practice?
What are the threats to creative teaching?
What is the difference between creative teaching and teaching for creativity?
How do you nurture creativity in your students?
What is the most creative thing you have done as a teacher?
Teaching from the Heart
I cringed whenever I encounter those that say, Those who cant, teach. It unjustifiably
reduces teachers as individuals who find a living in the classroom just because they are
assumed to be not so good at anything to actually have it as work. The film The Ron Clark
Story totally negates this baseless assumption. Watching the movie made me wonder if certain
people are simply cut out for teaching. This is not to dump certain individuals into a category. I
have seen teachers in the truest sense of what they do, and it really takes that special passion
to be a teacher.
Fashionably Impassioned
Ron Clark was certainly a mover and shaker with regard to school reforms. I perfectly
know the conditions of public schools as I largely attended highly populated and underserved
urban schools myself. I might not have had super teachers like Ron Clark, but close to his kind,
I was fortunate to have learned from teachers who really cared. Impassioned teaching is clearly
teaching from the heart. As Ron Clark exuded in the movie, it is some kind of inner drive that all
the more propels a teacher to be creative amidst difficulties and seeming impossibilities.
Impassioned teaching is setting a higher bar for achieving goals. Ron Clark in his true-to-life
story demonstrated that the human spirit can be stirred to sheer passion and determination in
order to reach the impossible.
Ron Clark genuinely cared for his students when he declared as a rule that they were a
family. Even with all the initial defiance and outright disrespect from the students to force him to
quit, Clark valiantly faced the challenge and carried on. Teaching to him was a mission. With the
affective connections he tried to slowly build with his students, Clark meaningfully reflected upon
strategies and actions that would change the emotional landscape of his classroom. In the first
months as he got to see the peculiarities of each child in his class, his reflections on his
interactions with them resulted basically to teaching differentiation. He capitalized on each of
their strengths and celebrated their little day-to-day victories. Encountering learning difficulties,
he forged agreements with them that challenged them to perform better.
Threats to Creative Teaching
On the surface, the movie might just be a successful chronicle of teaching to the test.
But Ron Clark, instead of simply methodically making students get higher scores, actually used
these tests as opportunities for students to build their confidence back. Standardized tests to
many teachers seem to limit our understanding of students capabilities. When skills and
competencies are pegged by a numerical test score, we wonder if it accurately represents our

students strengths. Standardized tests and the whole educational bureaucracy can often be
stumbling blocks for teachers and students who aspire to do more with the curriculum. I am not
saying that we scrap the structure in our educational system altogether. I am also of the opinion
that there are core learnings that are essential. But then, we also need to re-conceptualize our
assessment practices. Along with the already packed and crowded curriculum are the other
societal forces that thwart authentic and meaningful learning from happening. Ron Clark chose
to work in inner urban school in New York where harsh socio-economic realities deprive
students of better quality education. When their own families do not see schools as an
enjoyable place to learn where their children can aspire to better futures, teachers would seem
to have lost allies. True, the reality is that the parents need to work doubly hard to support their
children that they really dont even have time to help with their schoolwork. Reflecting upon all
these, Ron Clark also sought to reach out to the families to facilitate his students learning. By
communicating with the families that what their children do matters, only then could these
detached families become more involved with their childrens education. Lastly, school
administrations that tend to treat schools as basically factories that regurgitate the same mold of
future workforce, then there is no room for creativity. Sometimes it is difficult to put the blame on
administrators when they are simply driven by test scores because this the measure by which
they get their funding. Lastly, I see the most common threat to creativity in teachers themselves
who resist creative endeavors. Thinking that they ought to save time and focus on content, they
restrict if not shun innovative teaching strategies that could have enriched their teaching and
students learning.
Creative Teaching vs. Teaching for Creativity
Creative teaching refers to how a teacher innovatively designs and implements teaching
and learning activities that meaningfully engages learners with the use of effective strategies,
tools and resources. Creative teaching is being resourceful and flexible. It is also the ability to
look at different approaches or methodologies that prove to be more appropriate or effective for
specific lessons or tasks. You know a teacher is creative when she offers a diversity of learning
activities or opportunities that innovatively utilize resources and effectively produce positive
learning results.
Teaching for creativity is geared more towards developing creativity amongst students.
Teaching for creativity entails providing venues and opportunities for students to showcase their
strengths and talents in purposeful ways. A teacher ought to effectively equip students with the
necessary tool, techniques, concepts and skills that would facilitate their talent or skill to develop
further. When we teach for creativity we do not look at a single solution or result to a problem or
challenge. Instead, we encourage students to take multiple paths and explore multiple products
or solutions that might respond to the problem/challenge. Creativity as they say is the tolerance
for ambiguity.
Nurturing creativity in students
As a Technology teacher, I put prime on ideas that come alive. I encourage to students
to explore a range of feasible designs based on their specifications. I try to impart that
aesthetics need to achieve functionality. As Steve Jobs said, Design is not how it looks like or
feels like. Design is how it works. Students see the functionality when the product or solution
they are proposing are personal. They attach meanings and values to what they do and
ultimately become more creative if they see a personal relevance to the work. As my Tech
classes are largely project-based, students feel empowered when they choose the theme or
topic and the nature of the project themselves. With some guidelines, they are able to identify

what they really want to do and make it truly purposeful. They are also able to take advantage of
their interests and strengths.
Perhaps creativity is best seen at work when students in my class iteratively design,
build and test their ideas. From prototypes to actual products/solutions, students engage
themselves in problem-solving to find out what works and what does not. As they create their
projects, they undergo a lot of trial-and-error sessions that lead them to re-conceptualize earlier
ideas. Pretty much working like professional designers and builders, students get a taste of realworld skills applied to authentic problem solving. When they decide on the tools and techniques
to use, and the steps to take in constructing their projects, they own up the learning processes
and find their own rationale for their work.
Creative Streaks
Back in the early 2000s, I served as a science consultant for a local elementary school in
Manila, Philippines. The goal was to improve the science curricular program by complementing
it with more active and participatory approaches. This was a time when the STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math) buzzword was not very popular yet, at least in that part of
the world. I proposed to establish two programs: science and math laboratory and a school
science fair based on the multiple intelligences theory.
With the directors nod, I first spearheaded designing a learning space devoted to
interactive and manipulative science and math activities. This idea gave birth to the Science and
Math Integrated Learning Experiences (S.M.I.L.E.) Lab. Once a week, each class from 1 st to 6th
grade meet in the SMILE Lab for problem-based tasks that engage students into utilizing math
and science concepts to explore multiple solutions. Together with the science and math
teachers, our SMILE team designed science and math activities that aim to integrate concepts
and make them tangibly real. And I have not even heard of interdisciplinary units that time. To
this day, it is heartwarming to know that the school (The Learning Tree Child Growth Center) still
uses the SMILE program.
The other project I instituted with the school is the establishment of an annual science
fair that reaches out to every student. Ordinarily, its mostly the science and math whiz kids (the
so-called geeks) who are lording over science fair competitions. All the other kids are relegated
to cheer for them on the side. With the science fair operating with MI principles, I intended to
promote a science culture that is different from how we traditionally see it. Just as there is a
place for future rocket engineers in the science fair, there also ought to be a way to connect
science to budding hip-hop artists and ballerinas. What then transpired was a showcase of
talents and interests under a common science theme. For the science fair, we created different
categories for the project entries: a. Tuklas (Discover) for science experiments, b. Likha (Create)
for manipulative physical inventions, c. Katha (Write) for literary science-inspired writings and
music compositions, d. Laro (Games) for games and learning aids, and e. Kulay (Colors) for
science visuals, models and related art works. In the early years that we annually staged the
fair, I saw the overwhelming support of parents as they help their children practically discover
what stuff they are made of. The school were also proud of those students who eventually
participated and even won in district science fairs.
Just recently I reconnected to some of these students through social media. It just
melted my heart discovering how some of them looked and actually wrote about their
experiences in my classes. Admittedly, I am the kind of teacher who tends to be so not
emotionally attached. Even as I consider my students my friends, I try to maintain a clear

professional distance. But theres just one blog entry I found online about a former student who
fondly recalled our science classes. That blog entry just nailed me. An acknowledgement that I
have actually reached out even to just a single child in my work as a teacher affirms that
somehow I am making a difference. Here is the link to that blog post.