The End of Molasses Classes


Book Description

The author describes the successes at his innovative academy in Atlanta, Georgia, and shares many of the strategies they use to create a lively and energetic learning environment.




The End of Molasses Classes


Book Description

“Rife with heart-warming anecdotes and inspiring ideas . . . Educators and parents will find much to emulate in this passionate, motivating tool book.” —Publishers Weekly “Inspirational, easy-to-follow insights on how to grow smarter, healthier children and communities . . . this timely resource can make school a motivational and fun community.” —Kirkus Reviews Practical, innovative, and powerful methods to enliven classrooms and ignite a passion for learning in each and every child. It is time to “GET ON THE DESK” and make every school in America the absolute best it can be. I often say I am a schoolteacher with the heart of a parent. I’ve made it my mission to make a difference in the lives of all of our children. I have traveled throughout our country, visiting schools in all 50 states, seeking out remarkable teachers who inspire our children to greatness. Sadly, I have also witnessed classrooms that seemed sapped of all energy, filled with students struggling to stay awake and teachers in desperate need of inspiration. These “Molasses Classes” broke my heart. I had to do something! I decided to leave my classroom in East Harlem, New York, and devote my time to this audacious dream: to create a revolution in our country, starting from the ground up. The heart of this change would be a school, unlike any in the world. It would be full of passion, creativity, energy, and an unparalleled freedom to do whatever it took to lead every child to success. The parents and teachers of this school would forge a true partnership with the intent of providing the best learning environment possible. I am proud to say that dream—the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, is now a reality. We welcome educators from all over the world to visit and learn from our methods and techniques so that they may take them back to their schools. I am still teaching, every day, and I feel honored to have hosted more than 10,000 educators in my classroom. This book is filled with the magic, the successes, the heartbreaks, the mistakes, and the triumphs that are the Ron Clark Academy. These are the 101 most successful strategies we have used to help uplift our children and enliven our classrooms. My hope is that you will find ideas here that will help you ignite a passion for learning in your children—and together we can get the molasses out of all our children’s classes. Be different. Be bold. Join in. —RON CLARK




The Essential 55


Book Description

From the Disney Teacher of the Year and New York Times bestselling author Ron Clark comes the classic guide to bringing out the best in your students, revised and updated for today's teachers. Over 1 million copies sold! When Ron Clark walked into his fifth-grade class in rural North Carolina, he was confronted with disinterested children in desperate need of structure and compassion. Brainstorming how best to reignite their love of learning, Ron created 55 lessons. Soon his fifth graders were reading at a sixth-grade level, engaging in class, and loving school. What's more, they were gaining something crucial: self-respect. These lessons evolved into The Essential 55--guidelines for students on how to live and interact with others. Ron lit a fire under parents and teachers around the world to raise their standards and expect the most from their students. The Essential 55 features a new foreword from Ron and a fresh take on his classic rules, along with contributions from Ron's former students, who reflect on which rules resonated most. Ron's 55 ideas show that with determination, discipline, and regular rewards, the children you stick by will be the children you eventually admire.




Move Your Bus


Book Description

A guidebook to successful leadership explains that by looking at an organization as a bus and the employees as the people on it, managers can identify who is helping the bus move, and who is hindering it.




Crash Course


Book Description

The inspiring true story of how a group of inner city school kids taught their teacher how to overcome personal adversity and achieve success and happiness: “Kim Bearden’s message is one that should be heard by all” (Ron Clark). Crash Course chronicles the life lessons that Kim Bearden has learned during an award-winning career in education. From her challenges as a first-year teacher to her triumphs as the cofounder of the highly acclaimed Ron Clark Academy, Kim shares how children can teach each of us the importance of building relationships, abandoning fear, discovering resilience, embracing one’s unique gifts, and living with passion. Full of honesty, humor, heartbreak, and humanity, Kim’s experiences show how children can help any one of us find joy and meaning in both our personal and professional lives. Crash Course is “humorous and sensitive” (Kirkus Reviews), an important resource for every home library.




Excellent 11


Book Description

From the Disney “Teacher of the Year” and New York Times bestselling author comes a road map to enrich students' learning experiences, revised and updated for today’s teachers and parents. After publishing the New York Times bestseller The Essential 55 (over 1 million copies sold), award-winning teacher Ron Clark took his rules on the road and traveled to schools and districts in 50 states. He met amazing teachers, administrators, students, parents, and all kinds of people involved in bringing up great kids. These are the eleven qualities he describes in The Excellent 11: Enthusiasm, Adventure, Creativity, Reflection, Balance, Compassion, Confidence, Humor, Common Sense, Appreciation, and Resilience. Ron has filled this book with hundreds of suggestions, stories, and wonderfully funny anecdotes. You’ll be smiling as you read—and finding the inspiration to change lives, one student at a time.




Breath, Eyes, Memory


Book Description

The 20th anniversary edition of Edwidge Danticat's groundbreaking debut, now an established classic--revised and with a new introduction by the author, and including extensive bonus materials At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished Haitian village to New York to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti—to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence. In her stunning literary debut, Danticat evokes the wonder, terror, and heartache of her native Haiti—and the enduring strength of Haiti’s women—with vibrant imagery and narrative grace that bear witness to her people’s suffering and courage.




The Priority List


Book Description

In this “beautiful, heartfelt, and ultimately important story about love, kinship, gratitude, and miracles” (Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author), a beloved high school English teacher with terminal brain cancer undertakes a cross-country journey to reunite with his former students in order to find out if he made a difference and discovers what is truly important in life along the way. David Menasche lived for his work as a high school English teacher. His passion inspired his students, and between lessons on Shakespeare and sentence structure, he forged a unique bond with his kids, buoying them through personal struggles while sharing valuable life lessons. When brain cancer ultimately stole David’s vision, memory, mobility, and—most tragically of all—his ability to continue teaching, he was devastated by the thought that he would no longer have the chance to impact his students’ lives each day. But teaching was something Menasche just couldn’t give up. Undaunted by the difficult road ahead of him, he decided to end his treatments and make life his classroom. He turned to Facebook with an audacious plan: a journey across America—by bus, by train, by red-tipped cane—in hopes of seeing firsthand how his kids were faring in life. Had he made a difference? Within forty-eight hours of posting, former students in more than fifty cities replied with offers of support and shelter. Traveling more than eight thousand miles from Miami to New York, and visiting hundreds of his students, David’s fearless journey explores the things we all want and need out of life—family, security, independence, love, adventure—and forces us to stop to consider what truly matters in life. Evocative, moving, and inspirational, Priority List “is a rousing testimony to the ways in which, in the face of death, living fully in the present moment becomes possible” (Publishers Weekly).




Moo


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres comes “an uproariously funny and at the same time hauntingly melancholy portrait of a college community in the Midwest" (The New York Times). In this darkly satirical send-up of academia and the Midwest, we are introduced to Moo University, a distinguished institution devoted to the study of agriculture. Amid cow pastures and waving fields of grain, Moo’s campus churns with devious plots, mischievous intrigue, lusty liaisons, and academic one-upmanship, Chairman X of the Horticulture Department harbors a secret fantasy to kill the dean; Mrs. Walker, the provost's right hand and campus information queen, knows where all the bodies are buried; Timothy Monahan, associate professor of English, advocates eavesdropping for his creative writing assignments; and Bob Carlson, a sophomore, feeds and maintains his only friend: a hog named Earl Butz. Wonderfully written and masterfully plotted, Moo gives us a wickedly funny slice of life.




Rain Song


Book Description

C.1 GIFT. 12-02-2010. $12.99.