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Title: The Essential 55: An Award-Winning Educator's Rules for Discovering the Successful Student in Every Child by Ron Clark ISBN: 1-4013-0001-4 Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: 14 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.24 (78 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Essential Read
Comment: Ron Clark's The Essential 55 is a useful tome for all educators, especially teachers that are in the first year of teaching. These basic rules, although many, are very applicable in the classroom. I am a classroom teacher myself and I am very pleased to see some of the rules I already employ. Clark's essential 55 are very succint and easy to follow. Some of my favorites are Rule 11 (Surprise others by performing random acts of kindness), Rule 19 (Know other teachers' names and greet them in the hall by name), Rule 40 (During an assembly, do not speak or call out to friends) and even Rule 47 (Do not bring Doritos into the school building).
Clark's book is well-thought out and entertaining as he goes through his rules with the ideas behind them with examples in his own experience in teaching, when he was a student and even growing up'
. He is an award winning teacher with his own ideas on classroom management. He also has a section for dealing with children, parents and rewards and punishement. These rules for discovering the successful student in every child also apply to every age and everyday life.
Rating: 4
Summary: The essential 55 book review
Comment: I am a pre-service teacher about to recieve a degree in elementary education. I am always looking for books to supplement my college training. The Essential 55 by Ron Clark is one of the first books I have found that not only offers a sound theory about how to create a positive classroom environment and how to manage that environment, but also offered specific anecdotes on HOW Mr. Clark created this environment and HOW he manages his classroom. He uses real life anecdotes from his various teaching experiences. His ideas or "rules" are for the most part, PRACTICAL and easy incorperated and implemented into any classroom. His back to basics ideas are much more realistic than an elaborate discipline system. The book is also FUNNY and full of enthusiasm. I can't wait to teach and add some of his ideas into my own classroom repetoire! It's an easy read and i HIGHLY recommed it.
Rating: 2
Summary: Half-Baked Cookies
Comment: Better pour yourself a tall glass of milk to drink as you read this book. There are a lot of cookies in it. And a lot of half-baked ideas.
My grade-school teachers failed me. They didn't take me to any basketball games or the White House, let alone Disney World. And they never baked any cookies.
Somehow, I learned how to diagram sentences. I memorized prepositions, state capitals, times-tables and the names of not a few presidents. And I learned to appreciate the Flight of the Bumblebees and the Valkyries, as well as the Wright Brothers and the Mercury Seven. Along the way, I learned manners and how to play fair. Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten, and first grade, second, third, fourth . . . Well, you get the idea.
I went on to graduate, worked in an assortment of part-time jobs while attending college, and ultimately became a teacher. My degree plan didn't include baking cookies.
What a cool teacher! He takes his kids to restaurants, basketball games, bowing alleys - all on a teacher's salary, for doing what they're supposed to do. Becoming a 5th-grade teacher was a natural transition from baking donuts at Dunkin' Donuts to baking cookies for class. Lots of cookies.
Take Rule 16. Ron Clark bakes cookies for the class after the tenth day of perfect submission of homework. What if all the answers are wrong? He doesn't address this. But if one kid doesn't turn in the work, there is no reward: "I use peer pressure," he shamelessly admits: "I let the class lay it on thick. I saw them glare at him . . . I watched them fuss at him at lunch time." More of that peer pressure strategy worked for him when he wouldn't allow anyone to eat until a girl admitted she cut in line. It's a half-baked idea in a book like a half-baked cookie that winds up in every batch.
Ron is not above exploiting a child's credulity. He makes a video for the substitute, and the day before he's out he meets with a couple of kids and swear them to secrecy. "I tell one kid that when I say I can see the kids in class, I want him to say, 'Mr. Clark, can you really see us?' . . . It always freaks out the students, and I have even shocked a few substitutes here and there." Must be another one of those half-baked cookies.
Ron had some bad experiences at Dunkin' Donuts. Customers didn't look into his soulful eyes as he served their donuts. He drew the lesson to "never talk to waiters or waitresses as if they are servants . . . you do not want to be on the bad side of a waiter." Isn't a restaurant part of what's called the service industry, and employees called servants? Since when does treating such employees as servants imply treating them with disrespect? He's paying your salary, after all. And your tip, if you're a good servant.
Every teacher has quirks, such as Clark's Doritos Rule #47. Okay, he hates Doritos. Me, I hate Corn Nuts. Ron doesn't have much use for property rights, either: "I noticed that one girl had a bag of Doritos and she had a smirk on her face. I quickly took the bag from her, walked over to a trash can, and smashed the bag between my hands. . . "
Ron can't make up his mind if he wants the little kids to like him or not. On one hand he says, "Sacrificing a little dignity can go a long way when you are trying to win over students." On the other, he has a First Day of School Speech that says, "I'm not here to be your friend, I've got more friends than I can handle, who needs you anyway, blah, blah, blah." And then he asks, "Do I want the kids to like me? Yes, it is absolutely necessary." Necessary to whom? The kids? You?
I've got news for you, Ron - not everyone is going to like you. Not in the classroom, and not in the real world. You have a winsome personality, no doubt, and you go through the trouble to teach good manners, which a lot of people manifestly lack, but I didn't go into education to watch basketball games with my students, or bake cookies.
Be sure to wipe off the cookie crumbs when you finish reading this book.
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