Nabila Abdul Mukthi (811501)

Reflection of the Triumph

In my opinion, The Ron Clark’s story: The Triumph is a really amazing movie catered
for mainly teachers. The whole story and the casts were excellent and were able to capture
my attention throughout the movie. This is probably because I can relate to some of the
things in the movie myself as I am a teacher too.

Ron Clark, or Mr. Clark as how his students referred to him, was a teacher who
works hard in order to achieve astounding results for the sake of his students. Early in the
movie we saw that a student was told to stand in a waste bin because he was not able to
follow what the teacher was teaching. Mr. Clark saw this when he went to the school as a
temporary teacher and when he asked about it the student had this negative view about
himself – he did not think that he could learn what the teacher taught him just because the
teacher told him so. Consequently, Mr. Clark introduced himself and talked about other
things for a while before asking the student again about what his name was and the student
managed to remember. Hence, Mr. Clark proved that the student could actually learn if given
appropriate chance and the student believed him.

As the movie went on, we could gather that Mr. Clark was a very optimistic and
positive individual. He truly believed in his students and cares for them from the bottom of
his heart. He was also known for his abilities to improve standardized test scores. As a result
of this advantage, the school decided to give him a permanent position at the school.
Nevertheless, he refused the offer as he felt that he should not be comfortable and
complacent with what he had and that he wanted to try to help other students too. Thus from
here we can learn that Mr. Clark was definitely a risk-taker; which was a trait that he (and I)
wanted his students to have as well.

When he decided to go to Harlem and find a school there to teach, I felt that it was a
really big risk to take as Harlem was known as a place where the students were really hard
to teach because of their attitude. It was definitely a big risk to uptake and to deal with. This
somehow got me thinking about myself and whether or not I am in a comfortable-zone at my
school and whether I should try to gain more experience from other schools as well. The fear
of the ‘unknown’ when you go to other schools is rather immense for me because I am afraid
that I could not cope and that I would end up being stressed out entirely as it was in the
movie when a teacher decided to just give up on teaching the students in Harlem because
he just could not stand it any longer. Therefore, it was really inspiring watching Mr. Clark
being able to take that huge challenge upon himself.
 In the movie, it was very obvious that the school put a lot of emphasis on getting
great scores on the standardized test. The school principal also stated that “his job depends
on it”. This is also the current situation that we have in Malaysia since forever, which for me
is really a sad fact. I believe that students need to be taught as a whole – to enable them to
achieve whatever in life that they want to and also to develop themselves as useful human
beings that are able to give back to the society. Trying to get the highest marks in tests and
exams has become a competitive sport around the nation and numbers have become the
priority for almost every school. The more A’s you have, the better your school is. However,
how many of the students that were able to produce these scores became wholly developed
people not only intellectually but physically, emotionally and spiritually?

Mr. Clark started his class by setting up the class rules which was not received well
by the students. Nevertheless, for me, class rules are important to set the boundaries
straightaway so that the students would know what they should and should not do and the
consequences that they will have to face if they go against them. I believe by having class
rules it would be easier for the teacher to manage the class and further improve the class
environment in order to create a more conducive atmosphere for teaching and learning to
take place.

Mr. Clark established that the class will work as a family and everyone should trust
each other and be able to be trusted as well. He also tried to get the parents to be involved
in their child’s development and make them aware of the possibilities that could be achieved
if more attention is paid on their child. I do believe that it is important to get parents to be
involved in their child’s learning as they are also one of the most important stakeholders for
successful education. However, the only time we do meet the parents to talk about their
parents is during the parent-teacher conference when they come to school to get their child’s
report card. I do wonder if we could actually carry out what Mr. Clark did in the movie and
how it will affect us as a person and as an educator.

In general, the movie was really inspiring to me as it really shows that if you are really
determined to help your students to learn better and become useful human beings, it is
possible. Of course you will have to simultaneously deal with different kinds of challenges
throughout your noble cause, but it will definitely be worth it in the end. However, in
Malaysian context and in reality, you cannot deny the fact that we are putting our priority on
the wrong things. We are putting so much emphasis on getting the perfect score in order to
be able to parade your school’s achievement to show that your school is better than others.

As a consequence, lesser time is spent on the actual course of teaching and trying
different methods in class to maximize our students’ potential. Shouldn’t teaching be our
prime priority? It sometimes can be really frustrating when I want to try out so many different
things with my student but I need to deal with ‘restraints’ which may affect my willpower and
energy at the end of the day. Is it because I am a bit too perfectionist? Maybe so, how would
I balance out my time at work and home? If this world could indeed be ideal for me, I would
want to really focus my energy on teaching rather than doing things which I find irrelevant to
my work. Perhaps the management could be better ‘managers’ to. Nevertheless, that is all
just a piece of my ‘ideal’ world.

From the movie, excluding the way I hope things would actually work, I can gain one
important value – to work hard and be the best that you can. There is no point of putting
unnecessary pressure on myself as I am the one living my life. There is a quote I found
online by Marilyn Monroe, “a career is great, but you cannot curl with it at night” which I find
has some truth in it. I would not want my work to take over my life nor do I want my students
to not have the best for their lessons. I do believe that I put in a lot of effort to make my
classes interesting and I really do hope that my students find me helpful in ensuring their
understanding in gaining acquisition of English language. However, I am only human and of
course I slip up and make mistakes. Thus, the movie teaches me that as long as you are
persistent in what you do, making mistakes is just a process that you have to go through in
order to achieve great success. Finally, I really want to inspire my students not only
academically but also as a person.