Mr.

Clark and How He Uses the ASSURE Method

Mr. Clark is not only a man with a good heart, but also an idealist and determined teacher. He
moves from a small, peaceful village to big, crowded New York City in order to response the
teacher need of the schools in Harlem. As I have observed, Mr. Clark is using ASSURE
Method in his classes, and does it very well.

First, even before meeting his students, he performs the very first step of ASSURE Method,
which is Analyze the Learners. He learns about his students’ grade and the average age of the
class. They are sixth grade students and they are approximately 12 years old. Then, because
Analyze of Learners also includes information about students’ backgrounds, he meets their
parents in order to have any idea about the students’ backgrounds and what kind of
environment they live in. In my opinion, what he did is really beneficial because students (in
this case, children) reflect what they observe in their families. Unfortunately, all the families
that are shown in the movie are not suitable for the children. So, he gets the idea that it is
quite normal for his students to behave in such a bad manner because they do not have proper
families. In our country, some teachers especially in elemantary and middle schools, visit the
students’ families with same purpose which shows as it is quite applicable.

Second, after being familiar with the students and their families even a little bit, he performs
the next step of the method: State Standarts and Objectives. Okay, now he knows that these
students are sixth graders and they have an important exam ahead. Although they are smart
children indeed, their knowledge is very limited. They also do not take their teacher into
consideration. Their attitude to the school and teacher is cynical. Therefore he determines that
they not only need to learn 6th grade curriculum in order to be successful in this exam but
also learn about class rules. He states the learning objectives as:

A: Sixth grade students with little knowledge

B: Behavior to be demonstrated is learning the sixth grade curriculum and classroom rules

C: Condition is the exam that they will take in order to graduate

D: They will pass the exam (the percentage was not given in the movie)

After that, he tries to find different ways to have their attention, he tries different methods,
instead of obscinating with the students he tries to get on well with them. He observes that
these students really like music, so he tries to focus on auditory materials. This corresponds to
Selecting Materials step of ASSURE method. What he did was really logical because thanks
to using materials that interest the students, he could make them participate in the class and
taught them about presidents of the USA. Selecting the right material is really important
because it determines the number of the students will participate and how effective these
classes will be. In my opinion, every teacher should use different materials to interest his or
her students. It is not that hard to bring flash-cards or a big and smaller balls to teach the solar
system to the classroom, so it can be easily done in every school in our country.

In order to perform Require Learner Participation step, Mr. Clark gives students a homework
and he wants them to write about their dreams. He makes exams, but even though all his
students fail, he does not show any dissappoinment, which is something I really admire. He
keeps giving positive feedbacks to his students and encourages them. If a method does not
work, the tries another. Although I personally like his way of giving feedbacks, when I think
about our country, the number of teachers like Mr. Clark is relatively low because exams are
an important part of our lives, they literally shape our future. In Turkey, teachers mostly
prefer to be realistic due to the reasons such as expectations of the families etc. They do not
have time to make positive feedbacks. While the situation is like that, I do not think that Mr.
Clark’s attitude will be so effective in Turkey.

Last step of the ASSURE Method is Evaluate and Revise step. I think the most impressive
scene of the movie is the scene that the principal coming to the classroom with the exam
results and then everybody learns that all the classroom passed the exam, they got scores even
higher than the ‘‘Honour Class’’. At this point we all understood that Mr. Clark followed to
steps of the ASSURE Method so successfully that he helped each of his students to pass the
exam. Mr. Clark also saw that the students achieved stated standarts and objectives. This is
the crucial part of the Evaluate and Revise system. There was a huge difference between the
students we saw first and the students at the end of movie.

If you ask me whether I approved everything he did, my answer will be no. Sometimes I
thought he should be more disciplined because not everything is like a movie in real life. If a
teacher is not disciplined enough the students will probably not take him into consideration
anymore, specially if they are teenagers. Therefore if I were him, I think I would be more
disciplined. Especially in real life, there may be classes includes more than 30 or 40 students.
To let the students do whatever they want may result in chaos in the classroom.

In summary, to me, what he achieved was incredible. All the teachers in the world, if they
really want to be helpful to their students, should use this method. Materials and technological
devices that can be used are not unreachable. We all can see that he basically used an egg to
embody the idea of gravity in the students’ minds. Sometimes he just used a pen and a paper.
I think this method will be beneficial for all age groups. It can be used in elemantary schools,
middle schools and highschools. The ASSURE Method and the movie should motivate all the
teachers and teacher candidates (including us) to try to teach more effectively, because as I
mentioned before, it is applicable in our country and in the rest of the world.

Burcu Türk