Imagine a utopia
you could attend that could train you to be as successful
as you'd want, and anything
you can dream of. And on top of that,
having the ability to give that gift
to someone else. Well, you don't have to
imagine it. Because we found
a nonprofit school in Atlanta that can make
this dream a reality. The kids sing
and dance in class, are sorted into houses
like in Harry Potter. Achieve some of the best
results in America. 94% of the kids
at the school are on a scholarship. And to top it all off,
there are flying dragons. Dracarys! I couldn't
believe a place like this actually existed,
so I sent Dan and Darren there to experience it
firsthand. When they arrived,
they met with Ron, the founder of this
mystical institution. I'm from the country
in eastern North Carolina. My parents
had never been to college. I was the first one to go, and I was at East
Carolina University and a teacher at a
local school passed away. My mom twisted my arm, and I went in this school
and started teaching, and I didn't really
want to do it. I didn't want to be there, but I just fell in love
with the students and the passion
and the possibilities. And then
after five years, I saw a TV show that showed schools
in Harlem that had violence and
overcrowded classrooms. I had a feeling in
my heart and I was like, I'm going
to teach up in Harlem. And so I
went up there and it was
really challenging. But basically I did
the same things there, that I did
in North Carolina. I built
relationships with students and
their parents. I tried to make it fun, I ate lunch
with the students, and then I made
it really hard because I learned that you can
make it as hard as you want for kids, as long as you
keep them engaged and as long as
they want to be there. And because Ron
believed in himself and taught the kids
to believe in themselves too. In just a few years he was able
to completely transform the lives of the
students at the school. It was because
of this that Ron won the Disney Teacher
of the year award. Ron Clark Which led to a movie
being made about him called
The Ron Clark Story starring Matthew Perry. But Ron had his sights
set on a much bigger goal, which is why
he reached out to Kim. In the year 2000. I was fortunate to meet
Ron Clark. We were both honored as Disney
Teachers of the year, and he said, you
and I should start a school
together one day. Starting a school
took a lot out of me and Kim and our
whole entire team. We couldn’t get anybody
to give donations, they had
to give a little bit here,
a little bit there. And in order to raise
money to fund the school. Ron wrote a book called
The Essential 55 The book became
a huge success and was profiled on
The Oprah Winfrey Show. All the money from
the book went to buy an old factory
in Atlanta, Georgia. Imagine a 100
year old factory that had been
abandoned, and somehow we just both
looked at it and said, this could be
something amazing. So I said,
if this is going to happen it's going to take a lot
of community members to give
what they can give. So with the help of
3000 community members Ron was
able to raise enough money
to start the school. These kids are here
because they're special and these kids
have got dreams, and we're going to help
their dreams come true. And in 17 years, the Ron
Clark Academy has grown from 60 to
over 180 students. Hundreds more have passed
through the school, and 90% are accepted into college
or career training, but 100% discovered
their full potential. Yeah,
the test scores are great, but really, we just want to make great
people who love others and want to use
their talents to make a difference in the lives of the people
that they're around. After meeting with Ron, Dan and Darren
took a tour of the school. The dragon breathes fire. When you shoot
a three pointer, so Darren and I are going to see
who can do it first. But after wasting
an hour trying to make this happen,
they couldn't even get the ball
in the hoop. I'm more of a mathlete
than an athlete. They were
then invited into Ron's fifth grade math class. Pencils down. So, Quiz Test 4, Let's see what we got. Do you know
what's going on? No. The answer to Z is
just going to be: - “Four”
- Two? Four. Someone said two. I'm more of a mathlete
than an athlete. When I first got told about this project, about the school, Darren
kept on pushing on about how much fun
the kids have here. And I thought to myself,
you know, a school that's fun,
that's impossible. I remember school
as just being white walls Friday for me, being
the best day of the week because I could
just leave school. Here, that's inverted. I think that the kid's
most depressing day is Friday,
because they love being
here so much. Most of the kids
that go to this school come from backgrounds
or environments that wouldn't
inspire the best of them, but they come here and they're taught
to believe in themselves. And that is the most
powerful thing that Ron is doing, he’s
teaching these kids to go for their dreams. He's teaching them that they're all capable
if they just try. And I want to tie this
back to Jimmy. When Jimmy got started doing YouTube
for five years, nobody watched anything
that he was doing. But Jimmy never quit. He went on
day by day by day, until he finally
figured it out. And look where he is now. And the only thing
that Jimmy had when he started
was a belief in himself. Just like Zion, who graduated
from RCA in 2015. Before RCA,
I didn't believe in the education system. I was a kid who
was deemed as like, just a product
of where he came from. I grew up in his single
parent background, and so I was limited
in what I could be. So thinking about what
I dreamed of, like I didn't have many dreams. For me, it was just, can
I just do something more? Can I get out
of this community? What does that
even look like? And so I have no idea
what I want it to be, because I didn't
even know what I could be. And so I think
coming to RCA helped me find my passion, helped me find
where I wanted to go. Gave me a voice to use
and taught me how to use it, and also
who to use it for. Since graduating from RCA, Zion has gone
on to study education at Princeton and Harvard and has a dream
of becoming the Secretary of Education
in the United States. But Ron and Kim wanted
to have the same influence for millions of kids
all around the world. So we said,
what if we open our doors, allow teachers
to come in, sit and watch
what we're doing, and take our methods
and ideas back to their schools? We thought that would be
transformative. And this method has proven
to be so successful that we wanted to help
even more teachers. So along with
our partners Stand Together,
VICTRA and Chegg, we paid for 200 teachers
from all around the country
to attend this event. So the
next morning, the hall quickly started to fill up
with all the teachers. After their registration, they were put through
an intense crash course to learn this new way
to bring out the best in their students
and help build confidence. It's been an
amazing experience to see different tools
that I could add to my toolkit as an educator,
to make sure that I'm meeting the
needs of all my students. The students here
have autonomy so they're able to be themselves, and that is something
that I love being able to take back where I put
my students in charge, and I give them
kind of that role to take the autonomy
of their learning. I'm excited to come to
school every single day, because I know there's
going to be something different and something
new in store. Teachers, they're always
supporting you, so you know they're going
to have your back, do whatever, you know
task comes your way. One thing that I love
is the relationship between the teachers
and the parents. The teachers
are very engaged, and they want to make
the parents very aware of what's going on
with every day at school. The kids get up
and they're they're motivated
actually to get to class. And the teachers just find
different ways to teach. And that's the key to it. When you affect
the life of a child, you do not only affect
the life of that child. Indirectly,
your impact will also have an influence upon that child's
future spouse. Everybody
that one day that child's life will have
an impact upon. Every teacher
needs to realize it could be in
the millions of lives that are indirectly
affected by ours. If you believe
in yourself, if you believe in
somebody else that you close, to build
that person up, give them the confidence
that they need to go out there
and chase their dreams and see what they truly
are able to accomplish. Through this
course at the RCA. We have equipped
hundreds of teachers to positively influence thousands of kids
at schools all across the country
for generations to come. There’s so
many inspirational stories that we
found over here, but one of the ones
that has touched me the most is the story
about Ryan Marshall. Ryan Marshall was one
of the most incredible individuals we've
ever had come to RCA. Talented,
creative, a musician. He was brilliant. Unfortunately, when
he was in ninth grade, someone tried to
steal his mother's car and the person pulled
a gun on his mother, and Ryan jumped in front of his mother
to protect her. And he took the bullet
to the heart, and he died
in his mom's arms. We found his journal where he told himself
in his journal, you have the power
to change the world. Use it each
and every day. We put that on the wall to remind us that
we all have the power to make an impact
in the lives of others. If we live our life
in the right way and we seek to uplift
our communities. That's what
Ryan Marshall did. That's the spirit he had, and that's
why we have tried to embody his spirit
here at RCA. I think that you do
embody his spirit in about believing
in yourself and achieving everything
and changing the world. We also want
to memorialize him, VICTRA and
Beast Philanthropy are gonna do a four
year scholarship for a child so that you guys
can name it in his honor. It's really beautiful. Thank you. Before I reveal how ten of you
will get a life changing surprise, I want to tell
you about Chegg. Chegg is a personalized
learning assistant designed
to help students learn. They provide 24/7
high quality support to make sure you really understand
what you're studying. Cheggs’ AI tools can break
down complex problems into simple, easy
to understand solutions and with straightforward
explanations, they can make it work. Anyone can retain and understand
what they're learning. With a library of more than 100 million
expert curated solutions. You can find relevant help
for your specific topic or major. Maybe, if I had this when I was in school,
I wouldn't have failed. Cheggs’ mission is to help
every student achieve their best in school
and beyond. And that's why
they sponsored this video and helped us fund
what you saw here. So click the link in description
to learn more about Chegg. Their AI tools,
and how they can help you. Thank you for
sponsoring this video. You're an amazing project. Let's get
back to helping people. Ryan Marshall made the
ultimate sacrifice to save his family. And together
with VICTRA we honored his
dedication and courage by funding a
full ride scholarship to the
Ron Clark Academy. And we want to take it one
step further than that, which is why
I have this book. Jim Keyes just released this
book called Education is Freedom, and he has
agreed to give Ten, $10,000
scholarships to ten of you anywhere in the world
that read this book and make a video on
why education is freedom. You can find out
more information and read a free
copy of this book using the link
in the description below. Thank you so much,
Stand Together for bringing all this together
and helping out. Also VICTRA and Chegg. We had so many people help us
with this video, it was awesome. Stand Together
believes exactly the same thing that we do. That when a person believes in themselves, they will
accomplish things that they never dreamed that they would
be able to. And this is a
really important lesson that I want
you guys to take home. The Ron Clark Academy
helps these kids uncover their true talents and their true potential, so that they can
transform their lives and use their
talent and potential to help lift others and help them
achieve their best too. And most importantly, thank you for lending
us your eyeballs so we can make more
ad revenue and fund more projects
like this. Go watch more
Beast Philanthropy videos.
