If there were a code you could learn that would lead you to become a great teacher -- of students, of your children, or of any young person in your life -- wouldn't you want to learn it? The Essential 55 is a collection of the amazingly effective rules that Ron Clark used to become an extraordinary teacher. Through trial and error, this teacher has distilled fifty-five ideas that have helped him take apathetic students in some of the country's most challenging areas and transform them into award-winning scholars. Covering all aspects of life, from the classroom to the world, from human interactions to the most frightening of all -- cafeteria and bathroom manners -- Ron Clark shows that with determination, discipline, and regular rewards, the children you stick by will be the children you eventually admire.