Crash Course: The Life Lessons My Students Taught Me

The inspiring true story of a teacher’s experiences with her students and the life lessons she learned that can help others find joy and success.

Crash Course chronicles the life lessons that Kim Bearden has learned during an award-winning career in education that has spanned three decades. Kim has taught more than 2,000 students, and each has shown her something about the world and the abundant capacity for love, resilience, and appreciation that we all possess. By sharing her students’ stories, she teaches their inspiring lessons to us all.

Throughout the ups and downs of her professional and personal life, Kim found that her students were the light that illuminated her path; they were her sanctuary in the storm. From her challenges as a first year teacher, to her triumphs as the cofounder of the highly acclaimed Ron Clark Academy, Kim shares how children can teach each of us the importance of building relationships, abandoning fear, embracing one’s unique gifts, and living with passion.

Full of honesty, humor, heartbreak, and humanity, Kim’s experiences show how children can help any one of us, despite life’s obstacles, find the joy and significance in both our personal and professional lives.

Kim Bearden is the cofounder, executive director, and language arts teacher at the Ron Clark Academy, an internationally-renowned middle school and educator training facility. She resides in Atlanta with her husband Scotty and daughter Madison.