C4T #2

For the second edition of Comments for Teachers I had the great pleasure to read The Middle School Matrix blog by Mr. Hadley Ferguson.

In the first post that I commented on entitled Just Laugh was a great blog to read. Mr. Ferguson's class had just gotten back from winter break and it was the last class of the day and he could tell that the kids were ready to get class over and just go home. Mr. Ferguson had to come up with something to catch their imagination and keep it. What did Mr. Ferguson do? He set the class up in groups of three and gave them an article on what they had been studying. This article had funny names to the children and giggling and happiness ensued. Mr. Ferguson at first wanted to shut this down but instead joined in. This may not sound like much but when the children in that class seen him having just as much fun as them they became more engaged in their work. The comment that I left basically told him how I enjoyed that he was able to sit back and laugh with the students. By having fun being a teacher and watching the students have fun I thought that he reached a wonderful place in teaching.

The second post that I commented on was also by Mr. Ferguson although I had to backtrack to a post before the winter break. In this post Mr. Ferguson's class was getting ready for winter break. He had his class for 90 minutes that day and needed a way to keep the students engaged. He came up with the plan of making the "best" map of Africa that they could make. He left the "best" part open to the students. What happened next was that the students broke up into groups and started making different maps of Africa. A couple of examples of these maps were population maps and rainfall maps. Those are just two of the maps the students came up with. He was quite pleased with the outcome of the project that he had them do. The comment I left told him how I think that he once again had come up with a great way to engage the students imaginations and that I think his incorporation of letting the students play some music lightly in the background helped to ease tension in the room.