C4T #2

For my second C4T assignment, I was assigned to read and comment on John T. Spencer's Blog known as Education Rethink. Mr. Spencer is a sixth grade teacher in Phoenix, Arizona. He has also done numerous other things in regards to education. If you would like, check out his personal page here: John T. Spencer. What I found from reading Mr. Spencer's blog was that they weren't typical blog posts. They really gave my great ideas and made me think, while being enjoyable to read all at the same time. The first blog post I commented on was titled, Thirteen Reasons Canadians Should Buy This Book. This was very interesting to me because I had never heard of this particular book, so therefore I was all the more curious as to why anyone should buy it. The book is called Wendell The World's Worst Wizard. After reading Mr. Spencer's many reasons why Canadians should buy it, I did some research on the book myself to see what it was about. The story is about a thirteen year old wizard who thinks he is different and once everyone finds out, he has to pave his own way. He ends up teaming up with a bunch of new friends, zombies, robots, and more only to find out that he just might have what it takes to save his village. I think this book would be an excellent choice to read to younger children. It provides a great moral on how to embrace who you are, differences and all. I even told Mr. Spencer in my comment that I just might have to go buy it to one day read in my future classroom.

The other post that I read and commented on was Mr. Spencer's most recent post titled, 12 Alternatives to Boring Professional Development. He gives several ideas on how to create rather than deliver. In my comment, I said that I really enjoyed his ideas of Personal Professional Development Plans, Independent Projects, Action Research, and Curriculum Creation. The Personal Professional Development Plans are used to allow teachers to perform self-evalautions in order to see where they are, set goals, and reflect on what they have been doing. This caught my attention because we have been learning so much about self and peer evaluation, and how important it is. The Independent Projects allow teachers to create something on their own that they can bring to the classroom. Teachers are so full of ideas, so why not let them create? As for the Action Research, I love this idea. It would be a great way to get together, generate ideas, and see what works and what doesn't work. This also reminds me a lot of Project Based Learning. They both involve a process that allows so much room for freedom and creativity. Lastly, I enjoyed Mr. Spencer's idea on Curriculum Creation. As you can see, Mr. Spencer is full of ideas on how to make things a bit more exciting in the education world.