C4T #4

Teacher Tom's Blog
  

Teacher Tom!

     Teacher Tom's blog is one that I will revisit often! I looked not only at a few of his posts, but also at his school system he has set up. Using the Cooperative System, he has designed a pre-school setting that is really plugged into the surrounding community. His last post was somewhat of a progress report of the schools functioning, but he also mentioned how he is finding and using resources fro the surrounding community. He'll visit estate or garage sale's did through construction scraps and other places like that to find materials for his classroom. In his own words, he calls the teaching catalogs a "last resort" for his classroom. I think this really cool. I let him know in my post, but to me this is extremely innovative! The way he not only brings the surrounding community into the classroom but uses it to find resources. I hope to learn more from Teacher Tom in the future and find ways to make my classroom look more like his.

     His second post was the result of a little spring cleaning. While rumbling through the closet and old storage spaces Mr. Tom found tons of odds and ends that he didn't want to throw away, but couldn't really use in an activity by themselves. So he decided to bring them all out at once, step back, and just let the kids figure out good uses for them. Pretty soon pyramids were being formed by empty yogurt containers, foam blocks became the source of hours of entertainment, and puzzles were being made from left over frame scraps. I saw how amazing it was that children can create wonderful things from absolutely nothing... and do it extremely well. I commented the first thought that popped into my mind. "How often do we limit our students with our rules and regulations?" Almost the entire time at school we're given a certain combination or certain pattern to solve problems. Very rarely are we given a load of materials and then told, "Knock it our kid, see what you can do with it." But what would things look like if we did? I think we would find ourselves in the midst of great minds in every classroom we step in. I believe those great minds are always there and have always been. We just don't give them the chance to show that.