Hey guys. I know we were talking in the other discussion about how to balance teaching creatively with making sure students are prepared for the test. I know that it is possible for us to be creative teachers and for our students to learn because I had teachers that were able to do both. I was just wondering if you guys remembered any teachers that were able to do both as well? What activities did they do that were fun that you still remember?

I remember my 4th grade teacher doing a lesson on cloud formation and how the water evaporated to form clouds and how eventually the cloud became so full that it rained. As he was demonstrating, he poured a whole cup of ice water (which was his example of a cloud) on his head. The whole class loved it and we were very engaged in what he was teaching. I also will never forget it.

I am sad to say that I didn't have very creative teachers. I do recall that the other elementary school in the town did have a really creative teacher. I don't remember learning about war or anything like that, but the teacher at the other school let his students act out the war. They got to spend a week acting out the war and reenacting the battles and seeing what it was like to be in the war. I wish I would have had some experience with that kind of teaching, but unfortunately I didn't. I guess the most creative my teachers ever were was my high school Spanish teacher who let us celebrate the holidays and celebrations she did as a child. We learned a lot by her letting us have fun in class with an educational experience.

My freshman English teacher (in high school) was probably the most creative person I’ve met in my entire life, and it showed every day in his lesson plans. It was an English class so obviously we read a lot of books, but we never had a single test on them. He thought that was the quickest way to ruin a book for students, and I agree. We did other things to ‘test’ our knowledge of them – like a few papers, book talks, collages, skits. A lot of other teachers accused him of being lazy and slacking off, but the students all thought the other teachers were the lazy ones. Mr. Lineberger used his classtime to really teach and engage us, but most of our other teachers relied on homework to do the work they weren't doing in class. I can still remember every book we read in his class with vivid detail because I remember what I did with them. I couldn’t tell you much about the books I read in any other English class because I rarely actually paid attention to them. I read SparkNotes, because I knew that would get me through the test. With my freshman class, however, I knew I had to read and pay attention because I was going to really produce something at the end. Mr. Lineberger found a road that gave his class the best of both worlds. He got us to read the texts and understand them (even get excited about them), and he didn’t have to bog us down with tests that turned us off of English. He’s probably the reason why I decided to be a high school English teacher.

I had a lot of really creative and some not so creative teachers, and I remember so much more from the creative teachers. My AIG teacher in particular taught me the most about "thinking outside of the box". I know some aig programs are based around english or math, but ours was just called aig and we basically got out of class to be creative. Her name was Bink Brown (it even sounds creative) and she would sometimes just read novels to us that most of our teachers thought to be above our understanding. She also had us participate in FPS (future problem solving) where we had to use our creativity to come up with answers to situations. So, instead of creativity being used in the classroom the usual way through crafts or something like that, Mrs. Brown simply brought out our own creative thinking skills and encouraged us to use them. I'll never forget the hours our class spent on figuring out those stories with a hole/lateral thinking problems, and how much I looked foward to learning in her classroom. It was really unlike any other class I've ever been in and I hope I can influence my students like she did me.

I didn't really have too many creative teachers that stand out in my mind. I had a world history teacher in tenth grade who was very animated in the classroom. He had a lot of worldly experiences that he brought to the classroom, and he also had many stories to tell as well. Last year, I volunteered in a second grade classroom back home for a few days. The teacher was only a few years older than I am, so I was really impressed at how experienced she seemed in the classroom. The unit happened to be weather while I was there, and she really got the students involved in that unit. They went outside and charted the weather, they made tools to study and record the weather. She also actually let the students use the smartboard during some activities. She would call them up to the board and let them draw on it or use it during classroom games. The students really responded well to the way she treated them- a little more adult-like.

When I was in elementary school most of my teachers taught by the test and by the book. Like Megan, I recently volunteered to help in a 2nd grade classroom in my hometown and I was very impressed by some of the younger teachers! There was one thing that stood out to me in particular. One particular teacher whose last name is Crane themed her class as a train station (Crane's Trains) The school allowed her to paint her classroom red and she has real train crossing signs and old train lanterns etc hanging around her classroom. The word wall, cubbies, times tables etc were all displayed in the same theme. Her room looked more like a place to play than the stark cinder block wall classrooms that I was used to being taught in. I was only in the room for a moment because she was not the teacher that I was helping but the children were all engaged in their activities and there were smiles all around. I thought that it was great that she was able to theme her entire classroom and include all of the typical elements like the cubbies in a more fun and creative way.

Katie Stover

I think that there are many ways to be creative in the classroom. There are so many resources that teachers can use that will help them to think of creative ways to teach subjects to their children in a way that they will remember it, but the most important resource for being creative is the teacher's imagination.
One memory I remember in particular, from when I was in middle school, was when we were learning about the colonial times and we had to know certain dates of events and vocabulary that goes along wtih this time period. I remember I was having so much trouble wanting to remember and learn this time period because i did not find it interesting at all. A week later, the class took a field trip to a colonial village and we got to live a day in the life of a colonial child! It was so much fun and i was so interested to learn more about this time period! Field trips are always a great thing to get children involved and interested in learning!

One really creative teacher that I've always remembered was my Kindergarten teacher. She was not only creative during everyday task but she went above and beyond to make sure that we would remember the concepts she was trying to teach. Specifically, I remember my class hatching eggs. She got fertilized eggs from a local farm and had her husband build an incubator. The as a class, we watched as the eggs hatched and the chicks grew. Eventually, with permission from our parents, some students got to take home the chicks. I happened to be one of those students and my chick grew into a rooster. Even though, through this lesson, the class learned so many things not in the curriculum, it allowed us to have an exciting shared experience that we could take with us when learning math, writing, and reading.