John Hunter knows what the creative classroom looks like. His students create it every single day. Teacher John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4'x5' plywood board -- and lets his 4th-graders solve them. At TED2011, he explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the complex lessons it teaches -- spontaneous, and always surprising -- go further than classroom lectures can. Click here to view the passion and excitement of Teacher Hunter.
Perhaps the most telling comment offered by teacher John Hunter is from his first job interview:
I asked the supervisor, what should I do? She said "What do you want to do?" As a teacher, to be given that kind of open space, that kind of mandate-less position to be in where you can create out of the emptiness, it allowed me to create that kind of template for my students, where I could ask them, "What would YOU like to do today?
The source for this article is National Board-certified educator Anthony Cody, who taught science for 18 years in inner-city Oakland and now works with a team of science teacher-coaches that supports novice teachers. A version of this post appeared on his Education Week Teacher blog, Living in Dialogue.