John Spencer is an educator, author, and father. He believes that creativity is something that lives inside all of us and educators need to encourage creativity from each and every one of their students. In his opinion, creativity is just as vital to students as math and reading and writing are. Besides sharing his passion for creativity with others, John has done many things over the years including writing a children's book (Wendell the World's Worst Wizard) about a non-magical wizard who uses creativity to save the day and co-founding a blog for students (Write About).
In John's most recent blog post, It's a Big Deal to Someone, he talks about how little things teachers do can have a huge impact on his/her students. The schools that John's children attend have stopped assigning homework this year and the impact has been huge. Now that his children do not have to spend their evenings working on schoolwork they have started reading more, working on projects such as making books, looking up and asking questions about historical events and figures, and working on their artistic abilities. By not forcing the students to do homework, it has had a counter-effect and encouraged the students to spend their time doing things that they enjoy, but that are still academic. This made John think about innovation in classrooms. Something as little as allowing a student to stand while they are working on schoolwork could mean the world to that student and could play a huge role in their success. If teachers take these small accommodations into consideration, they could completely change the dynamics of their classroom and increase their students' success and excitement to learn.
John has started a series on his blog about student choice. In the first post of the series, he suggests that we should not be asking, "How do I engage my students?" rather we should be asking, "How do I empower them?" He says that this happens when students own their learning; when they ask questions, when they choose the strategies, and when they are encouraged to think critically and creatively. John encourages teachers to read the ebook Getting Started with Student Choice as a starting point for integrating student choice in to their classroom. You can get the ebook for free from the link above.
If you want to learn more about John or stay connected, you can follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his Youtube channel.