Time Needed for Creativity, Educators Tell Board Members

(GLOBAL TEACHER PRIZE FINALIST JOE FATHEREE IS PRESENTED A UNIT 40 BRICK PAVER BY SUPERINTENDENT MARK DOAN IN RECOGNITION OF HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS)

Those who attended the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai in March told Effingham Unit 40 school board members Monday night that time must be made in the class day for creativity.

Global Teacher Prize finalist Joe Fatheree said Singapore has one of the two highest-rated educational systems on the globe. Fatheree said Singapore is working to reduce content and expanding opportunities for creativity.

(EHS PRINCIPAL JASON FOX AT MONDAY'S MEETING)

Effingham High School Principal Jason Fox said the United States is one of the top five worst countries in teaching by memorization. Fox said students are taught information that they remember until after they take a test, and then most of it is gone. Experiential teaching, though, gets the students directly involved in the learning process. He said, "Every kid in grade school is creative; we are working to restore it at higher grade levels." He said a grade school teacher tells someone to draw something or make something and they do and hardly any one of the finished products look the same. As children age, though, they start noticing when their work doesn't look just like everyone else's and they begin conforming rather than maintaining their individuality.

Fatheree said opportunities continue to grow for EHS students. He noted that Ty Totten's class is making cookstoves that can be shipped to Malawi since kids there can't go to school since they're foraging for food. Fox, though, said Fatheree's Multi Media students identified the need and a CAD class drew up the stoves to be manufactured. Meanwhile, other efforts are underway to assist the Malawi people in improving food production.

Some of Fatheree's students will be participating in a webinar based in London next week, they are headed to Chicago later to help in an event, and a couple might be going to London next year for another gathering. There are also efforts to become pen pals with a class in India and Charlie Schwerman's Graphic Arts class is raising funds from a scavenger hunt to buy books for students in Haiti. Fatheree's wife, Darlene, was also on hand to thank the Board for the opportunity to travel to Dubai with her husband, and discussed things some of the students in her second grade class at Southside School are doing with recycling.

The opportunities continue to be life-changing for Fatheree, too. He told of being up at 2am so he can Skype with the Malawian teachers with one of the teachers literally running through the streets, gathering others so they can join in the conversation.

Fatheree said three years ago, before Sonny Varkey began the Global Teacher Prize, and this award presentation was held, "your grandma would have watched". Now, this year, you had millions around the world watching.