C4T Summary # 3

My first C4T assignments this month were both on John Spencer's blog page. According to his blog, Spencer is "an educator, author, speaker, incessant doodler, and perpetual bender of paper clips." I enjoyed looking at his blog posts. You can tell by the way he writes and the subjects that he covers that he is a fun and outgoing person with great intellect.
The first blog that I commented on was titled "You Can Geek Out About Everything". In this blog Spencer talks about a note that was given to him by one of his students. In the note the student thanked him for showing that it was okay to "geek out" about multiple things at once. The emphasis was on how we have stereotyped people with their interests. For example, some find it strange for someone who is artistic to play sports or someone who enjoys hunting to also enjoy theater. Spencer made it clear that it is okay to have multiple interests and that you don't have to follow the stereotypes our society has created. My response was thanking Spencer for puting this into perspective for his students. I also told him some of my personal experiences with these stereotypes while growing up in Alabama. I lastly told him to keep up the good work and to keep spreading messages like this to his students.
The second blog I commented on was titled "I Hid My Art". In this post Spencer talks about how he has always enjoyed art and even won prizes for some of his work when he was younger. He then talks about how he never considered himself and artist and never pursued his talent. Later in life he was curious to see if he still had the talent. He drew a picture of his wife one christmas and he realized he still had his talent. Later on, he and his wife wrote a childrens book that he illustrated. The funny thing is, the main character in the book was about a boy non-magical kid with a hidden talent much like Spencer himself. The main message for this post was for people to embrace their talents and not to hid them. I commented that he should share his story with his students. I think this is a great message that could possibly allow one or more of his students to pursue a talent that they too may be hiding.
I really enjoyed the blogs John Spencer has on his page. I hope that students can read his posts and be inspired.