Room 12 - Mr. Ferris

Kent Ferris – 4th grade

My name is Kent Ferris and I teach a self-contained fourth grade Spectrum class at Lafayette Elementary. A resident of Seattle since 1971, I am married and have three sons, all of whom are, or have been Seattle Public School students. My educational credentials include a B.A. from The Evergreen State College as well as an M.B.A. and a Masters of Education, both from the University of Washington. I have served as a teacher in the Seattle School District since 1995, and specifically at Lafayette since 1997.

I enjoy working with nine and ten year olds because they are developmentally ready to tackle many challenging subjects, yet are still molding their own self-images about what kind of student they are and what subjects they can be successful in. My goals are to instill self-confidence and self-reliance to create life-long learning habits in students who are academically, socially and emotionally balanced. Much of my curriculum integrates social studies, visual art, and language arts around the topic of immigration to America. We read as a class over a dozen novels, write about the books' impacts upon us, conduct research projects and take part in simulations to learn about the experiences of various people as they have become Americans.

I also devote a great deal of time to mathematics and science, guiding students beyond seeing math as simply computation facts tables, and introducing the richer fields of geometry, algebra, probability, statistics, chess, and much more. Together, we conduct science experiments of the students' own design with a goal of understanding the scientific process and tackle units including seed growth, electricity, the digestive system, and tide pool biology. Writing about and presenting, with the aid of technology, mathematical and scientific ideas, are exciting new skills undertaken in fourth grade.

I welcome visitors and love having parent volunteers at any time. I am available by phone at 206-252-9500 or via e-mail at kwferris@seattleschools.org.

Kent Ferris Lafayette Elementary 252-9500

School is not the end, but only the beginning of education.           Calvin Coolidge

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