In this episode of Unpacking Education, Doug Ferguson, a National Board Certified Teacher, shares his journey back to the classroom. After an initial 10 years of teaching in an elementary classroom, Doug transitioned to educational leadership and curriculum design. Two years ago, Doug returned to his roots, teaching fifth grade math and science. From reigniting classroom connections to building student belief through STEM, Doug’s story is a timely reminder that returning to the heart of teaching can be both humbling and deeply rewarding.
Teaching seems to require the sort of skills one would need to pilot a bus full of live chickens backwards, with no brakes, down a rocky road through the Andes while providing colorful and informative commentary on the scenery.
Franklin Habit, author and illustrator
Resources
The following resources are available from AVID and on AVID Open Access to explore related topics in more depth:
- Celebrate Computer Science Education Week (article collection)
- Create Community and Nurture Connections to Support Deep Learning (article collection)
- Demystify Computational Thinking (article collection)
- Inspire Students With Project-Based Learning (article collection)
Confidence, Passion, and Success
Confidence, passion, and success aren’t just traits we hope to instill in students—they’re also essential elements in a teacher’s evolving journey. In this episode, Doug Ferguson shares how returning to the classroom after nearly a decade reignited his passion for teaching and reminded him of the deep value of human connection. “There’s nothing better than being in the classroom,” he says, recalling moments when once-struggling students found belief in themselves and began to thrive.
Doug’s reflections are a powerful call to embrace vulnerability and persistence. His story of Destiny, a student who went from self-doubt to leading her peers in robotics, reveals how confidence can be cultivated through meaningful opportunities. “You never know what seed you’re planting,” Doug reminds us, underscoring that success in education often starts with showing up, believing in students—and ourselves—and having the courage to keep growing. The following are a few highlights from this episode.
About Our Guest: Doug Ferguson is a National Board Certified Teacher in the Tahoma School District in Washington State. He teaches fifth grade math and science. He just completed his second year back in the classroom after working an initial 10 years as an elementary teacher, then as a STEM instructional coach in an elementary school, and later as a Senior Learning Designer at AVID.
- A Love for Kids: While Doug began his career as an assistant bond trader at Washington Mutual, he wasn’t finding the fulfillment that he was seeking. After spending some time volunteering and working with kids, he thought, “Maybe I should do something with this full time.” With some encouragement from others, he pursued his career in education.
- Teamwork: When Doug began teaching, his entire team consisted of first-year teachers. That created a strong bond and a practice of interdependence. They worked together and leaned on each other to better master the art of teaching. Doug recalls how that experience “definitely taught me that you can’t do this job on your own. You need all the help you can get.”
- A Difficult Job: Teaching is hard. In fact, Doug says that in some ways “it’s an impossible job. . . . There’s no way to get it all right.” To help make things more manageable, Doug suggests leaning on the veteran teachers in your school for insights and support.
- Help for Some Benefits All: Doug learned early on that providing supports for struggling students could benefit all students. He says, “If I’m doing something for one kid, it’s probably more than one kid that’s really going to benefit from that.”
- A Calling: Initially, Doug was not sure he wanted to be a teacher. Now, he says, “This is what I was meant to do.” He adds, “But it’s taken me 20 years to figure it out for sure.”
- STEM: Doug discovered that his students connected with STEM activities, especially coding and robotics. It helped them to understand why math and science were relevant. This insight led Doug to work with his principal to create a new STEM facilitator position in his school. This allowed him to bring STEM to other classrooms.
- Push-in Approach: As a STEM facilitator, Doug teamed up and co-taught with teachers to bring STEM into their classrooms. He says, “Instead of doing a traditional specialist model, it was more of a coaching, push-in, co-teach, rotate, [and] co-develop with the teachers.”
- AVID: Doug joined the AVID team as a Learning Designer in order to bring STEM to an even wider audience. It also gave him a chance to pursue his dream of developing curriculum and professional learning. He says, “It ended up being a really deep learning experience.”
- Back to Make a Difference: Doug had always planned to eventually return to the classroom. One student experience, in particular, affirmed that decision for him. He shares the story of Destiny, a student struggling in math, who got interested in robots. That experience gave her confidence, and she eventually turned a score of 1 on the state test into a 4. Doug says, “This is where I think everything kind of came together for me . . . in terms of what you can do, in terms of showing kids and believing [in] them.” He adds, “It’s just kind of a magical thing, and I really missed that when I was out of the classroom.”
- Like a First-Year Teacher: Transitioning back to teaching was a challenge. Doug says, “I felt like being a first-year teacher again. . . . There are things that are like muscle memory, but they kind of atrophy, so you’ve got to rework and build those skills.”
- Grace: Doug says, “I think going back in, the best advice I could say is: Give yourself grace. It’s okay to be a new teacher again and look with new eyes.” He adds, “After two years being back in, I finally feel like I’m starting to pick up where I left off.”
- Students: Doug reflects on how students have changed since he was last in the classroom 10 years earlier. For the most part, kids are kids, he says. However, he also sees a “generational trauma” that still carries on from COVID. He sees students who are emotionally behind where they used to be. The actions of his fifth graders often remind him of what third graders were like in years past. They may struggle more to collaborate or know how to talk with teammates at a group table. Some students have shorter attention spans or seem “a little lonelier.” On the bright side, he says, “They’re nicer than I remember. . . . They do seem genuinely kinder to each other.”
- Magical Moments: While teaching is very hard, there are magical moments that make it all worthwhile. Doug says, “There’s nothing better than being in the classroom at the end of the day when you’ve worked with those kids, and you just see that light come on, or that magical moment, or that spark. There’s just no substitute for that. So that’s something to look forward to and get you through all the other stuff.”
- Another Success Story: Doug tells the story of a student in his class who he describes as “a little rascal.” The student struggled and was disinterested. However, after Doug worked to develop a relationship with that student, his performance changed. Doug says, “He started getting really serious about his math work, and he moved out of Tier 2 intervention. He was in a small group for math support, and he actually graduated out of that. And then he started growing his confidence, and then he became a leader in the classroom for math. And this little rascal went from 2 on his fourth grade SBA math to 4 on his SBA this year in math.”
- STEM in Math: As a grade-level teacher, Doug continues to integrate STEM into his classroom. He introduces basic skills early in the year and then offers students extension and enrichment opportunities that build from there. He uses sites like Code.org and Scratch to introduce coding to his students. He says that his goal is “to move that along to a point where you can go from learning to code to coding to learn and figure out little projects for the kids or challenges or opportunities for them to present.”
- A Time to Experiment: The end of the year after state testing offers a bit more flexibility in the curriculum, and Doug uses this time to try out new ideas. He says, “I’m trying to get ready for next year.” Most recently, he’s been experimenting with project-based learning opportunities that integrate robotics and coding.
- Dissertation Work: In addition to teaching, Doug is busy writing his doctoral dissertation. He’s studying outlier schools and trying to determine what makes those schools successful when similar schools might fall short. He appreciates being back in the classroom because it helps keep him closer to his research, and he’s hoping his work can help schools improve.
- Toolkit: Doug encourages teachers to tap into the “wealth of knowledge” in their buildings.
- One Thing: “You never know what seed that’s going to plant,” says Doug. He recalls a student who didn’t really like school but got excited about technology. He went on to become “a system administrator, leading a tech group and just doing amazing things.”
Use the following resources to continue learning about this topic.
If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:
- What does Doug’s journey tell us about the value of returning to the classroom after time away?
- Based on Doug’s stories, how do confidence and self-belief impact student success?
- In what ways can STEM be a tool for building student engagement and leadership?
- How does giving yourself grace support your growth as an educator?
- How can we better support each other as educators during career transitions?
- As a new school year begins, what is one way you could instill belief in a student?
- AVID (official website)
- Code.org (official website)
- Scratch (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- What Is STEM Education? (International Science Teaching Foundation)
- ISTE (official website)
#414 Back to the Classroom, with Doug Ferguson
AVID Open Access
46 min
Keywords
Transcript
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