Tom Murdoch’s classroom at Mahomet Seymour Junior High School if full of things most people haven’t seen in a long time. The sixth, seventh and eighth graders he teaches probably have never seen them: An Apple II SE computer that boots off a floppy drive. A tube-type radio. A Royal typewriter. An adding machine that displays figures on a roll of paper rather than on a screen.
He keeps these artifacts in his classroom, he said, to show his students what the standard was like in the past. The past is something Murdoch respects greatly. He has taught history on and off since he left the Air Force in the late ‘70s. During his career, which spans three decades and four states, he has taught Government, Psychology, Sociology, Law, Vocational Math, and History. At MSJH, he has been an Enrichment/Gifted/Talented teacher, and currently he teaches 8th grade Enrichment history, 2 sections of Government, 7th grade technical math and 2 sections of 6th grade World Cultures. He also holds a Master’s degree in History and an Education Administration degree.
It was an experience while teaching at a 10-12th grade high school in Connecticut that shaped his philosophy in teaching today.
“I was teaching about Sputnik,” Murdoch recalled. Sputnik was a series of satellites launched in to orbit by the former Soviet Union. “I was following the rote curriculum and I realized there was a tremendous gap between what we teach and what we need to know. I realized what I teach is not what’s happening. History is more than what we read in a book.”
This realization, spurred on by the questioning nature of a fellow teacher named Pete, helped Murdoch see that he needed to use his own anecdotal history to make the subject real for his students. This realization started an interest in international study and travel.
“We live in a global society. Teachers should be involved in international studies and travel so they can bring it to the classroom,” he said.
Murdoch is passionate about his travels to Russia. He has been there on a Fulbright scholarship and still has a relationship with school officials in Vladimir, Russia. He also has participated in a European Union Study program. His travel has changed the way he teaches, he concluded.
“When I started my first teaching job, they handed me a book and said ‘teach’,” he recalled.
But now, through his travel experiences and his own life experiences, he said he feels he can add to the curriculum and help students understand the bigger picture. He can give them something they cannot learn from a book.
One example he gave happened during a visit to Russia. He was speaking with a woman his age about the Cold War. He said he came to realize that while he was “ducking and covering” in his classroom in South Carolina, she too was “ducking and covering,” thousands of miles away. They had a shared experience, each convinced the others’ country was going to drop a bomb on their own country.
This type of connection is one that was noted by Heather Landrus, MSJH principal.
“Mr. Murdoch’s life experiences make him the teacher that he is,” she said. “If anyone knows Tom, they know that he is a world traveler that immerses himself in culture. In return, he is able to share experiences with his students that are unmatched. He brings a higher level of understanding to the classroom.”
Murdoch said he has seen education change over the years. One change he finds disappointing is the closing of vocational programs in schools. When he was teaching in Connecticut, his school district didn’t see the value in vocational shop classes anymore and they closed down all but 2 of seven different vocational shops.
“Vocational courses develop critical thinking and perspective,” Murdoch observed.
He said he saw an increase in discipline problems among students after these courses were eliminated because “they couldn’t use their hands. They couldn’t just sit and concentrate.” He went on to say he sees a similar trend in education marginalizing art, technology, physical education and foreign languages so the “core curriculum” can be taught. He also said this is a global trend.
Murdoch’s family moved to Mahomet after his wife took a job as a nurse manager at Carle. They brought their three children with them. The oldest started 7th grade at MSJH, he recalled.
When they first moved to the area, Murdoch said he operated a metalworking shop in Mahomet. He also took substitute teaching jobs. He got to know the district and said he liked the philosophy. In 1998, he became the gifted and talented teacher for the junior high. He said he greatly enjoyed that position, especially the opportunity to work with students doing hands on things.
Murdoch favors hands on learning and uses what he has experienced during his own trips abroad to engage his students. But over the years, Murdoch said he has observed a change in the way students think.
“Students have increasingly become two dimensional thinkers instead of three dimensional thinkers,” he said.
As an example, he noted he was teaching his 7th grade math class about a building project. They were building a cinder block wall. The students could understand each block had a height and a width, but what they couldn’t grasp until shown, was that each block had a depth that affected the room’s over all dimension.
This lack of three dimensional thinking has changed how teachers can teach. “Teachers have nowhere to begin,” Murdoch observed, adding, students are used to seeing things on a screen (two dimensional) and lack experiences to help them understand the concept of objects being three dimensional.
Looking back over his career, Murdoch said his favorite grade level to teach has been 8th grade.
“They are at a great age. They are still like sponges and want to soak up all the information,” he said. “Even the orneriest kid in the room still wants to learn.”
Another thing Murdoch appreciates about teaching 6th through 8th graders is watching the difference between the mental maturities of incoming sixth graders to outgoing eighth graders.
“That’s the big advantage to teaching kids this age, watching kids grow intellectually.”
To his successor, Murdoch gave the following advice. “Learn to be flexible with both students and administrators. Every kid is different.”
He also has an observation with the current state of education’s push toward standardized testing.
“We need to bend to fit the kids. We are here for kids’ best interests, not to fulfill the expectations of others.”
Murdoch, who said he suffered a stroke last school year, will garden and travel during his retirement. He has a son and a daughter on the East coast, and a daughter in Texas. He also hopes to get back to international travel.
Murdoch said he is not sure what will happen to some of the “artifacts” he has amassed in his classroom over the years. The Apple 2e computer was the first in the district. He hopes that can go to the library so students can see how far technology has come. Other objects are from his personal collection. He will take some of those home.
A man who teaches about the past, constantly driven to improve the future. Tom Murdoch has brought his own unique experiences to the students of MSJH. His hope is they have learned more than what is in the history books.
