Have you ever met an adult who doesn’t really love what they do, but just goes through the motions in their job and everyday life? Have you spoken with men and women who constantly complain, showing no visible passion for anything in the world?
I’m sure that, like me, you have met those people. I’ve also seen the making of these adults in schools across our country: students who are consistently being “prepared” for the next test, assessment, or grade level . . . only to find out after graduation that they don’t really know what they are passionate about. These are the same students who are never allowed to learn what they want in school. Forced down a curriculum path that we believe is “best for them,” they discover it is a path that offers very little choice in subject matter and learning outcomes.
Enter Genius Hour.
What Genius Hour allows students to do is pick their own project and learning outcomes, while still hitting all the skills for their grade level. In fact, these students often go “above and beyond” their standards by reaching for a greater depth of knowledge than most curriculum tends to allow. The idea for Genius Hour (or 20% time projects) in schools comes from Google’s own 20% policy, where employees are given twenty percent of their time to work and innovate on something else besides their current project.