Getting out of the way for magic By Jamie Guillaume

Passion-based learning, 20% time, Genius Hour, Google Time, Maker Space, whatever you call it, the goal is the same, give students the opportunity to discover and pursue their interests and talents! There are books that can guide a teacher when starting this initiative in the classroom such as The Passion-Driven Classroom by Angela Maiers and a book I recently discovered, Pure Genius by Don Wettrick, but at some point you have to be brave and just dive in!

After reading, researching, and consulting with other teachers and even the author of Pure Genius, I finally went for it-I started what I am calling Genius Hour!  I began our first lesson by introducing my passions outside of my family and school.  I brought in homemade strawberry jam made with strawberries from my strawberry patch, salsa, made with tomatoes and peppers from my garden as well as biscuits and chips.  After all, you have to have something to go with salsa and jam, right?  While they made their plates, I had Sara Bareilles’ song, “Brave” playing in the background.  While they ate, I read them entries from my blog, Many Titles of Chic.  The students were shocked, mostly I think because I am an actual person, not just Mrs. Guillaume the crazy lady that teaches them math and social studies. 

The second week, I gave the students a graphic organizer and we toured the entire corporation and looked at the signs the teachers made describing their passions.  They were surprised by some teacher interests and questioned many too.  This week we used kidblog to journal our experience so far and created folders to hold items we come across that lead us to our passion.  In the weeks to come we are going to visit the STEAM classroom, take personal inventories, and then-I am going to get out of their way!

I am by no means an expert at beginning Genius Hour in a classroom, but I am learning. Although I understand that after we finish laying the groundwork,  I am going to have to turn them loose and let them make their own discoveries, I am most nervous about this because I will be releasing control but I also know that this is where the magic will happen!