Surpassed by a Student…Good for You!

By Jamie Guillaume

Back in October, I began an adventure with my students that has not only helped me develop as a teacher, but has opened my mind to new avenues of learning.  Although I read and had many discussions with colleagues about letting students lead their own learning and study their own passions, it was not until I dove in without looking back, that I really began to understand the impact of this type of learning.  As a teacher, I naturally thought it was my job to know everything and to lead students through their passions. 

Although being the keeper of all of the information may have been what being a teacher was at one time, that time has now passed us.  During the process of implementing Genius Hour, we have had many struggles but lots of success!  Most struggles have primarily been students trying to figure out what interests them.  At first they tended to be passionate about their friend’s interest.  However once we established a safe, open and honest classroom culture, students began to flourish!

One student is now able to say and write a greeting with her name and age in Japanese.  I have another student that has digitally created music through computer programming.  Someone is writing a novel. There is a student that has mastered creating websites and even a student studying and creating origami.  This is just some of the fascinating learning that is taking place; keep in mind these students are only 5^th graders!

So you may wonder how we got here and more importantly, how did we find the time?  Time is of course the million dollar question!  I decided that I was going to let one intervention class period a week be devoted to Genius Hour.  I know this seems like a lot of time to give and so many times I was tempted to take it away because I had so much to cover!   However this time is precious to my students and me. As students began to have the time to develop their interests, it spilled over into the curriculum and helped them develop more than they would have otherwise.    

For example, the student that studied website design, made an outstanding website about the American Revolution when we were studying that topic.  The information she researched and displayed far surpassed the standard and my knowledge base!  The student who created music, has learned how to incorporate it as background music for projects.  This leads me to the most important lesson I have learned, it is okay for your students to surpass your knowledge base on a topic and if they do, congratulations, you will love the feeling!