Genius Hour

"Provide students with experiences that are truly worthy of their attention." I wrote that down in my notes in class one night. I wrote it down because it sounded like good advice. It also sounds like a really ambitious goal. (Those two seem to overlap a lot in teaching.)

Fortunately, shortly after I wrote that down, I got to see a glimpse of it in action in a real live classroom. I did my clinical hours for Practicum I in a fifth-grade classroom with a teacher I'll call Ms. Awesome, and she invited me to continue coming in throughout the school year to see how the kids grew as students. I've been taking her up on that offer at every opportunity. When I'm done working as a lunch/recess supervisor, if I feel comfortably caught-up in my schoolwork, I walk down the hall to Ms. Awesome's class and sit in--or jump in--for math, science, and anything else that happens while I'm there. Then, after dismissal, I usually hang around some more and help Ms. Awesome get the room ready for the next day, or tag along with her for one meeting or another, or we'll sit and talk about the day's happenings. Our after-school conversation usually starts with her asking me what I've learned that day. (It is not without reason that I'm referring to her here as "Ms. Awesome.")

The other day, we were talking after school when she showed me some guiding worksheets for the research project her students are working on, called the "Genius Hour." Unfortunately, they work on this project when I can't be in the room, but Ms. Awesome was happy to fill me in. The students each start with a question they want to find the answer to--questions like, "How does a car engine work?" "How do airplanes stay in the air?" or "How can I get better at basketball?" Once a student has his or her question, he or she sets about doing research to find the answer. The point of the assignment is to learn how to do research, present research, and cite sources.

Ms. Awesome told me that because they're still scrambling to cover all the standards they need to before the last MAP test of the school year, she can only give the students ten minutes each day to work on the project; after the MAP test, they'll get a whole hour each day. But during the ten minutes they have right now, every single student is actively engaged in their work. The entire class is always disappointed when Ms. Awesome announces it's time to move on. "No! Can't you give us ten more minutes? I just found this REALLY COOL thing," they always say.

We talked about how wonderful it was that the students were so interested and engaged. I compared it to the research project I was given as a fifth-grade student: a randomly-assigned local bird species. I no longer remember what the bird I researched was called. Yes, I learned how to write a research paper with that assignment, but I also learned to hate research. As I drove home, I tried to think of how many research assignments I had enjoyed doing in my seventeen years as a student. I could only come up with about two and a half. To this day, the moment an assignment includes the words "research" or "cite sources," I cringe.

These students will have a completely different experience than I did. They are being introduced to research as a way to learn interesting things. I was introduced to research as "a horrible word that means you need to cite your sources." Which would you rather learn? Which would you rather teach?

I know my answer, and it doesn't involve any randomly assigned birds.