Creating kids as innovators part 1

We, educators live in an age when our job is to move students go beyond memorizing a things they might need someday. These days a smartphone and quick Google search are able to do that. Our true job is to get students ready for the future by helping them learn to access and use information in ways that are meaningful to them. To motivate their innate desire to learn about their world (and improve it).

It’s important that we provide them the opportunities to pursue their own interests and passions. Offering students this as part of their education tells them that their own desires are critical to the learning process. It also asks them the most important question a teacher can ask: “What do you want to learn?”

When I taught as a math teacher in North Carolina, I was fortunate to see this at work with our school requiring every senior to present a speech that encompassed something they were passionate about. We saw tremendous creativity, talent and skill emerge as students explored cooking, video game programming, yoga, astronautics, andmauto design.

I happened to teach students of various grades and learned to find creative ways to offer a similar experiences to my other students. Now I appreciate this practice more tan ever practice of offering students the hours and resources to develop passion projects on the side. Since then, I encourage teachers of all grade levels and in all subject areas, the value of offering students passion time (named “20time” by Google Educators Academy) at school.

This set aside time could be scheduled for one day a week, one hour a day. I’ve seen this type of program be successful in my wife’s kindergarten class, with senior projects, and in every grade in between. I’ve also seen it work at the various schools that I taught at.

One that I recall with fondness was that of a school in New York City; the Bronx; to be more precise a High School not too far from the Yankee Stadium where our visionary Principal created the Passion project as part of the school culture. All students spend their entire Wednesday working on a project pursuing one of their passions, and all the teachers at the school were involved (at least two teachers were required to sign off on each project before a student begun). The students build windmills, painted murals, produced illustrated books, to name a few. The evidence of their learning was all over the school.

These students have ownership over their own learning, and they had a school with the courageous leadership and empowered teachers needed to make that happen.