School have been starting to use Genius Hour all around the world as a way for students to participate in a self-led school assignment. The concept of Genius Hour first started by Google’s 20% time initiative, but developed into schools. Teachers saw a movement to promote student-led learning, allowing students to think for themselves. If you fail at anytime during the genius hour project, it is okay. Genius hour allows failure, as long as the student can learn from their mistakes. Students get the pursue an idea that they find interesting. That’s the beautiful part of the project.
Selling the idea to parents was fairly easy for school teacher Kirr. Kirr began a project that started off with just reading, and talking about a book to the class. The project soon developed into a genius hour, and the results were great. At first, parents wondered how a teacher could deal with a classroom of students all working on a different project. In the end, parents like how outgoing genius hour is, how students learn to adapt, and how students get to pursue an end goal. Sara Born said in the article, “How can you not love something that makes your kids enjoy going to school?” Selling the ideas to student was hard at first, but as students developed ideas for a project it began to get easier. The project is taken in “baby steps” to push students along, but still allow it to be student led. Students get to learn about themselves during the project, and they get to do something for the greater good. “ There’s not a lot of freedom in education now. This is a tiny bit of freedom in a safe environment to explore and push the boundaries and there are no bad repercussions.” Upon learning this information from the article I have read about genius hour, I am way more prepared to dive into the project. At first, I was nervous that I would fail, but now I know that it is okay to fail. Failing helps us learn. I believe that genius hour is a good experience for us, as high school students, because it forces us to think for ourselves. When we go to college and are in the “real world”, teachers won't be holding our hands, and our parents can’t baby us forever. Eventually, we have to step out of our comfort zone, or we will never do anything great. Personally, I believe genius hour will be what you make of it. If you pick something you are passionate about, genius hour will be a fun and creative learning experience.
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In October, I plan to get the basis for my genius hour project together. To get my plan to help the animal shelter started, I plan to contact the people in charge. I want to explain to them what genius hour is, what we plan to do, and I also want to ask for their permission to continue our project.
In November, we will start raising money. I have many ideas on how to raise money, such as a bake sale, but we are unsure where to go to do these things. During November, I will also try to continue to walking dogs on warmer days, and play with the cats. In December, we will have raised money for the shelter. I plan to donate all of the profit to the shelter, however, we might decide to donate some to an animal abuse campaign if we raise enough money to do so. I plan to still play with the cats and give them attention during December. Unfortunately, it will probably be too cold at this time to walk the dogs. To wrap up the project, we will try to do a final fundraiser in early December. |