Passion Time

Leading Children to Pursue their Passions in the Classroom

A blog post I wrote on Passion Projects: http://psolarz.weebly.com/37/post/2013/02/creating-passion-projects-genius-hour.html

Two books are responsible for a new creation in my classroom called, "Passion Time." Angela Maiers' book called, "The Passion-Driven Classroom" and Donalyn Miller's book called, "The Book Whisperer."

I have Twitter to blame for being exposed to these amazing books. Joy Kirr, a Thomas Middle School L.A. teacher, is a participant in the #GeniusHour chat. She mentioned to me that she is doing "Genius Hour" in her classroom every Monday and that it was inspired by Daniel Pink's book, "Drive." I heard that the book on the left shared some similarities with "Drive," therefore, I had to check it out!

In addition, I participated in a book club on The Book Whisperer on #5thchat, and the author even joined in to answer questions!

So what is "Passion Time"? Although it's new for us, Passion Time has been a time for students to do whatever they want in class as long as it is educational and can be reflected upon in their blog. It can be an individual activity, like reading a book, or it can be with others, like programming in Scratch. It can be building models, researching, planning an experiment, fixing a problem in the community, entering a contest, writing a novel, etc.

So far, it has been many different things and there haven't been too many restrictions. I have encouraged students to try to discover many of their passions, so I have limited some activities. I have also presented them with mini-lessons to try to stimulate some new passions!

Google has been a big reason why I've considered this idea in my classroom. They preach what is called the 80/20 philosophy. Google employees are asked to work for 80% of their time on the job they were hired to do, and in exchange, they are given 20% of their work time to do whatever it is they want to do. Much of this "Passion Time" has been used by Google employees to improve areas of the company that weren't being addressed. This has made the company better overall, and has made happier employees!

Chris Kesler from geniushour.com interviewed me regarding Passion Time in my classroom. Watch the video to learn more!

The key to Passion Time in our classroom has been the constant reminder that this is their time. It is a time for them to recharge, and a time for them to be selfish. It is a time for students to individualize their learning - they do what they want at their level of understanding. No one feels dumb during Passion Time. No one is bored during Passion Time!

I choose to do Passion Time right before lunch. Students are tired and hungry - they can really benefit from a little down time! It ends up recharging them, and making them better able to survive the afternoon.

How do I fit it in to the schedule? Well, it hasn't been easy. I am using a time that was not very useful for me: computers are not available, it's only a 30-minute block (really about 25 minutes), it's at a bad time of day, etc. Fortunately, it doesn't take up much time! One or two periods each week make my students feel like they have some control over their education. I think it's important that teachers consider this philosophy because it is not always easy to tailor an educational program for all of our students, and this is one way to get the children to tailor it to themselves!

So, how does The Book Whisperer fit into all of this? Well, Miller talks about how children will become passionate about reading if they are allowed to choose their own books, if time is provided for them to read, and if there are few (if any) assignments attached. She also encourages teachers to strongly get to know their students so they can suggest books that suit their interests and reading style. Although Miller wants students reading self-selected literature for at least 45 minutes every day, she admits that some time is better than none. I have explained this theory to my students, and they concur that some of their Passion Time might be spent reading books of their choosing.

How I introduced Passion Time:

I started by explaining the importance and joy of reading. I pointed out how many books we have in class, and tried to get my students excited about the possibility of reading anything they want with anyone in class they wanted!
I asked everyone to get a book, and I gave them a period to start a book.
The next day, I introduced the Google 80/20 philosophy, and told them that they could use this time to pursue some of their interests, but that they needed to be educational.
Everyone started reading or learning. Some asked for help finding what they needed, so I assisted.
The next period, I started presenting some mini-lessons to help inspire new passions.

The Mini-Lessons that I have presented:

I introduced new books, series, and authors by giving short book talks.
I created blogs and websites with inspirational ideas and activities such as a website with various contests students can enter and a blog called, "I Never Knew That!"
I showed them some YouTube channels with videos that relate to our curriculum *Liberty's Kids," etc.
I have brought out some of the critical thinking and educational games that I have and encouraged the students to learn the rules and start playing.

See what we're doing right now in Passion Time: http://psolarz.weebly.com/37/post/2013/02/creating-passion-projects-genius-hour.html

My next steps:
I want my students to be introduced to ideas that will utilize multiple 21st Century skills. I will be searching for about 5-10 great ideas of projects that they can work on interdependently. It will give them ideas of what they can come up with on their own (since kids usually just don't realize what they could do with their time!). Eventually, I will ween them off of their simple tasks by requiring certain 21st Century skills or curricular to be present in the activity they are participating in. I will hopefully see a classroom full of students solving our community's problems, creating websites to help charitable organizations, and coming up with creative ways to handle challenges that effect children around the world! I want my students to spend their time working on projects that really matter. Talk about motivating!

FInally, I feel that it is important that the teacher is pursuing their passions during this time as well. So I spent the first few periods reading my book with the kids. But then I realized that I have a passion for making sure that my students are caught up on their homework!!! So I decided to use that time to tell kids what missing assignments they have and making them use this time to catch up. I figure that in the real world, we can't really pursue our passions until our responsibilities are taken care of! I feel that my students might be more motivated to get their work done if they know they will be missing Passion Time (and eventually lunch recess!).

Here is a graphic organizer that I have used before for other reasons, but I will be trying it for Passion Time: