What will your students learn when they are following their passion?

Angela Maiers shows you in her just released e-book, ‘Liberating Genius in the Classroom.’ The book contains 20 days of lessons to help students be better readers, writers, thinkers, and most important, passion-driven learners.

This is the foundation and the rationale behind Genius Hour and/or Genius Time.

Genius Hour is our promise to students that their passions will matter; that they will do work that matters, and we will make time during the school day for it.

Every teacher has hopes and dreams for the new school year and they ask students about their hopes and dreams as well.  It sets the stage for awesome learning to follow. Posing it can have a profound effect on the classroom and community.

It’s important for students to know that:

• what you care about matters at school;
• your hopes and goals are taken seriously;
• you have a say in what and how we will learn.

As a teacher we should help articulate their hopes and dreams and set a tone of collaboration and mutual respect. It fosters reflection and self-awareness by prompting children to ask themselves questions such as:

• What do I want learning to be like?
• What do I want from the experience of school?
• What matters to me most?
• What am I worried about?
• What am I most excited to learn more about and learn from?
• What am I going to become more awesome at?

Sharing hopes and dreams also creates a meaningful context for establishing classroom protocols and procedures. Once hopes have been articulated, discussions can begin about what “rules” will be needed to help everyone’s hopes and dreams come true.

#LiberatingGenius happens best within a classroom in which:

• There is time for thinking about our own and others passions
• Rich opportunities exist for exploring passion
• Passion-driven learning is regularly modeled
• The process as well as the products of thinking are valued

Liberating Genius is designed to help teachers collectively focus on the implicit messages about thinking being sent in classrooms and across the school.

Welcome to Genius Hour.

Have you downloaded Liberating Genius yet?

• You must sign into a Microsoft account to access Liberating Genius.
• If you don’t have one, then sign up for a free account here.
• Once you’ve signed up, or if you already have a Microsoft account, then click here to download your Liberating Genius Notebook into your account.

You Matter!