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Let them play!

4/17/2016

3 Comments

 
 I have had a lot of really great conversations with people about Genius Hour. I am passionate about helping kids find their passions, explore their interests and inquire into their wonders. So I love these chats!

But sometimes people ask: is it rigorous enough? is their topic deep enough? important enough? Stuff like that...

And I talk about the difference between googleable and non-googleable questions, and teaching inquiry in other subjects and then reminding students of those lessons and skills during Genius Hour. Or I might share Paul Solarz's acronym for PHAT questions: Pretty Hard and Tough.  All things that I have done with my own class when I try to steer them toward a more rigorous inquiry.

But sometimes I just want to say: 
Why does everything have to be so serious?
How about play for the sake of play?
Does everything have to be tough?


Maybe we are over-thinking and over-managing Genius Hour a bit too much? 

People ask me for worksheets to support Genius Hour, and I have some. And I am happy to share. But I also don't want kids to have to fill out too many of these forms...because I wonder if then Genius Hour has become just like every other course/subject...and isn't fun anymore!  Now when we do inquiry projects in Social Studies or Science or anything else, then we definitely make sure that there is a certain level of "tough-ness" or rigour. I want them to struggle a bit, to push themselves and think hard. That is important to me. And we do that for every other hour of the week. But for the 1 hour of Genius Hour...I wonder if we are getting too unnecessarily worried?

So sometimes I just ask: are they having fun? Yes? Then--great! Perhaps it is okay to just learn and make things and do things and have fun. For the sake of fun. 

For example:
--They made a lego stop motion video. Fun!
--They designed iPod touch covers and want to become fashion designers when they grow up. Fun!
--They baked a cake and learned how hard it was to make it look like pinterest. Fun!
--They cut open an old book and built a spy camera inside. Fun!

These are all projects my students have done before. And they had fun. And they loved it. And I loved it. 
And they were definitely learning (especially in regards to the core competencies of communication and creative thinking). Without having to fill out too many forms.

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You may disagree. And on some days I might even disagree. But this is how I feel today. 
Sometimes it is OK to just have fun in our learning! For the sake of fun!

Ideally, we want everything our students do/learn/make at school to be meaningful experiences. And please don't get me wrong--we spend plenty of time pushing ourselves, problem solving, thinking critically and focusing on the tough stuff. But...

I think fun/play is meaningful too.

​----
Side note: A friend of mine was talking to me about how some of his fellow parent-friends were talking about putting their kids into music classes because they have heard that will make their kids good at math. And he said: or how about just because music is fun!  

Yeah. How about that? Music is fun.
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    My name is Gallit Zvi and I am an Elementary School Teacher and Vice Principal in Surrey, BC. I am also a blogger and co-author of The Genius Hour Guidebook.
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