{"id":4902,"date":"2014-09-10T03:45:29","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T10:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/?p=4902"},"modified":"2014-09-11T14:06:08","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T21:06:08","slug":"genius-hour-and-the-global-cardboard-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/genius-hour-and-the-global-cardboard-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Genius Hour and the Global Cardboard Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article was first published in The Storybook<\/a> and focuses on how the Imagination Foundation’s Global Cardboard Challenge<\/a> is being used to unleash the genius in every child.
\n<\/em>
\nBefore kids graduate from high school, they will spend more than 14,000 hours in the classroom. During this time, they\u2019ll gain an understanding of reading, writing, science and several other essential subjects. But one has to wonder, how much time are kids actually spending on developing their imaginations, pursuing their passions, and creating the things they dream up?<\/p>\n

In most schools, creativity is confined to art class, and even those few hours are stripped from many districts in the United States. Forty percent<\/a> of U.S. secondary schools don\u2019t require any coursework in the arts for graduation.<\/p>\n

Sir Ken Robinson has had a lot to say about this matter. He explains in an Adobe study<\/a> on the creativity gap that \u201cour educational systems don\u2019t enable students to develop their natural creative powers.\u201d Instead, schools \u201cpromote uniformity and standardization.\u201d As a result, we are \u201csquandering\u201d a child\u2019s creative possibilities.<\/p>\n

With much of the world, including the United States, arguing that creativity and innovation are the most critical competencies for the future, it\u2019s particularly ironic that our common approach to education is perhaps creativity\u2019s biggest threat.<\/p>\n

Luckily, teachers are responding. Some are taking back a few of those 14,000 classroom hours and handing them over to students. One hour a week devoted to fostering a child\u2019s natural creative powers. It\u2019s a movement called Genius Hour<\/a> and it\u2019s growing in strength around the country.<\/p>\n

The idea is simple. For a set period of time each week, students are given the keys to their own learning. It\u2019s time for them to explore their own interests, and for teachers to more or less get out of the way.<\/p>\n

What caught our attention about this movement was how it values a child\u2019s natural creative talents. Genius Hour encourages curiosity, invention, taking chances, and free thought. It\u2019s a chance for imagination to run wild, and for children to explore the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n

It may be interesting to note that Genius Hour didn\u2019t start in schools. It actually has roots in a model for corporate innovation pioneered at Google called the 20 percent program<\/a>. For many years, employees at Google had been encouraged to spend 20 percent of their work time on projects of their own choosing\u2014anything they are passionate about\u2014so long as it\u2019s company-related.<\/p>\n

Gmail and Google News were both invented during 20 percent time.<\/p>\n

The idea found its way to other companies, and now it\u2019s been adapted for schools and classrooms. Joy Kirr, a 19-year veteran teacher in Arlington Heights, Illinois, is one of the educators helping grow this movement.<\/p>\n

She was drawn to Genius Hour, she says, because for too long, adults have been telling students what they should know.<\/p>\n

One of the ways she uses Genius Hour in her seventh-grade English class is by letting her students choose what they want to read, allowing them to argue with the author\u2019s point of view, and present what they\u2019ve learned in whatever way they see fit.<\/p>\n

The transition into Genius Hour wasn\u2019t exactly easy for all of her students. Having been accustomed to \u201cdeliverables, book reports and grades\u201d some of her students \u201ckind of freaked out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

With Kirr\u2019s help, all students soon adapted to this type of independent learning and loved choosing their own texts\u2014not only those approved on an English department reading list.<\/p>\n

Kirr says it\u2019s important for her kids to know, \u201cit\u2019s okay to read nonfiction, it\u2019s okay to read articles, it\u2019s okay to read something totally different from what your friends are reading.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallit Zvi, a teacher in British Columbia is the co-moderator of the #geniushour<\/a> Twitter chat. She keeps Genius Hour as a permanent block on her class schedule.<\/p>\n

In the \u201cGenius Hour Manifesto<\/a>,\u201d she explains that no matter what her students are working on\u2014whether it\u2019s a website, a film, or a slideshow\u2014the common thread is that it\u2019s something they\u2019re curious and passionate about.<\/p>\n

Joy Kirr combined Genius Hour with the Global Cardboard Challenge in October 2013. The goal of the Cardboard Challenge, which takes place this year on October 11, is for children to build whatever they can dream up using simple materials and imagination. (Register<\/a> for this year’s Global Cardboard Challenge now.) Many teachers recommend it as a helpful Genius Hour activity to get kids accustomed to more self-directed learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one more way of showing [my students] that I trust them to make decisions. I told them to have fun with it and to spend a day creating.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Challenge, she said the kids \u201cwere always moving, always trying new things\u2026 It was lively and loud and they were collaborating like crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Kirr\u2019s class reflected on their experience, they talked about the six Classroom Habitudes<\/a> coined by Angela Maiers, an author and Genius Hour advocate.<\/p>\n

Imagination, curiosity, perseverance, self-awareness, courage, and adaptability. These are behaviors, habits, and attitudes that help ensure student success in and out of the classroom.<\/p>\n

Imagination is important, Maiers explains in her book, Classroom Habitudes: Teaching Habits and Attitudes for 21st Century Learning<\/a>, because it \u201cgives us the capacity to jump from present facts to future possibilities. Our capacity to dream, hope, and plan for the future is influenced and impacted by the control and understanding of imagination\u2019s remarkable power.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Cardboard Challenge, kids practiced many of these \u201chabitudes.\u201d For example, Kirr says, \u201cWe talked about adaptability, if things weren\u2019t going right; perseverance, how they kept trying and didn\u2019t give up; curiosity about what other people were doing; and being aware of what they could and couldn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students learned the value of persistence, and weren\u2019t afraid of failure. One child reflected on her experience and wrote, according to Kirr\u2019s blog<\/a>, that she learned to never give up. \u201cIf something doesn\u2019t work, try again. If it still doesn\u2019t work, try something new to accomplish the same meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another student wrote, \u201cIf we put our heads together and use our imagination then we can create things we never thought of doing before.\u201d<\/p>\n

And isn\u2019t this the hope? Genius Hour is helping raise a new generation of innovators and problem solvers by giving kids the match to ignite the fire of their natural creative talent.<\/p>\n

Kirr says if anyone is interested in introducing Genius Hour to the classroom, start with the Cardboard Challenge. Be ready for a big mess, she says, and lots of noise. We also recommend using helpful tools along with cardboard, like Makedo and littleBits. For more help on using the Cardboard Challenge in your classroom, visit our cardboard challenge resource page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

by Jenny Inglee, the Imagination Foundation\u2019s Imagination Curator and The Storybook Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article was first published in The Storybook and focuses on how the Imagination Foundation’s Global Cardboard Challenge is being used to unleash the genius in every child. Before kids graduate from high school, they will spend more than 14,000 hours in the classroom. During this time, they\u2019ll gain an understanding of reading, writing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":4903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,11],"tags":[326,83,325,324,327,592],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4902"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4958,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902\/revisions\/4958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}