Google has some of it’s people spend 20% of their time creating new ideas and tools. What if we did that in education? After reading Danny Silva’s article “What would Google do if they ran a school?”, I had the following thoughts. One of his suggestions was to apply the 20% rule in education, giving students 20% of their time to work on a “product” of their choosing.
I remember doing class projects when I was a kid, but they were restricted in scope and either forced to be individual or entire class projects. And what’s more, they were almost NEVER on a topic I was that interested in. What if we used the 20% class time idea to allow students to not only work on their own ideas, but also to work freely with other students (if they choose to)? We could encourage team projects, but not mandate them. Perhaps we could even combine Danny’s networking idea and have students in different grades and classes working together on projects? Would that help reduce inter-grade bullying/violence/etc?
And I love the idea of encouraging each student to choose their own path. They can pick from their passion, be encouraged and supported by their teacher(s), and bring one of their ideas to fruition by the end of semester. Imagine if the school using its community network (Danny’s idea), identified needs in the community and a listing of those needs were provided to the students. Then they could self organize based on the need they are interested in and form groups to tackle the issue. Bridging the divide between school and community, allowing the kids the 20% creative time, encouraging learning based on inquiry and real world problem solving, connecting students to each other, and building a stronger community. Wow!
And the cool thing to me, this is all realistically doable!!
How do we support our educational system in making this happen?
Do you know a school that is already doing this type of thing?
