Farmin Stidwell students share their passions
At Farmin Stidwell Elementary School, sixth-grade teachers Jody Russell and Patsy Olin are giving their students an all-year assignment called “Passion Projects.”
Kathleen Olson, a SMS teacher, told both sixth-grade teachers about the idea. Originally, the idea of “Passion Projects” came from a blog written by AJ Juliani (http://ajjuliani.com). In the blog, he talked about “Passion Projects” or what can also be called the “80/20 Project” or “Genius Hour.” Mrs. Olson found that “Genius Hour” models Google’s company project called “80/20 Time.” Google implemented this model to provide their employees with 20-percent time, where they could devote 20 percent of their work time in a project of their choice. Then “Genius Hour” developed in some schools, and voila! Here we are in Sandpoint trying it out, too.
The sixth-graders’ assignment is to find what their passion is, and then research about it. They take their information and put it into a presentation. Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Olin want their students to dig deep upon finding information; they want them to actually research something that is harder to find than just looking it up once on the internet. After the student’s research, they present it in front of about 60 kids. Presentations have also expanded school-wide.
Zoë, a sixth-grade student, said that some of her favorite subjects were about horror movies and the homemade video on how to do 3D production. For example, some of the passion projects were about why people were right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous, or why people bully others. Also, some were about why people have heart attacks, or about futuristic cars and which ones are the most fuel efficient.
The students themselves love Passion Projects. Zoë also told me about her passion project. She said, “My passion project was about how I could help the mutant defect called ‘white tigers.’” They always wanted to work on them when they had the chance, and, they wanted to present as soon as possible.
Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Olin say that they think their students enjoy passion projects. This convinced both sixth-grade teachers that they should keep doing them forever. Why not? The students aren’t assigned a particular subject, they can present whatever they want as long as it is appropriate for school. The teachers say that the students “have a chance to know what they are learning.” They hope that the students in the coming years will love them, too.