Passion

This week my students have been finishing up their WHOA! (an acronym for worldly history, oddities, anthropology) projects and delivering presentations to their peers. The project's purpose is twofold.

1) Students get exposure to topics in regions we don't formally study in our curriculum by researching anything of cultural relevance that makes them say Whoa!

2) Students learn two fundamental skills of the social studies: appropriate use and formatting of bibliographies and footnotes.

I first rolled out this project a number of years ago after learning that Google has a policy where 20% of each employee’s time should be spent working on a personal project that aligns with something (anything!) about which they are passionate.

I wanted to do the same. To follow each of my student's curiosity, their passion, and to learn something amazing about the world through the lens of their own experience and inquiry.

So what's the result of such a project? Well my students end up learning two of the most boring skills of the year (citations and accountability of sources) through the lens of the most exciting thing they will learn all year.

Furthermore, if they've chosen wisely it's a topic about which they are innately passionate.

But why passion? And why does Google want to invest in things that their employees are passionate about? Well, for starters the word passion comes from the Latin word pati which means "suffer."

Google (and Mr. McDonough!) understand that if someone (an employee or a student) is passionate about something (anything), they will be willing to suffer. ...in fact, if they care about it enough they won't be willing not to suffer. They will want to spend extra time researching, honing their understanding, struggling through articles and excerpts and scholarly journals that challenge them!

I know because that's what I just watched my students do.

If you want to push a student to really reach their ceiling,

and to see what they are capable of,

and to find their growth mindset,

and to experience real, tangible rigor...

let them take over your curriculum.

Invite them into the driver's seat.

Provide the scaffolding and coaching necessary to support them, but simultaneously give them permission to suffer--not because you've mandated it and assigned so much work--but because they simply care so much that they just can't stop.