Grosse Pointe South High School Featured in CNN ‘Genius Hour’ Report

Grosse Pointe South High School  was featured Monday on a CNN report examining how some of the nation’s educators are taking a lesson from Google’s 20 percent time initiative.

At Google, employees were given the opportunity to spend 20 percent of their time working on their own ideas. Now, the concept is catching on in schools as part of a larger movement to encourage and promote student-driven learning.

Grosse Pointe’s iteration of the project is known as “20 Time” blogs, in which students post weekly updates about a range of topics, from what’s going on in Detroit, to becoming a vegetarian, to learning Polish, to how to make T-Shirts, CNN said.

Every Friday, teacher Nicholas Provenzano sets aside 20 minutes for the students to work on their projects in the so-called “genius hour.”

One distinction about 20 Time is that because students are taking risks, failure is an option.

"With genius hour, failure is an acceptable result and the emphasis is in learning from failure. This allows student to push themselves and take risks. Traditional learning environments do not support that approach," he said.

"I asked my students what they liked about this project and the most common response was that they loved the freedom to explore what they are passionate about instead of just doing the work they have been assigned by teachers. That freedom is what motivates them to explore big ideas and take ownership of their learning."

The Grosse Pointe Time 20 projects will be featured on June 7 at TEDxGrossePointeSouthHS, one of the few high school co-organized TEDx events in the country. The students will share their thoughts on learning and education.

Teachers interviewed for the report said schools sometimes too narrowly focus on measuring school, student and even teacher performance on standardized tests results, and selling the stakeholders on the student-led “genius hour” concept isn’t always easy.

But the outcome – creating lifelong learners – will help students throughout their lives, especially when they no longer have teachers who will help them sort out problems.

Another Michigan teacher interviewed for the report said she was inspired by other teachers who shared their experiences on Twitter. A third-grade teacher at Warner Elementary School in Spring Arbor, MI, she worked with another teacher to develop a list of ideas about early Michigan landforms and state symbols the students could research for a presentation, but learned to be flexible as students started coming up with their own ideas.

Students “beg” for genius-hour time, she said.

"The thing that I really really love is that this is student-driven," Oliver said. "The child gets to decide what types of things interest him or her and run with it. They are encouraged to think outside the box, be creative, and be risk-takers. It is OK to fail and try again."