Session 4, Week 3
A parent recently shared this story: “I was looking through an old thick binder that contained all of the work I did in the 6th grade. My mother who had saved it and had given it back to me was proud of it. And rightly so. It was a lot of work – and good work too! As I looked through page after page it struck me that I wasn’t really proud of it. It didn’t mean anything to me. All of the work I had done was simply checking off boxes and doing what I was told. It reaffirmed to me how much I love that my children get to learn about what they care about – what they are passionate about.” This is what passion driven learning is – learning that is meaningful because we care about it. Research tells us that this is what helps children’s brains develop the skills they will need in the future. Our experience tells us that this is what helps children find joy each day!
In the Spark Studio this week we had the opportunity to explore at Discovery Gateway. The environment sparked wonder, and curiosity led to hands-on learning. As we reflected about the field trip, we realized our school is set up in a similar way where our passions drive our learning. It is almost like we get a field trip every day!
Heroes try out different roles to learn more about the world.
They experiment and their growing brains are rewarded with instant feedback.
They challenge themselves.
Often heroes are drawn to repeat the same experiments over and over. Each time they study details and strengthen neural pathways that lay a good foundation for abstract concepts to build on.
No matter where they are, Spark heroes have a glorious time!
In the Fire Studio, our opening Socratic discussion launches us into Core Skills where heroes hone their reading, writing, and math abilities. But the more important goal of that time is to foster a love of learning. Though the topic range is broad and not every work will appeal to every hero, the variety of exploratory works provide more opportunities for heroes to experience passion-driven learning.
At Journey meetings last week, heroes shared what topics they would love to learn about in an exploratory work, or even better, what topic they would love to create an exploratory work for themselves and their fellow travelers to enjoy. The topics ranged from cats and board games to dissections and demolition, but for every hero, there was something that lit up their eyes. Two heroes have already begun building exploratory works–one on learning about wild animals in their habitats and one on building electrical circuits. More and more we hope to see heroes designing their own exploratory works based upon their passions!
Passion driven learning also leads to beautiful learning experiences like day-long 4 player chess games, and a group of heroes gathering for an all-day read-a-loud! (They read most all of Blackbeard’s Ghost in one day).
In the Middle School, passion driven learning seems to get a bit more complicated. Perhaps it is because us adults feel there is a certain body of knowledge (albeit vastly smaller than traditional schools) that we still feel compelled to expose the heroes to. This leads to comments like “my low today was that I didn’t have any time to work on my exploratory works that I am so excited about because I was behind on my math.” Or perhaps it is because by this age the “passion” may have been buried deep inside some heroes and it’s hard for them to know what it is or to decide that it is worth the extra effort to create something they love. Despite these complications we are making strides towards beautiful passion driven learning in the Middle School. What does it look like?
It looks like a hero super excited and wanting to share with everyone else the experiment she is choosing to do as part of her chemistry exploratory work.
It looks like a hero spending 10X the required 6 hours on designing her own exploratory work because she is enjoying it so much!
It looks like a hero spending a whole Core Skills each week writing a paper rather than a paragraph for Civ because she loves it.
It looks like heroes writing faster than they ever have this year so they can get their stop motion plots approved.
It looks like a hero writing her own play and then other MS heroes choosing to design costumes,
while other heroes chose to choreograph and teach songs to the FS heroes.
It looks like a hero who hasn’t traditionally loved reading, sharing part of her book with us each day, because she is truly enjoying reading the book.
It looks like a hero who is passionate about reading saying, “I am actually enjoying chemistry for the first time ever” because she was given the opportunity to enter chemistry through reading books about the elements.
In quest, the heroes are discovering that chemistry is much bigger than protons and electrons, and instead is a subject that forms the basis of so much of what we do, utilize, and consume on a daily basis. Discussions, demonstrations, and experiments regarding snow, dyes, fragrances, distillation, and condensation helped us see the chemistry in our everyday lives.
Our Thursday project days require a minimum amount of challenges to have been completed by each hero during the week. Despite a few heroes not qualifying for participation in the organized projects this week, they were found designing their own experiments and explorations, inspired by the materials around them.
There is still much to learn about passion driven learning. How to help the heroes harness and explore their passions on a deeper level? How much structure or boundaries do we provide? What (if any) is the general body of knowledge that each hero should definitely be exposed to? However, what we do know, and what we are witnessing, is that passion driven learning provides the meaning and joy that we are all seeking for in our own learning journey. We are truly passionate about watching young people discover their own passions!