The story of my 20% time class project starts with an inspirational colleague - Mrs. Caroline Raville (who was, in turn, inspired by other inspirational folks who also love inspirational things).
As a first-year teacher last year, I was learning a lot about the amazing things that happen within the walls of the classrooms here at AJHS. One of the coolest things I saw was Mrs. Raville's students' 20% time projects. I was so impressed with the idea that students could and would take learning into their own hands and follow their passions so thoroughly and in such unique ways. After talking extensively with Mrs. Raville, hearing the project updates, and attending her students' final presentations, I knew that 20% time was something I must add to my plan for this year.
The concept of 20% time starts long ago, in 1948, with 3M, a company that started encouraging their employees to spend 15% of their work time following a passion project. Out of this workplace environment, Post-It Notes were invented. Since then, innovative companies like Google have also adopted the practice. Gmail and Google AdSense were both born out of Google's 20% time. Former president of 3M, William L. McKnight sums up the philosophy best: "We believe freedom to explore is critical to developing new ideas and solving problems that will make a difference for everyone."
With McKnight's words to guide us, we've kicked off our 20% time with a little inspiration from Kid President (can't go wrong there), conducted a bad idea factory (I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but whoa, trust me, it really works wonders in getting the lame ideas out of the way, and actually leads to an understanding of how open this time can be), and created Google accounts so we can start blogging.
Can't wait to see what this group comes up with. I'm already hearing some amazing ideas!
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