As a young student, my mornings often begun with me trying to convince my mother to let me stay home from school. I would often say that "I have no interest in school", "It's boring" and "I don't like what we're learning, it isn't important". This trend continued well into my schooling career as I could not find a passion for learning inside of the classroom. To me, listening to a teacher lecture about something I had no interest in and writing tests were I was only interested in the mark not the content was almost unbearable, I just wanted to learn about topics that were interesting and relevant to me.
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Students are spoon fed educational material on a daily basis, they are constantly asked to ignore their interests and their passions in order to meet and surpass provincial standards (Liston & Garrison, 2004). Although meeting these standards is considered success many students do not see it this way and are merely playing the game in order to succeed. They will forget the material and often never use it again. In order to make students truly successful and generate a deep learning in the classroom students need to be passionate about what they are learning, they need to experience passion-based learning.
Passion based learning is an approach that allows students to follow and learn about their individual passions. This approach provides individualization for each student and creates intrinsic motivation in the students to shift focus from the grade received to the pleasure of learning itself (Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014). By doing this, not only are we creating passion in the classroom but also effectively shifting the mindsets of our students from fixed to growth because the focus is now on learning and improving rather than simply a grade defining success and failure. For more on the difference between the fixed and growth mindset you can review the article on Mindset. A practical example of such passion-based learning in the classroom is Genius Hour.
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Genius Hour is a block of time that is provided to students in which they can follow their individual passions. This time block involves students thinking of an inquiry based question that interests them and then creating a project centering around that question that they will present to the class (Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014). This removes the teacher from their traditional role and instead, allows them to facilitate knowledge to their students while the students take a more active role in their learning. The students questions still must be approved by the teacher, their research must be adequate and they will be sharing their projects with their classmates but now that they are discovering and learning about things they are passionate about they can begin to change their mindset and in turn gain a deep understanding of the topic, More information on genius hour, you can watch this very informational video.
Giving your students even an hour of freedom to follow their passions is a refreshing break from the monotonous routines and information taught throughout the course of a day in a classroom setting and allows students to recharge and regain an interest in learning so that they can experience more success. According to Drake, Reid and Kolohon (2014), students were much more productive and creative when given time to follow their individual interests. By allowing students to follow their interests their work ethic and motivation will go up as a whole and they will be able to experience more success throughout all domains and subjects.
So for prospective teachers and current teachers alike, remember, keep the creativity and passion alive in the classroom and urge your students to dig deep into and explore these passions because passion is the driving force behind deep learning.
References
Drake, S. M., Reid, J, L., & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving curriculum and classroom assessment: Engaging the 21st century learner. Don Mills: Oxford University Press.
Liston, D. P., & Garrison, J. W. (2004). Teaching, learning and loving: Reclaiming passion in educational practice. New York: Routledge Falmer, 2004.
