Insights | Pursuing passions, producing results with Genius Hour

Dean Clayden and Mark Wright

Assistant Heads of Prep School

Class lessons, homework assignments and tests are important components of education, but they only take our pupils so far. A holistic approach to education must address the gaps that traditional academic pursuits do not fill. To this end, we have taken a page out of the playbooks of Fortune 500 companies like Google and 3M. Both are known for an initiative commonly referred to as '20% Time'. They encourage their employees to devote up to 20% of their time at work to passion projects that could potentially benefit their respective organisations. The value of granting employees a sense of ownership, self-direction and an opportunity to explore what energises them has several notable proof points. In fact, if you have ever used Gmail, Google Earth, masking tape or Post-it notes, you have experienced these benefits first-hand. All of these products are direct results of '20% Time'.

At Wellington, International School Shanghai, we apply a similar principle for our Upper Prep pupils with what we call 'Genius Hour'. Through this programme, we encourage pupils to pursue a passion and channel that energy into a project. They identify a goal and put together a plan for achieving it. Throughout the academic year, they track their progress against the benchmarks they have set. All the while, they meet bi-weekly, charting their progress and sharing ideas about strategies and best practices. The project culminates in June with pupils putting on presentations about their projects and assessments of their success.

These projects teach our pupils the importance of pursuing a project and seeing it through to its completion. Along the way, they develop a capacity for self-direction, time management, self-assessment and metacognition. Taking on such projects also builds self-confidence and teaches them how to remain resilient in the face of inevitable setbacks. These are essential soft skills that, when cultivated early on, pay massive dividends for our pupils in their academic careers and, more importantly, their lives after Wellington,one of the best international schools in Shanghai.

Here, several of our year 6 pupils share the passion projects they are pursuing this year for Genius Hour and how they plan to achieve their goals. 

Martina: perfecting her piano technique

"I have been playing the piano for a long time, but my technique still needs work. So Genius Hour will be an opportunity for me to improve my hand position and movement. I will do this by gradually perfecting my speed and rhythm with a metronome. Every week, I will record my progress on video. I will also create a pic collage so I can get a closer look at what needs improvement. At the end of the project, I will create a video that charts my progress. I already practise very regularly, and my piano teacher helps me a lot. I am also a perfectionist and will keep doing something over and over again until I get it right, so I am confident I can achieve this goal."

Aarav: designing a video game

"Video games are my passion, so my Genius Hour project is to create a publishable and presentable video game. I intend to meet this goal by learning how to create clean code. I can do very good block coding, and I have just started learning how to do JavaScript. It is a very bare-bones skill set, but I think something simple and playable is achievable. I am really excited about this opportunity to expand my horizons into what I hope will be my future career."

Jane: learning to play the ukulele

"I play the cello, and it is such a big, inconvenient instrument, so for Genius Hour, I decided to learn how to play something more portable: the ukulele. As a cellist, I already have an advantage. A cello's fingerboard is not so different from a ukulele's fretboard. I already have the calluses on my fingertips, too. I plan to learn how to play three songs over the next three months: 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star', 'You Are My Sunshine' and Queen's 'We Will Rock You.'"   

Zoe: improving her tennis game

"I am using Genius Hour to get better at tennis. I want to get good enough to play against my father. My goal is to improve my tennis rally. To do this, I practise every Saturday for one hour. Fortunately, my father is helping me. He is really good, so it is not always easy to return his serves. But the best way to improve is to play against someone better than you are. If I can build up to a 20-volley rally, I will call that a success."

Andrew: better gaming, higher grades

"I really enjoy gaming, but I do not get to do it very much — usually no more than 15 minutes per week. So I want to use Genius Hour to get better at gaming. Since this is 'Genius Hour' and not 'Genius 15 Minutes', I managed to convince my mother that I should devote one hour to gaming every week. I will track my progress by recording my gameplay and taking notes on what areas need improvement. There is another benefit to this as well. I had to promise my mother I would improve my grades. So, intend to get better at gaming and get better grades. Win-win!" 

Summer: perfecting a dance

"I do ballet, so I want to use this time to perfect a dance that I have been working on recently. I already take ballet lessons five to six hours per week, but I plan to devote 30 minutes per day to practising just this dance. This will be the best way for me to achieve my goal because I have a hard time remembering dance moves, especially if I do not practise for a few days. I also want to improve my flexibility and my ability to go en pointe. To accomplish these goals, I plan to track my progress on a vlog from now until June."