Genius Hour Research Begins!

Wow, what a week. Work/Life/School balance is tough when you’re essentially doing 3 full time jobs. My little dude turned 5 on Friday.  Teachers college workload was a bit heavier than last week, and my job is super busy during the day. HOWEVER, I can say that I was really inspired by how my week turned out as a whole and the progress I was able to make on the Genius Hour project.

The good news is I was able to have a conversation with the school principal about my genius hour and gathered some of her thoughts on the subject. She gave me a pile of board specific publications to pursue for inspiration.  I met with two social workers (separately) that support the population in my school. Both are sending me some resources to review and consider for our school specific project.  I also had time to chat with our school SERT about my project.  We brainstormed about how my project will serve the students of the school and also how we can focus on the inclusive services area. I also reached out to two “continuing education” sites in GTA west school boards to see if their programs included alternative schools like mine, so I could ask what they are doing to support their students. This is a lot of Blah Blah Blah but I made so many connections this week that this is getting exciting.

I learned that there are many resources out there to reference for consideration of my final project however, they are high level thinking or data driven documents.  I came to the realisation that I want this to be friendly, simple flow document that any audience will be able to understand.  

This week I started reading Brene Brown’s book “dare to lead: brave work, tough conversations, whole hearts.”  The book was suggested to me through a very influential and positive leader/role model in my life.  Since meeting this person, at a very unexpected time in my life, they have shown up, encouraged me to grow, guided me when I stumbled and are truly an inspiration as to what an educator should be. They are brilliant, with an incredible mind and the desire and ability to do great things for others.  They were once described to me as “a legend” by another brilliant leader that I consider to be among the best (and energetic) I’ve ever met. The book has served as a grounding point for me and a resource to guide my heart and mind on this project and my career.   RANDOM FACT: I am not one to generally read books. In fact, I very much dislike sitting and reading. I get jumpy, my rear end gets sore, my eyes blurry and my mind tired. The irony is that I have done more reading than I’ve likely done in years in the last 3 weeks of starting Teachers College…. And I am looking forward to reading more! On top of my school reading, I have started on 3 books that have really spoken to me.  Each of those books has engraved a small message with a big impact in my heart and mind… and I am only at the beginning.  I can't help but smile and feel full of sunshine when I think about the impact these books will have on the rest of my life.  For the first time in a long time.  I am excited to read and learn as the weeks come.  It is my hope that you find the same interest in my blog as I share my journey. 

Cantwell, J ©2023

Up next week?  I have a meeting with transition coordinators from the school board on Monday who support the district and a 1:1 with our guidance counsellor after to brainstorm on the things we learn from the transition coordinators. I need to continue to read the Brene Brown book and plot out a sketch that is starting to form in my mind of how I want the final project to look. I will be keeping my eyes wide open and watching for more sources in inspiration this week as time spent on the project progresses!