Learning After the Bell

Yesterday at 3:15pm, the last bell of the school year rang at Hixson Middle School. After dozens of tearful goodbyes, the kids left and we stood in an eerily silent hallway reflecting on the amazing year that we had with this group. While getting our rooms cleaned out and ready for the next teachers, we received an e-mail from Anna's mom. Anna, along with Hannah, was doing the Headbands for Hearts project. Anna's blog. Hannah's blog. Today, the girls went to Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital to deliver their creations for the children who are cancer patients.

The staff at the hospital was blown away. Here is a portion of the e-mail that we received from Anna's mother.

Just wanted to share that Anna and Hannah just came back from delivering their headbands to Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. What an awesome experience that was for them!! They met with 3 staff members (nurses and also the public relations consultant) to have their pictures taken and to talk about their project). 

Cardinal Glennon would like to highlight the girls on their Facebook page and also on their internal publications.  What they loved about their project was how it was student driven and how it was all about kids helping kids (gives me goosebumps just thinking about that). The nurse that Anna had started communicating with a few months ago also commented how she loved that the communication came from Anna and not a parent or teacher. 

This is exactly what 20% Time is. Kids discover their passions. In this case it was creating things and helping others. Kids are driven by their own interests and goals. They use that intrinsic motivation to achieve those goals. That is a game-changer. Sometimes the learning even occurs after the last bell.