“We want them to perform at their
highest level and get them motivated and
excited about middle school and high
school,” said Laura Walley, principal of
Elm Street Elementary. “That is what our
Genius Hour is about.”
The Genius Hour developed several years
ago as a way to let teachers share their
own talents, hobbies and outside interests
with students.
“We challenged our teachers to think outside
the box, to think about what speaks
to them as a special interest,” explained
Walley. “We then offered chances for
students to sign up to participate in hourlong
classes that the teachers hosted
once a month.”
Genius Hour consists of classes on everything
from gardening to learning about
law enforcement to marketing. Students
can learn how to make pottery, weave dog
toys from recycled T-shirts, play chess
and plant a garden.
Third-grade teacher Chris White’s daughter
LiAnna Rogers, a senior at Rome High,
Jake Addison (right), construction teacher at
Rome Middle School, talks to his class.
has been helping her mom’s class learn about
pottery through Zoom meetings.
“Her pathway is ceramics,” said White. “She
taught the kids to make pinch pots and they
made a coil Christmas tree, which was really
cute.”
The third-graders are always excited to work
with LiAnna, she added.
“They know her through me, of course, but
it excites them to see what they can do once
they get to high school,” White explained. “It
is exciting for me to see them find their talents
and their passion. I have a student who can get
bored with the regular day-to-day classwork,
but you put a lump of clay in front of him and he
just beams.”
Ashley Hamby, agriculture teacher at RMS, said
she loves showing her students a world they
might not have ever thought to explore.
“Seeing all those little lightbulbs go off,” she
said, laughing. “They start realizing how important
agriculture is. I always tell them, even if they
aren’t originally excited to be put in the class,
give me two weeks, I’ll change their mind.”
Andre Durand, junior at Rome High, works with his watering project in engineering
class. He said a family friend has a greenhouse and was looking for a way to keep it
watered when not home, so Andre decided to create something that would get the
job done.