On our own time

Along with short-term motivation strategies for students (which sometimes suffer from being transparent) I've wanted to showcase some of the long-term, life-time benefits of being an independent learner. I had always imagined a single event called "on our own time," with all of our school community exhibiting or demonstrating their skills, interests, and hobbies. I think, however, a more realistic approach hatched itself this week; an ongoing, if occasional display, that focuses on one example; in this case, a self-taught student photographer.

Here's the intro I wrote for the rolling "On our own time" series:

This is, at last, the first exhibit in what we hope will be an ongoing series: On our own time.

Like every community, our community is ripe with people who, for no other reason than to make their own lives a rich experience, make things (music, furniture, gardens, poems,...) or do things (act, travel, collect, coach, etc.).

These people are everywhere. There is a good chance that you know someone like this or are someone like this!

These personal pursuits are among the most intimate and valuable of human experience. Being recognized for these accomplishments isn’t really the motivation, at all, for doing them.

The motivation is better than that; it’s intrinsic, it’s part of them, it’s who they are and want to be.

And it has real effect on the health and wealth of a community. Neighbors want to belong to a place that is rich with “doers”: singers, craftsmen, horticulturists, quilters, musicians, writers, historians; all these people on your street or in your class with a talent or hobby or skill that you didn’t even know about!

So our intent is to remind you of the several paths to contributing to yourself and to your community, and to thank all our neighbors for investing in themselves, and so also in us.