And so it begins...

Ridiculously, Brandy, Tami, and I decided we should not only teach a group this year (more on that later), but that we should also lead a PDU so teachers would join us in our madness.

A little background...

In May of 2015, immediately following the last day of school, some of us decided that instead of drinking margaritas and sleeping until 1, we should attend the Google Apps for Education conference in Breckenridge Colorado. It was fun, not tequila at twilight fun, but still pretty nice. We participated in project-based learning, learned about doctopus and add-ons for Google docs and sheets, participated in a locked-room mystery, played with maps, and listened to Kevin Brookhauser talk about how he engaged his students in a sneaky writing assignment called the 20time project.

It sounded amazing! So, we forgot all about it until October when our principal, who had paid for this little excursion, wanted us to share out what we had learned. As Brandy spoke about Brookhauser, I saw Tami's eyes widening. She asked some questions, and then we all went about the business of teaching for the year, but the notion was still sitting in the backs of our minds.

In May, as we were discussing what form our advisement classes should take for fall, Tami brought up the idea of a Passion Project. You see, on Thursdays our advisement classes break up into social-emotional groups led by our student and family support services team, but not all students can be in a group each quarter. That leaves about thirty students needing something to do for 85 minutes on Thursday afternoon. Tami thought we should consider having

the teachers lead a group based on the ideas set forth in Brookhauser's book, The 20time Project. Brandy and I agreed to take it on and to lead a book study PDU.

We began meeting with students today and they seemed really interested in searching for something to explore this year.