Geniuses produce more ideas than non-geniuses. Like all of us, many of their ideas, aren’t all that sensational. But also like all of us, their bad work is a path to their great work. Genius work isn’t doing what’s been done, answering questions that already have answers. No, genius work blazes new trails, explores uncharted territories. Nobody knows what these terrains looks like until we get there. There are also no maps to these lands. In other words, genius doesn’t always look like genius, it sometimes looks silly, or lost, bad, or even stupid. So the question we have to ask ourselves about our students isn’t always whether they are right or not but whether they are searching, generating ideas, wandering the unfamiliar, and roaming in the unknown. These questions rarely align to any specific standards but then again, genius isn’t standard. However, perhaps the road to genius should be.
Trevor (@trevorabryan)