Why Every School Needs an 'Innovation Day' Google’s policy of 20
percent time—giving employees plenty of free time work on
whatever they want—is world famous for being the birthplace of
innovative products— most famously, Gmail. But what would happen
if schools gave students a similar amount of unstructured free
time and allowed them to take control of their own learning?
This spring Matthew Bebbington, a high school physical education
teacher in the U.K., decided to find out. He organized a school-
wide "Innovation Day" that let 80 students between the ages of
11-15 choose what and how to learn. Bebbington writes on The
Guardian’s Teacher Network blog that far from taking an extended
recess the students "worked solidly for six hours, cross-
pollinating across different projects, ages and abilities."
Although the teens knew nothing they did throughout the day
would receive a grade or appear on a test, Bebbington says
requiring them to publicly present their projects at the end of
the day, fostered accountabilit