Light Each Other's Candles by Cidrew

Light Each Other's Candles by Cidrew - May 2025 Scholarship Essay

I’ve always been a school kid. I love school, I love learning, and I love teaching others. That moment of “oh, yeah, I get it!” is one of my favorite things. I love feeling it, and I love seeing others feel it too. I can have those moments on my own or from lectures by professors. But that’s not true for some people, including some of my best friends. If I had the time and resources, I would introduce “Genius Hour” events all around the country.

Even if we don’t realize it on our own, we all have something or some things that we know a ton about! And part of why humans evolved the way we did was because we evolved to be friendly and social as a survival method. Why not take advantage of both things?

Within my design, communities could come together in local gathering spaces like rec centers, clubhouses, and higher education institutions twice a month, with the goal of either learning from or teaching one another. The structure of each person’s “Genius Hour” can be whatever they need it to be. If someone wants to give a lesson on how to repair household appliances, then we would find them a space that’s safe to do repairs in. If someone wants to give a Pilates lesson, then we would find them a space with enough open space to do so. If someone wants to hold a space for students to come in for help with their classwork, then we would find them a classroom-type space to do so.

Learning is something that many people have misframed in their minds, and “Genius Hours” would seek to combat those misframings. For one, many people assume learning ends when your schooling ends. But that’s not true at all! Not only can learning occur at any age, but it should. Recent research shows that lifelong learning opportunities can help improve cognitive functioning in late life. Secondly, education is often seen as something that has to happen in a strict, traditional classroom environment, with a teacher at the front of the room droning on to their half-asleep students. But in reality, that learning structure is a new invention, developed during the industrial revolution by factory owners. They intended to create a school system that molded future factory line workers, who could do one repetitive task all day, every day, for the rest of their days. While this structure will work for some people, the vast majority of people need an environment that has some level of deviation from this structure. Thirdly, many people view learning and academics as something that has to be competitive. Our school system reinforced this as well. What’s your class rank? Where are you applying to college? How do you measure up against your classmates? You know they’re your biggest competition. What’s your GPA? Did you take the ACT or the SAT? What did you score on it? It’s all so ridiculous! Learning is supposed to help you, not drive you crazy in an obsession to be the best of the best.

My design may not be perfect, but it does address a massive issue I see in my schooling history—and I’ve been to nine in 13 years. We can teach each other much more than we realize. In the words of Margaret Fuller, “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”