Forging Habits. Sprint 3 Week 3

Week three in the year. Did you manage to nail one of your new daily practices in a continuous streak of 21 days? If your answer is yes—congratulations, you have created a new habit.

Often, this does not happen. Old habits die hard. The comfortable path is homeostasis. You cannot give up, you have to try again. Until you achieve a 21-day streak. Our Eagles are no different. This week, we saw some new habits forged. There is still much more to do for an Eagle to soar. Building habits require momentum. Fortunately, the excitement of the Survivor Quest is building up as the Eagles are on the mid-way point: Shelter! Finally, I will share why are habits integral to Acton Academy.

Highlights:

  • Habits formed, & re-started
  • Survivor Quest: Building Shelter & more
  • Why Habits?

Habits formed, & re-started

Ask any lifelong learner: What are your habits?

Chances are that he will have a set of habits that he has mastered and is practicing it every day. Likely in a zen or robot-like routine. At the same time, he will have a few habits that he is struggling to adapt. It is no different in the Acton Academy studios.

This year, many Eagles have created new habits. Chiefly, the two things are being on-time and doing house chores at home. Some are still struggling, but this is life’s work in progress.

At Acton, life is the big homework assignment.

The #1 habit that is hardest to forge is doing focused work. Frankly, this has been a one-year continuous restart, but things are taking shape.

Last week, the Elementary School (ES) studio was chaotic. The dreaded experience last week led to discussions and reflections of “how a bad day can be”. The Eagles realized they were half-way to their worse case scenario examples. It was a possible version of hell (to crudely put it). They also discussed how a good day would have been like. It was their version of heaven in the studio. The Eagles now had perspective, clarity and a common goal. An entire 180-degree turn.

The Eagles felt the transformation.

“This feels so amazing”
“I am very joyful today.”
“It feels really nice and peaceful when everyone is intentional.”
“Let’s do this again”

Our ES Guide, Ms. Caryn was overjoyed. She literally said: “Intentionality is coming back; woot-woot! It was the best week in a while!!!”

Uneventful and just quiet outside, lots of learning inside :))
Even group work is intentional too.

Also, Ms. Caryn introduced meditation using Headspace app. It was something simple—2 minutes at the start of each day. The ES Eagles enjoyed it. Some even wanted more:

“Can we increase it to 3 mins next week?”

The real challenge is cultivating these habits into their daily lives. So, the more important story is whether the Eagles continue for the next 2+ weeks. Remember, it takes 21 days to create a habit. The next challenge is to continue for an entire year. Then, it becomes a studio culture.

Survivor Quest—Building Shelter & More

Last two weeks, the Eagles focused on food and water. This week, it is about building shelter. The Eagles explored this by building makeshift shelters and modern tents. Meanwhile, the MS Eagles were up to more adventures with cooking.

Makeshift Shelters

First, the Eagles discussed different shelters, with the aid of guided questions and video resources, ranging from an igloo, a roundhouse and an architectural history of housing. Next, it was doing and building!

An observer might think that building a shelter is about having skills. At this first stage, it is really about teamwork and perseverance.

We divided the Eagles into six teams. Heat and struggles of doing something new—four teams were giving up. They were prompted with reminders of growth mindset process and natural consequences. What happens when things don’t work out? The real-life survivor answer is actually life and death. There were moments of demotivation and low energy.

Thankfully, two teams completed early and they helped and encouraged the other four teams to work towards a common goal. But once the Eagles built it, the mood changed. They said that it was super fun :))

“I can camp here tonight! This is my pillow and I can watch the stars from here.

Joy of creating your own home :))
Modern Tent

The tent pitching was no different. It was also a test of teamwork and perseverance too. In addition, it involves reading instructions, understanding it and putting it into action.

Despite a physical limit for our more petite ES Eagles, all of them managed to build their tent. They had to stretch themselves.

“I want to set up a tent for the exhibition”.
“This is like our palace. Let’s have all the ES sleep together”

Surprisingly, the toughest part of this activity was packing up. A lot of care was needed, and many teams struggled. It took a while, and again, the Eagles had it all packed.

More Cooking & Fire from the MS

During the Survivor Quest, the Middle School (MS) Eagles pushed themselves further. This week, they had the ultimate satisfaction of cooking a whole chicken, in a natural oven. You could say that this is a form of beggar’s chicken.

It was a (literally) fresh experience for the Eagles. None of the Eagles managed a fresh chicken before. There was fear of chicken head, fear of chicken feet, and obviously, the fear of chicken gizzards. But the motivation and goal of a whole cooked chicken were strong. They persisted and everything went down a storm.

Lots of heat needed for this chicken!

Andre, our most motivated Eagle cook, cut his finger. It did not stop him on his work. He wrapped it with a bandage and continued cutting garlic and all sorts. No complaints. No hesitation. No stopping. I called that perseverance and the right attitude.

After 1+ hour of cooking in hot embers. The MS Eagles rejoiced to a meal.

Not all Eagles were used to such work. Andre, who interned as a burger chef last summer clearly has more experience. Another MS Eagle had never lighted a match prior to the Survivor Quest. The first time he did so, he rejoiced with excitement: “I lighted a match. It exploded in my hand!” Now, he started to light matches on fire starter, slowly gaining confidence with life skills.

The ES Eagles were inspired by the MS Eagles work of fire and cooking. Each week, the MS Eagles surprised them with more elaborate menus. It prompted some experiments among the young adventurous ones.

“Yes! I want to learn too! I want to show our parents we can cook with our own fire.”

In addition to cooking, the MS Eagles continued practicing their pioneering projects. Few Eagles rebuilt the tripod tower with a modified version of lashings and tips from our Guides (one of them is a King Scout :P). Another group built a bench. Building gadgets like these take plenty of practice and are physically strenuous if one is new to it. So, to accommodate so much in this Survivor Quest, we did deliberately replace the Middle School’s PE time with such activities instead of sports.

PE in Other Variations

Fortunately, the Elementary School PE had more variation. They did a combination of rock climbing on Tuesday and self-organized sports activities on Thursday. This time, it was football by Sufyan!

For the second session of rock climbing, the Eagles got to explore more technicalities of climbing. Most importantly, they had a lot of fun! One parent even asked: “Can I climb with the too next week?”

football drills
Sufyan explaining the rules of the game

A random act. Some ES Eagles walked around the park and found trash. So, they decided to self-initiate some gotong-royong (community clean up)! They decided to make a poster as a message.

“We want to make posters and stick them around the park. Do not litter!”

Identity

As part of the Survivor Quest, the Eagles explored their identity further. This week, it was creating an Identity Map.

Fun Friday

This busy and intentional week ended with a special Fun Friday. The Eagles voted to have a movie afternoon of watching Coco, accompanied by popcorn.

“This is the best day ever! I love Acton!”

You might think all the stuff from the Survivor Quest would be absorbed into every Eagle. And many years down the road, the Eagles can just rough it with their new skills. So, here’s my observation from personal contact with hundreds of adults who had experienced outdoor education. It would only become a learned skill if they continued the practice and go for at least seven camps, where each camp is more challenging than the previous one.

We do expect many of these skills to be forgotten when most of the Eagles become adult. The #1 purpose of Survivor Quest is a head fake (in Randy Pausch’s definition) for building habits, especially habits of independence.

Why habits?

Habits are the middle point of Acton Academy’s Learning philosophy.

Clear thinking leads to good decisions,
Good decisions lead to the right habits,
The right habits lead to character and
Character becomes destiny.

Character and Destiny. This is what is truly at stake.

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