Dra|\/|@ & Pl@y. Sprint 4 Week 3

This week is the transition week for the Eagles. They completed their script and will soon enter production. Both the Elementary School (ES) and Middle School (MS) will be producing their own play. Naturally, this means different stories and variation in their Drama & Play journey. In between, Eagles worked through challenging situations together amongst all the usual ActonKL happenings. This not a school, but a learner-driven community that has a show for you!

Highlights this week:

  • The Usual Happenings at ActonKL (ES Mindfulness, ES Rock Climbing, Celebrating Birthdays – Arjun’s 10th, PE, Connected to Austin, Good Times Together)
  • MS Civilization: Diving into Deep Topics
  • ES High Stake Challenge
  • Drama & Play Update: Finalizing the Script

The Usual Happenings at ActonKL

ES Mindfulness
wobble, wobble, fall?

Auntie Harsha continued the weekly mindfulness sessions with the ES Eagles. This week, she used using snow globes and weebles to discuss three main ideas:
1. The connection between mind and body; how our body can affect our moods and vice versa.
2. Auntie Harsha introduced the Eagles to a 3rd part of the brain—the insula. The insula works alongside the pre-frontal cortex to recognize our moods (and the moods of others!). The Eagles looked at photos of cute puppies and kittens and tried to assess their moods and emotions.
3. How everyone experiences moments when we feel emotionally and physically out of balance – or as Auntie Harsha puts it “wobbly”.

The session continued with techniques to manage mind wobbliness. Eagles learned two techniques, one is finger breathing, and the other FOFBOC (Feet on Floor, Bottom on Chair). The challenge is to practice this in their daily lives!

ES Rock Climbing

On the 7th Rock Climbing session now, and there will be two more to go. Eagles stretched, climbed, and swang their way to rejoice!

yes, swinging around
rock climbing is always a delight
Celebrating Birthdays – Arjun’s 10th

The ES Eagles celebrated Arjun’s Birthday, with Acton Academy’s ritual of going ten rounds around the sun. His parents shared stories of Arjun’s nine full years of life.

“I’m finally 10.” Very very happy to hit double digits.

Now, there are three Eagles in ES Studio with a double-digit age!

the short story of Arjun!

PE

The ES Eagles officially started their self-organized PE sessions. Sufyan and Akash led the session with physical drills learned from the MS Eagles.

There were mixed reviews:

“Keep running for 6 minutes.”
“I’m so tired.”
“Why can’t we just have free time?”
“I love these workout.”

Despite the challenges, the studio is on a mission to build physical stamina. The challenge: can they persist and execute their mission?

MS Eagles PE progress are tracked, for data visualization and reflection purposes!
Connected to Austin: FB Live with Acton Academy Founders

The ES studios are about exposure, and the MS studios engage with depth and connectedness. The MS Eagles started the week with a Facebook Live session with Jeff and Laura Sandefer, the founders of Acton Academy.

Laura recently published her book, Courage to Grow and shared more about her journey and answered few common questions about Acton Academy.

The Eagles watched and get a perspective from the founders. We are a global network that stretches all the way from Lahore to Austin.
Good Times Together

We had a power cut on Wednesday, and it was almost lunchtime. We do rely much on the Internet, so it was a limiting situation—an opportunity for some offline free time!

plugged out and together

MS Civilization: Diving into Deep Topics

Both Wednesday and Friday Civilization were filled with tough questions, involving deep beliefs, human lives, and taking risks (or not). Here are some of the questions posed:

  • Will science one day answer all of the important questions or not?
  • Which is more impactful to your day-to-day life; your belief system or scientific truth?
  • Is the human race is evolving slowly like other species or more quickly?

And situations where Eagles had to think deeply to make a choice. For example:

  • There are plans for human beings to travel to Mars in the not too distant future. Do you:
    • Support the enormous expense of this project because of what we will learn, or
    • Support spending the money here on Earth to make life better for human beings on Earth?
  • You believe in evolution and are running for governor in an American state with a large population of conservative fundamentalists. When asked if you believe in evolution do you:
    • The question whether the theory has been proven, or
    • Declare that you do believe in evolution and likely lose the election?

Most Eagles started from the point of view of polarity, and they discovered arguments and solutions through deeper discussions. For example for the evolution question:

  • They started with declaring “what you believe in”. One Eagle pointed strongly: “We can’t always be hiding our beliefs from ppl!”
  • Then, the discussion dug deeper into realities of human societies. “As a person in government, and I have grand plans I want to do, I won’t declare my belief.”
  • Eventually, the Eagles realized a middle path. “As a governor, I will mention little of my belief, only to slowly find ways for the public to explore the results. We should never force our opinions on others.”
Socratic Discussion feels a bit like this… some tension and also holding your points firmly.

So, why do we do Civilization this way? It is not the history or the facts. It is the process of clear thinking and expressing it that is fundamental to Acton Academy’s Learning Philosophy: making a stand, and listening to various points of view, and then repeating that again, and again.

ES High Stake Challenge

The ES studio has been chaotic with concerns of behavioral issues. We even had a 3.0 in our most recent weekly survey rating (our historical rating has been above 4.8 for some time now—we thank the community for the continuous and positive feedback). To learn more about weekly surveys, here’s a blog post from Laura.

How do we deal with behavioral issues in the studio? If there is no health and safety risk, the Guides do not “intervene”. Instead, Guides use townhall and circle time to share the situation with the Eagles kindly and honestly.

This triggered a deeper discussion with the Eagles. There was the realization of natural consequences and also renewed commitment.

“If we don’t step up, we will not have a play for the public!”
“We will not be able to collect money for the new home!” (given the play is used to raise school funds)

The Eagles were getting serious. Some gasp when an Eagle suggested this: “If we don’t keep promises, no ice skating for PE next Sprint.” But the Eagles were voted without any doubt.

There was also reminders of intentionality. “We must watch our intentionality buddy else we will be fined more by the Guides.” The Eagles also agreed that they need to keep each other accountable. They made sure the consequences are severe and allowed their Guide, Ms. Caryn to step in if boundaries were crossed. And if Ms. Caryn does, it will be three times more on every Eagle. Ouch.

We will see where all this will lead to. There is no perfect system, Eagle Bucks, and self-governance work sometimes, but the reality is that… it is a human process. And like all human processes, it can fail.  We know that “intervention” results in compliance, but understanding results to true commitment. The journey of commitment to self-regulation is a Hero’s Journey that is very, very long. It is painful that these processes are not perfect. But it is exactly this, that makes it all a perfect learning experience.

Drama & Play Update: Finalizing the Script

The Eagles finalized their script this week. For the ES Eagles, it was challenging. Eagles overcame failures, chaos, and struggles to grow.

“Guys let’s work together on this!! We need it to be good!”

“Oh no, we will need to rewrite our script.”
“I can’t do this. It’s too difficult.”

Finally, two eagles stepped up and worked at home till late on the script. On Friday, Arjun met his team with enthusiasm:“I stayed up till 10 pm to work on the script. I think it’s good to go now! Do you all like it?”

The MS Eagles moved deeper into the process with multiple readings and edits. Auntie Chitrah guided them into visualizing their stage performance so that they cover all bases. Ultimately, the Eagles are here to create an experience for you on 6th April!

Dry Reading. The 3rd reading with some acting. This is to finalize the script, actors will adjust their lines on the spot right after they do their lines.
Visualising your character, face, expression, costume, and the whole play.

What’s ahead?

The Eagles will be rehearsing and preparing deeply during the next three weeks. The ultimate goal of acting, is not acting, but to become one with the character, to become one with the stage, to become one with the story (guided by the script!). In Bruce Lee words:

“I do not hit, it hits all by itself.”

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