Happy New Year!
Welcome to Sprint 3 of 2018/9 calendar cycle!
This post and the next eleven blog post will take a twist. The first half of the blog post will be about Acton Academy’s Learning Design. In between, I will share the weekly activities as concrete examples. The second half is about the remainder of what happened during the week. This series of blog posts are written to support ActonKL families to the Building Blocks (workshops for parents to support your Eagle’s learning journey) on 21st February, and to help you understand “what is Acton Academy’s curriculum.” But why write it over twelve weeks?
The challenge is that most of us came from a background of traditional education. So, there is plenty of reframing needed. Each week we will uncover a section of the Learning Design. We will start with the essential ingredient (you got to read on to find out!), dive into the individual Core Skills (Math, reading, writing), Quests, Integration areas (Civilization, Apprenticeships, etc.) and end with how all these come together. My goal is to equip you with the framework and tools to support your Eagles’ growth, so they become self-directed, independent learners. We want them to own this process as early as they can so that they can continuously transform: learn, unlearn, and relearn. The first five posts are complementary to the Building Blocks on 21st February. By early April, when we publish the 12th post, we are stronger together in partnership as guides, mentors, and supporters to the Eagles Learning Hero’s Journey.
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ”—Alvin Toffler
So, what is that essential ingredient? This ingredient is the one string that connects all the components of the Acton Academy curriculum. This ingredient is the reason why an Eagle always show up at Acton. And this ingredient is why the environment filled with positive energy. I will quote directly from Jeff Sandefer’s article that describes the four principles “Curriculum at Acton Academy”:
First, make it fun.
Job number one is to make it fun to be part of the community. If the Eagles want to belong to the tribe, they will accept hard work and the Hero’s Journey as the price of membership, deeply imbedding the core belief that Grit matters more than IQ for heroes in the long run.
Plus, motivated Eagles work at 10X the rate of average students.
Make it Fun
I repeat—FUN! If you expect the first weeks of Acton Academy filled with (academic) learning, then you will be disappointed. First weeks means the first weeks of the founding of a new Acton Academy studio and to some degree, the start of every academic year. We plan our day with fun elements, but quickly, there is little need as the Eagles are creating those moments all the time! We use teamwork games, exercises that explore one’s identity and community, and and the occasional sin of sugar, in the form of celebrations. But the most potent ingredient of all is freedom. And with freedom, comes responsibility and ownership.
Teamwork games
The Preschool at ActonKL had just that start. They were painted with a scenario to save the bears, and they have to work together to overcome challenges. It is the sort of fun where you play games with a clear aim.
How about other older Eagles? Here is a Middle School challenge in their mini Tribe Building Quest. There’s a bucket with balls in the middle, and you got to find a way to get those balls. It’s not an easy task. Coordination, communication, and persistence get the ball!
Exercises that explore one’s identity and community
The Elementary and Middle School Eagles played a game of identity bingo. The goal is to find as many checks as you can to cover the Bingo page. The checkpoints ranged from “is left-handed,” “can play an instrument,” “is allergic to ants,” and so on. The Eagles discover each other, and also were on a competitive streak of getting the Bingo. Guess who won?
The Elementary School Eagles beat the heck out of the Middle School on this one. Were they hungrier? Or did they have less resistance in asking questions? Or perhaps they gang up to “rig” the game against the Middle Schoolers. You will be surprised how capable children are, especially the younger ones.
An occasional sin of sugar, in the form of celebrations
Our studios are free of junk food, except for special Fridays and celebrations. I heard there were some sweet snacks on Friday, but they seemed gobbled up before any of us (Guides) could see it. “Celebrations” are not necessarily Birthdays; they might mean spontaneous happenings, like these two Preschool Eagles watering the plants together.
But isn’t Freedom Chaos?
Freedom does not mean “children can do anything they want” like Lord of the Flies. In that scenario, as you might have known, ended in tears. It even involved two killings of Simon and Piggy. You might blame the overdrive of testosterone hormones and the still undeveloped prefrontal cortex. Violent boys, mean girls, cyber-bullying, and so on—there is a truth that total freedom results to chaos and anarchy. So, how does that work at Acton?
A famous quote from Lord Acton:
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We structure freedom with clear and explicit boundaries. The basics include no hitting, vandalism, or unkind words. It extends further with explicit contracts. The boundaries protect the Eagles so that they can engage exploration and learn safely. The boundaries are broad enough, so there is plenty of space for exploration and discovery. With that, we create the conditions for the Hero’s Journey—they go through a journey of transformation as they take on challenges. Eagles make choices to navigate the environment, and they drive that with curiosity.
But curiosity, by itself, is not enough. The reality is that humans are social animals wanting a sense of belonging. The fun element in Acton Academy creates the bonds necessary so that the Eagles can support each other through the challenges ahead. It is the formation of group and community motivation that is crucial in creating a learner-driven environment. Effectively, we are calling on the different theory of motivation at all levels.
The following chart shows how Acton Academy applies the theories with tools and incentives:
In summary, we are building a strong tribe using the narrative of the Hero’s Journey and the first ingredient is to make it fun.
The ugly alternative: Antithesis of Fun
Before I move to the second half of the blog (a fun update about the three studios), I want to share a point about the opposite of “Making it Fun.” The worse thing an education system can do is to create a negative relationship between the learner and learning. It is probably true with the current state of traditional education. Try this: share a life-changing book or make a recommendation of the best nasi lemak to a random stranger. The later will likely draw 10x more attention. We have a far more positive relationship with calorie-type food than knowledge-type brain food. One might argue that reading is only a recent human phenomenon—the Gutenberg revolution is only 500-years-old. Nevertheless, the struggle of learning is real.
If you (as a parent) has this negative relationship of learning from (traditional) education, there are two possible implication to your children. One is a belief that all learning has elements of hard work or even torture. So, you might force or bribe your child to learn. The other is resentment on exams and high-stress school environment. You might want to protect your child from any of it. I recommend neither of this option. I would urge encouragement to face the challenges, and make them strong, as the video below. And that is the Parent’s Hero’s Journey.
Studio Updates
All three studios had a strong start to Sprint 3. Both Elementary School (ES) and Middle School (MS) studio have separate Quest (Acton term for projects with a narrative); the ES is on the Growing Curiosity Quest, and the MS is on the Building the Tribe + Friendship Quest. Meanwhile, the Preschool (PS) started their Hero’s Journey with many elements of Tribe Building. It’s incredible to see three studios coming together, with 4 to 16-years-old engaged in their learning.
Preschool: Building a new Tribe
Mr. Aaron, our Preschool Guide issued challenges for the PS Eagles to solve. The goal is to save the teddy bear. In between, they crossed rivers, went through a minefield, solved puzzles, and created stories. The teambuilding challenges took most of the day, and the PS Eagles had free play after lunch.
We look forward to building the PS Eagle community. They are looking healthy, capable, and full of potential.
Elementary School: Growing Curiosity Quest
The ES Eagles were excited to be back for the new Sprint. As usual, the energies were high, and they welcomed the five new Eagles: Lucas, Jun Hung, Jun Xi, Shreya, and Chelsea. There was a buzz of energy with the new Eagles, and they quickly fit in. But there’s one significant difference.
This Sprint is by far, the most Eagle-led Sprint! The Growing Curiosity Quest involves Eagles taking turns to run a project for a week. Sufyan and Jared led the way with pixel-based drawing. In addition, Uma led the first town hall on Friday.
On Thursday, Vijay Vaitheeswaran, an award-winning journalist from The Economist gave a Hero Sharing to ActonKL Eagles. His daughter Kayla acted as an interviewer and asked questions on what it takes to be a journalist. Mr. Vijay inspired the Eagle to pursue their passions, and try new things. He shared stories, challenges, and an important tip.
You can be a good journalist by asking the 5-type of questions: Who, What, When, Where, How.
To be a great journalist, you need to ask: Why.
Vijay started by asking “Do you know who Superman is? Do you know who is Clark Kent?”. Then, he related Clark Kent to the work of a journalist. Finally, he gave all of us a surprise with a power pose.
We thank Harsha and Hakim, parents of ActonKL who brought us such an inspiring Hero to the ActonKL learning studios. All the Eagles were a bit more Superman by the end of the session 😛
Middle School: Tribe Building
The Middle School has four new Eagles to kick-start the year. We have switched to the Tribe Building + Friendship Quest to build the tribe and also introduce a cultural reset. The first two weeks is about Tribe Building, and the last three weeks is about Friendships. The goal is to forge strong bonds with the new Eagles. They started the week by arranging themselves into two Squads, and each of them claims a workroom. Next, they lay out the challenges so that there are a clear target and accountability as a team. The challenges include writing about their Hero, and also a reflection of their life by writing a Eulogy and Epipath. One might think: Eulogy and Epipath? Yes, this is serious work for a group of teenagers and we do this often at Acton Academy :))
Here’s a chance to soak in the level of meaningful discussion that the MS Eagles had:
The short video was powerful; the Eagles gave applauses after that. It was nearly a standing ovation—rare for a discussion video.
I will end this (rather long) blog post with a final question: