Final Push!
The final weeks of a session can be thrilling, nerve-wracking, and full of last minute to-do’s! Highs and lows equally abound and it’s this mix of emotions and actions that I believe make the journey of Acton for our heroes truly worth it. Learners are feeling their push towards ending the session and their need to complete a Core Skills badge for the Productivity Pizza challenge, master a material, or to get the star badge for Quest Excellence. Each child has their list of to-dos and it’s our parental job to check in, not to push, but simply love. This can be hard! The week and always night before an exhibition can be pretty intense for many parents (myself included) as we support our heroes. As much as our children are feeling the whirlwind we too experience the emotional rollercoaster. As we move into these final days I’d like to remind you why it matters how we parents choose to respond.
A parent from an Acton Academy in Virginia, The Village School, shared her evening experience on their school’s Blog and I hope that her story strengthens your spirit and fuels your journey. You can read her full share here but here is a tid-bit of inspiration!
“It is the end of the session, so our Discovery Hero is busy clicking every last click on Journey Tracker to ensure she earns the badges she has been working towards. She is stressed and anxious by all that she hasn’t done. She vacillates between excitement because it is the end of the session and she can see what she has accomplished, and frustration because it is the end of the session and she can see all that she failed to accomplish. She begs to stay up late to do “just two more skills on Khan” and “I have to finish writing my personal mission statement” and “I really want to set my goals for Session 4 right now!”
Meanwhile, in the other room, our Spark Hero is busy writing “notes of gratitude” to everyone she can think of, inspired by something that happened in her studio that day. She brought home a gratitude jar with slips of paper listing things she and her fellow learners were thankful for – she took this as a call to action and wanted to continue her exploration while showing off her newfound ability to sound out words and write sentences. She is determined to “write 100 notes tonight before bed.”
As I shuffled from one room to another – reprimanding the dog who has also been busy eating a computer charger and ruining yet another ornament from the lower third of the Christmas tree – I think of how grateful I am for the “no homework” policy at The Village School. In the words of Ron Ritchhart, work is something you do for someone else and learning is what you do for yourself. My heroes are not working. My heroes are learning, and they are deep in it. —-Dr. Elizabeth Dean
The Village School is one of my Acton fan girl schools and this letter truly inspired me and I hope it gives you feel to trust the process of Acton. The final push of the session is truly about the mix of it all and sometimes realizing the journey of others is the greatest push of all.
Another gift by The Village School is their addition to our Acton tagline “learn to learn, learn to do, learn to be”. In crafting a portrait of an Acton high school graduate they breakdown each “learn” component and add “learn to live together”. This is the value of being an Acton affiliate school, we operate independently but have access to connect to those that have already walked as heroes. Here is the learn breakdown to give you scope of where we are headed.
Learn to Learn = Math, Reading, Civilization, Science, Health, Creative Arts
Learn To Do = Goal setting & reflection, Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking, Communication, Critical Thinking, Growth Mindset
Learn To Be = Curiosity, Resourcefulness, Self-direction, Resilience, Self-awareness
Learn To Live Together = Collaboration, Compassion, Accountability, Respect, Servant Leadership
Wishing you a wonderful roller coaster of the final session days and much strength as we journey together to support our amazing heroes ready to change the world!