Listening
What do you typically hear during a day at Acton? A bee-like hum of learners in flow, a poignant battle cry for help, goofball giggles, kind reminders, and conversations about the process of our many Acton systems. Hearing is the first step but as we’ve discussed with learners many times, hearing and listening are pretty different. Listening involves all of you, all of your focus, and your desire to connect so you can understand. Listening is hearing plus more! This session, our amazing Acton Guides and I truly had to listen to the needs of learners and had to offer a rippling change.
In truth, there’s a larger story here about our brave Discovery Studio learners however the story of their journey is not yet complete so in a handful of weeks I look forward to sharing their arduous journey towards a studio that oozes with kindness, teamwork, and independence. But for now, I’d like to share what we Guides heard and how we responded with our superpower: listening.
Tears, pushing, words of “leave me alone”, coupled with repetitive violations of the coveted Rules of Engagement were heard and felt by everyone, every single learner. Guides were tired, I was tired, and learners were tired of getting distracted from their work and not being able to operate as one cohesive studio, they were instead a sea of individual ones.
We asked Discovery learners to strategize solutions and we kept hearing “we promise to be better!” “we’re going to just do it!” But every time we asked for clarity “what does better mean, what do you want to do differently?” learners were at a loss and were overwhelmed with the difficulty of critically thinking about studio governance. This was tough, I realized that in order for them to strategize they needed more practice, they needed more awareness and skills. Our Acton listening superpower kicked in and with great flexibility we changed the Quest from U.S. Citizenship to Kindness. We had to listen and meet learners where they are not expect them to know how to get where they need to be.
Maybe our preparation for next session’s Coding and Robotics Quest rubbed off as we scaffolded learners through levels of kindness, Core Skill operation, and more. How can you level up as a team? Our favorite way so far, games! Games is a great incubator for growing kindness. Our rules: if one learner is unkind the games are paused for everyone, if one learner is kind everyone keeps playing and we hear the magical xylophone! Feeling kindness, gaining awareness of your actions and the actions of others is the first step towards meaningful change.
Whether it is an entire studio’s battle cry for change, the sharing of one learner’s dream to learn about cloning, the tears when a learner misunderstands, or the smiles of an entire studio at the end of an Exhibition our Guides are always attentively listening. Our eyes, bodies, and hearts say “I’m listening, I really care, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to help if you need.”
Listening is love.