Processing the Mess!
This week at Acton has been messy. Literally the floor has been full of food wrappers, papers, binders, ribbon, game pieces, and even iPads. In the past I and our Guides have reminded, helped, picked up the slack, but this week we have been committed to embracing the mess. How will learners learn to appreciate their materials, their studio, their work, and their freedoms if adults steal their responsibility? If we adults at Acton clean up after learners and consistently poke them with reminders, are learners truly learning? Is the final product or the process most important?
The process of living in a mess is confusing and revealing. The mess reveals the work that needs to be done and paves the way for those that bravely pick up the pieces and choose to take action. Sometimes the mess makes complete sense and learners know exactly where every item is and what is needed. Other times, a mess is chaos and overwhelming. Truly it’s hard to know and as a parent and Guide deciding to leave the mess is my greatest battle.
In case you were wondering about the crayons, papers, or other random items on the floor during last night’s Exhibition, Guides and I resisted our expert cleaning tendencies and allowed the learners to be accountable for both the beauty of their studio and the beauty of their studio culture. We resisted stepping in to clean and we also stepped back during the Exhibition planning process. Both studios were 100% in charge of planning, even the Spark studio, and decided how their Exhibition would flow, who would speak, and what jobs were important. Everything you experienced was led by learners without adult intervention. If your child didn’t get a large role or wasn’t able to articulate their Quest journey to you, you might consider that the process of planning was too messy for them this time and you might ask them to share what was fun or interesting instead. Sifting through the mess of governance is necessary to develop grit and leadership and embracing the process of Acton is messy for parents too.
Our job at Acton as Guides is to allow the mess and allow learners to take charge of their learning. We do our best to support learners to track their growth from a novice, to practicing apprentice, to journeyer, and coveted master. Many learners focus on mastery but we Guides love the stages of the journey especially the beginning. The process is the magic. For example, the magic of the planetarium wasn’t a perfect model in the He-Art room. Instead, first there were many trials to erect the model, a successful hour of stability, then a reality that overnight it fell, multiple attempts to fix and finagle moments before the Exhibition, and then a final projector planetarium that was messy but magical full of the stars.
As you embark on a week off with your learner I invite you to live in the imperfect, I invite you to embrace the mess and wait for your child to rise. Will they notice? You’ll never know unless you allow the process, until you allow yourself to learn by doing, until you enter the unknown of not knowing how long it will take. If it helps give you encouragement, know this. I find the mess terribly difficult, I cringe and check my clock consistently while I do my best to say nothing, and when I want to meddle I make myself a coffee in my favorite mug that reads “embrace the mess” to remind me of what I value. I value the process and the magic the mess brings.
How do you learn? Do you learn by making mistakes? Do you learn by being told what to do? How do you want your child to learn? Do you share stories, anecdotes, or pose challenges? How can the messiness of parenting bring you and your child moments of magic?