Acton Essentials
A happy and thriving learner community at Acton boils down to two essentials and a little flair.
Be kind.
Do some work everyday.
At Acton, learners make choices every day and learning how to make decisions is hard work! The choice of being kind may sound easy but in practice is quite difficult. These early years kindness is as simple as not hitting others and not saying mean words. Then, kindness extends to thanking a friend, learning to apologize well, and not distracting a friend when they are involved in focused work. As learners grow we see kindness meaning goal setting, accountability, the fine line of jokes, and the eventual exploration of servant leadership.
Learning the habit and value of work is equally as hard but is an essential skill that takes time. At first, learners have small spurts of focused work balanced with a lot of creative play. Over time these small spurts in reading, writing, and math eventually turn in to 2-3 hour daily sessions of deep learner-driven work. Developing a work ethic step-by-step is invaluable. Once learners taste excellence nothing else will suffice!
Making the choices of being kind and doing some work are two choices that go hand in hand. The rhymes of Dr. Seuss may put it best for our learner-driven community.
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
The little flair we mentioned, oh, flair is fun! If learners are having fun and loving what they are doing they will soak up the world like a sponge and hopefully develop into a kind, hard-working, fun human!