Town Hall
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” —Coretta Scott King
Every Friday morning each Acton studio member comes together for a Town Hall meeting. The design of this meeting is for it to be run 100% by learners. There is a Town Hall facilitator, an elected leader of the studio who fulfills this role as a job with great honor, and every member of the studio is required to fully participate with intense listening, respectful comments, and voting. This is Acton’s dedicated weekly practice in self-governance and it works!
A large portion of the systems at Acton have been designed by children, and yes the check and X system your child has been telling you about was 100% designed by our Acton Oshkosh learners two years ago. It began in Spark (before Discovery existed) and then in the inaugural year of the Discovery Studio two learners proposed a more varied beta testing. The system worked and these leaders offered the system to Spark. What is special and especially hard for parents is that this system is ever changing. Why? Because learners find fault in the system and call for change! They beg for greater responsibility with learner trackers and leadership teams and naturally learners feel injustice, bias, and want to tinker. This process is glorious, messy, and confuses parents but nothing is better than witnessing a Town Hall meeting issue be explored and then a plan develop, get implemented, and then finally evaluated a week or two later.
There’s so many stories to share of our weekly Town Hall but last week’s Town Hall in Spark was one for the record books! Here’s how it went….Spark’s “star model learner” facilitated the Town Hall and asked a common question among studios “What do we want to start doing, stop doing, and keep doing? Let’s start with what we want to start.” Learners quickly raised their hands and were called upon to approach the make-shift podium. Immediately the conversation honed in on Core Skills and improving the studio’s work ethic and management. “We need to start separating distracting people.” “We need to start giving more reminders.” “We need to start getting checks!” The Town Hall facilitator called for final suggestions and then shared “Let’s move on. What should we stop doing in our studio?” Learners specifically named offenders breaking the studio promises and provided clear evidence and reasoning for why everyone needs to uphold promises. After much discussion our brilliant Spark learners decided their studio should stop tackling, distracting, and fooling around during lunch and Core Skills. “What should we keep doing?” This one always feels good and learners decided they should keep working with materials properly, keep making great decisions, and keep following their star model learner.
After their plan was made learners discussed edits and made a few changes. Plus, they all voted that their leader should decide where everyone sits during Core Skills in order to support greater intention. Guides grabbed a white board and yet again were the Town Hall secretary. The model learner facilitator thought carefully. As learners names were called, paired, and placed on the white board seating chart learners and Guides nodded as if saying “that’s a wise choice.” Guides and learners were impressed, this wise 5 year old knew what she was doing! The facilitator closed the meeting “thank you for a great Town Hall now let’s get to work.” All learners quickly found their assigned places and worked intently for the entire Core Skills work period. Self-governance is the most powerful Acton tool.
Town Hall’s aren’t just for learners, you are a member of the Parent Studio community and at this week’s Parent Lunch Meeting I offered you this same question. What do you want to start, stop, and keep doing at Acton? Think what makes sense for you. I simply ask for you to take a moment right now to reflect or perhaps plan who you want to be as a member of Acton. We value your voice and await your paper in the Town Hall topic jar!