A gaggle of geese, a murder of crows, a parade of elephants, or for our Acton Owls, a parliament of owls. Our owl mascot was chosen before our school opened and was driven by an inspiring art piece that lives at school, the fun O alliteration of Oshkosh Owls, and ultimately the gut feeling that owls are wise and young learners are the wisest people we’ve encountered. A parliament is also a democratic legislative body of government that makes and oversees laws. As we close our first session Quest of Building the Nest the word parliament seems even more apropos.

“How do you know learning will happen, won’t they just goof off?” “If learners are in charge of the school doesn’t it turn into Lord of the Flies?” These are the top two questions I am commonly asked about Acton and perhaps you are still wondering how the learning environment founded on freedom really works. The answer is simple, learners have freedom within a structured system of boundaries.

The soul of an Acton Guide is to ask questions but every who, what, where, when, or why isn’t created equal. Some questions are better than others because of their magical power to empower learners to take action. By definition the word empower means to “make someone stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.” This week our Guide team and I tinkered with finding magical questions that empower learners to claim who they want to be.

When a learner has a splinter stuck in her finger or when a learner is missing his Mom for the third day in a row and is at a loss for words I often ask “do you trust me?” Honestly, I need to know. I need to know what faith they have in me before I say or do anything next. I’m always so taken by the beautiful big eyes that look back at me and the sweet chin that dips down and up signally “yes, I trust you with everything I have.” It is this trust that I safeguard and it is because of this big-eyed and whole-hearted trust that I and all our Acton Guides are committed to reciprocating trust. We trust learners even in the hardest times.

We dream of the future, we make a wish as we blow out our birthday candles, and we throw a lucky penny in the fountain in hopes that our beautiful and powerful desires become reality. But dreams and wishes are hopes not action. We must take specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound steps if we want to reach our dreams. We must be ready and set a S.M.A.R.T goal.

Wise author, coach, and speaker Tony Robbins shared that “setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible” and this week learners took visible steps forward on their heroic journeys. For some learners, the simple process of identifying “what is my goal, what do I want to accomplish?” was challenge enough. For others the challenge was to flesh out all the details of what, how, when, and why.

“This is so different, it’s different than when I’m home…I’m not used to so many other kids!”

These were the honest words shared by a young big eyed Spark Studio learner this week. While everyone was in the midst of a group activity this learner turned and shared her observation with me and all I could think was —WOW, she’s spot on, yes, this is different! Struck by her honesty I decided to ask “Is different good or different bad?” She thought for a minute and beautifully said “I don’t know, maybe both”.

What has this year meant to you? What has this past year at Acton meant to your child? If you are continuing on your hero’s journey with us next year or if you aren’t how will your Acton experience be part of your life journey? What were your highlights, your challenges? Are you different today than on the first few days of the school year? How, in what ways are you different?

Sometimes, it can be scary to reflect. Did I accomplish all that I hoped? Maybe not, maybe so, but hopefully you were able to gain along the way. Give yourself a moment right now as an Acton parent and ask yourself some of these questions or perhaps others. Give yourself the space to reflect and hopefully honor the hard work you put in, the hard work of your child, and the hard work of our collective community as we embarked on this journey of the year together. Today we celebrate a milestone, the end of Session 7 but more importantly the end of our school year. During this beautifully, new, hard, but wondrous year we have found a minimum of 5 nuggets of shared treasure.

Our community is rich, full of experts, masters, and heroes ready to share their journey and experience with learners. This past April a very special and inspiring hero visited Acton and what developed was a fun, creative, and inspiring collaborative process!

It all started with a need. “We need art!” Art makes a space, a school, a home, feel lived in and inspiring. Rather than searching online for that perfect Etsy art to fill our white-walled school lobby we knew there was a greater opportunity right here in our community, a local artist.

What is a goal? A goal is something you set your sights on, something you want to achieve by working hard with lots of effort. Do we need to work towards a goal? No, absolutely not! But, it’s the freedom to choose to put forth effort and continually set goals that may change everything!

It only seems fitting that this week we celebrate our country’s independence and the ratification of the Spark Studio rules, in fact now known as the Spark Studio Constitution. After learning about the process of creating the US Constitution and how this important document has and can be amended, learners revisited their rules and took stock of what is and isn’t working and what freedoms need protecting. The result was beautifully messy democracy. Instead of 9 rules, learners amended and ratified 14 studio laws and agreed on consequences of breaking the law. All learners signed their name to their Constitution agreeing to both follow the rules and enforce the rules.

So, what happens when learners are given the responsibility of upholding their rules? You guessed it, conflict emerges yet not too far behind courage follows.

Remember the last time you saw a butterfly, what did it do? How did the sight of the butterfly make you feel? Were you surprised; were you inspired to look at the world with slightly different eyes in that moment? What happened after your surprise butterfly?

All week we’ve explored the process of pollination and all week I’ve been noticing the similarities of our owls with our very important pollinators. The way bees, bats, birds, and butterflies spread pollen is a lot like the way our owls spread joy.

What would happen if Guides were transformed into learners and learners transformed into Guides? Are learners equipped to start their day and get to work on their own? What would happen if a Guide was invisible? These are the questions our Guide team was wondering and in the true Acton way we decided to test our curiosity with an experiment! Here’s how our 3 week experiment went:

[Ka-ching]

“Please review your Acton wallet and pay any outstanding tickets with your Owl bucks.” [shuffle…shuffle..sulk..thrill]

“Yes! I have $3 bucks, I can pay for Fun-Friday!”

What are Owl bucks and how does our Acton money system work? It’s easy, it’s just like the real world. When you break the law (studio and work period laws) you get a warning and if you break the law again, a ticket. If you can’t pay your fine, community service. Sometimes even, we hold donations where learners share why they are most deserving. What can you use your Owl bucks towards? $3 Fun Friday activity participation, $1 getting back personal items, extra snacks and more!

What do you need to grow your brain? Food, sleep, sunshine, and something far more powerful, MINDSET! This week we’ve been exploring a Growth Mindset vs a Fixed Mindset and learners knew right away which sayings were growing their brain and which ones weren’t. If the concept of growth vs. fixed mindset is new to you, essentially, this concept has proven that word choice has a powerful influence on learning, motivation, and achievement. Words have POWER!

This Wednesday was one of those unexpected perfectly Acton moments full of questions, aha’s, and magical hero responses. During our morning circle our amazing Guides decided to ask learners a question “How do you feel every day when you step into the doors of Acton?” Learners responded “excited” “excited and a little nervous” “happy” “tired, because my Dad wakes me up soooo early”. After many repeats of “excited” and the like, we all agreed that when we step into Acton each day it feels special.

At Acton our mission is simple, for every child, parent, or person that enters our doors to find a calling and change the world. This is a tall order but we believe that changing the world can happen with tiny steps and these steps can have big impacts for our community, a friend, and ourselves. As a parent you may agree with us that our mission is pretty cool but it’s a whole other order to see it in action and to witness the effect our school environment can have on a learner even at the young age of 5. I’d like to share a heavy and beautiful moment that both surprised and reminded me why our work here at Acton is so meaningful.

At Acton, we choose public exhibitions over exams. Instead of a test, our Owls are challenged to demonstrate their knowledge and their quest for information through a creative event for an audience of their peers, parents, and expert professionals. Exhibitions can be an original theater production, a rocket launch, garden tour, or chess tournament. It’s important to know that unlike Core Skills where learners demonstrate mastery of math and reading, Quest work is a place for them to explore, collaborate, fail, try again, and ultimately have the freedom to discover their gifts and talents. Due to Covid, we haven’t held public exhibitions but today with more safety and joy we present our first Acton Academy Oshkosh Spark Studio Exhibition of Chess, the world of Acton Chesslandia. Since we are experiencing a first together I thought it fitting to share how Guides and learners have been reflecting this week and share how you might talk to your child to go deeper after the Exhibition.

Learning manners is hard! When you are under the age of 7 and your tummy is growling, setting a table, using kind words, arranging your food on your plate, and having patience for everyone around you to be ready to eat before you dive in is a Ninja Master level of difficulty. So, why do we have manners? Why do manners matter?

This week we explored these questions, practiced our top notch manners during lunch (and throughout the day), and learned hands-on how we might feel different when using manners every day. How did we “do” our manners? Well, of course we asked our learners to source ideas and come up with a list of what manners we most need during lunch. Of course, learners were spot-on!

The arduous journey of developing systems and community seems magically timed with this session’s Chess Quest. Developing Acton studio rules, climbing studio privilege levels, voting of peace keepers, and supporting friends with kind reminders have all been steps preparing learners for this week’s ceremonious event, the Acton Knight oath.

This week in Acton Chesslandia learners received the call to knighthood. The knight chess piece moves forward two spaces and then to the side “gallup, gallup, step to the side” (a fun new dance move for many). As we began learning about knights, their moves, their shields, and the qualities of a knight’s bravery, I felt stumped by why only the knights move in this interesting way. All other chess pieces either move straight or diagonally but the knights are complex. Then, my answer was found in the studio with our learners!