Last week I received an email from an Acton parent, Sara (Andrew & Amelia’s Mom) sharing her recent experience with lifelong learning and the value it may have for the Acton parent community. As I read her email her enthusiasm and honesty pulled at my heartstrings and today I’d love to share Sara’s words and the words of two other fellow parent travelers Devon (Sullivan’s Mom) and Rachel (Cordelia & Arietta’s Mom). Sara first shared these words and a fancy newsletter title that I just had to use, thank you Sara!

“Children learn as they play. More importantly, in play, children learn how to learn.” —O. Fred Donaldson

At Acton learning and play are inseparable. Learners do not learn facts to memorize, instead they learn stories and discuss how stories of history and current events inspire and apply to their lives. Here’s an example of magical play that we Guides stumbled upon this past week with Discovery Studio learners.

The allure of learning a new language is equal parts scary and wondrous. The excitement of something new, the sounds, the feel, and the curiosity is often enough to propel you through the lurking feelings of confusion, frustration, and doubt. As learners began Session 5’s Quest of Acton Español this week my assessment is that learners were 25% skeptical and 75% full of wonder!

What are your favorite games to play? Do you love board games like Monopoly, Candyland, Sorry, or do you prefer moving in Twister? Are you a card shark with Poker or the beloved Go Fish? Are you a Lego or Magna-tiles gamer that enjoys creative flow or do you simply love a classic game of Tag or the level 2 version of Zombie Tag? Do you prefer to make up games or role-play? Whatever your top choice game, hone in on the feeling you have when playing. What word best describes your feeling? Say this feeling out loud right now. This feeling is the main reason why at Acton we play games CONSTANTLY!

It’s simple, games are tools for learning. Games allow learners (and adults too) to practice sportsmanship, teamwork, strategy, critical thinking, language, math skills, deduction, attention, and to explore investment in process.

If you’ve visited a Coffee Connect, an Acton Exhibition, or if your learner is chatty about their day you most likely know about being a model learner. Just in case you’ve missed this term, a model learner is simply a learner at Acton who models everyone’s shared values of kindness, work-ethic, and helpfulness. Specifically in the Spark Studio, model learners are your go-to person that you take the lead from and ask for help. They are someone to follow if you are having trouble with keeping your Studio Promises or following the Launch ROE’s (Rules of Engagement)

At Acton, we celebrate these learners with “oooo’s” and “aaaa’s” as they exhibit model learner qualities. “Wow, you organized these cubbies without even asking, you are so helpful!” “You really modeled kindness and patience when your friend was frustrated, that must have been hard.” This acknowledgement is the best hero’s treasure and it helps learners feel the experience of building character.

Imagine this…You build a large magna-tile tower and a friend comes by and knocks it down unexpectedly. Later another friend grabs your material claiming the material is theirs not yours. Then, someone steals your seat when you get up to go to the bathroom. Another day you play a board game and lose by just one point. To end your day during a discussion you have a really great idea but you aren’t picked to share.

How would you react in these moments? Would you shrug them off calmly or would you unleash your inner red panda like Mei in the movie Turning Red? These types of moments happen daily at Acton and honestly they happen to every child everywhere. As an adult you probably have your very own version of small bummers that make you want to burst too! Since hard times can be frequent thinking about how you support your child’s journey is essential.

“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!

Think about a time you felt uncomfortable recently and then think back to many other times you’ve felt that way in the past year. How do you typically react when you feel discomfort? Do you A. Walk away or are silent forever B. Do you push through the difficulty with action or words C. Do you take a break and come back later renewed D. Something else or a mix of these options. How do you typically operate? Now think of your child, do they tend to react the same, differently, or do their reactions change depending on the moment?

Imagine this…Tuesday morning you arrive at school and notice yellow crime scene tape sealing off the Sound Sanctuary (music room). You are curious, you look through the narrow window and are shocked to see precious music materials thrown on the floor! That afternoon your Chief Detective invites you and the Acton forensics team to explore the scene in hopes of solving the Case of the Missing Music. The Chief shares, “This morning the Sound Sanctuary was found in disarray. Suspicious fingerprints are all over the piano, materials have been thrown on the floor, and important piano practice books for the Piano 1 & 2 badges are missing!” The Chief asks for your expert deductive skills to help solve the case. So, you and your partner put on your blue gloves, grab your magnify glass, pencil and notebook, and carefully get to work exploring every inch of the crime scene.

What is creativity? It’s hard to define and honestly understanding, sourcing, and radiating creativity has been one of my life’s top missions. Creativity like love is a bit of a mystery but you know when you feel it, you know when you feel inspired! Literary hero Elizabeth Gilbert defines creativity as the relationship between a human being and the mysteries of inspiration. As learners have stepped further into their Creative and Culinary Arts camp journey it has been glorious to watch them deepen their relationship with their creative source. They are visual artists, thespians, bakers, and all around creative makers!

The definition of joy is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. But what does joy really feel, look, or sound like? To me, the way I describe joy is it’s like having a small sun inside your body that slowly grows and glows allowing you to shine inside out and sometimes even shine and share your light with others. Your body feels warm, safe, and enlivened and your eyes and face are somehow both relaxed and at great attention. Joy is both the sound of a deep exhalation and a giggle. Joy isn’t just happiness, joy is a journey. The journey of not always completing the task well but wanting to try again, it is the thrill of leaning in to learning and improving. Joy is the process with all the mess not just the successful end. During this week’s Creative Arts and Culinary camp learners have been consistently joyful and I believe they are joyful and investing in the process because they have trust, choice, and perhaps a little golden light pixie dust.

Young entrepreneurial caterpillars have begun to emerge from this session’s business cocoon as gorgeous and creative butterflies. Just like a butterfly must first struggle to break free from their cocoon before they can fly, learners have experienced the ups and downs of creating. All week learners have morphed from the big eyed idea stage of their businesses, to the stressful startup phase, to now these final session days of racing to fly before the deadline. Your butterfly must go through this metamorphosis, it is natural, although at times scary, and above all thrilling. For reference, the definition of metamorphosis is a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means. Your learner is morphing, transforming, and is so bravely super!

Imagine this, your child is laser focused with determination and wonder as they problem solve with a friend. Could your child have found this state of flow on their own? Maybe, but often they find it faster and more delightfully when working with a peer or even group of friends.

This session Guides and I have been encouraging deeper collaboration between learners and the ripples of collaboration have inspired a wave of productivity and joy in the studios! Small moments of teaching a fellow Owl to operate the essential oil diffuser and assisting a friend how to organize the challenging Math 100 board material may seem small but truly these little things have the power to change a learners outlook in a big way. The ripple creates a wave, here’s how.

Imagine this, learners arrive at school and instead of free play they choose to get to work researching, expensing, strategizing, and producing. The 5 minute warning chime dings and multiple learners are unmoved, laser focused, and in deep flow—they can not hear the chime. They need a few taps and kind reminders that morning Launch is starting. Since the Entrepreneurship Quest was introduced on Tuesday this has been daily life at Acton. Learners are barreling into school wanting to talk about their ideas with their business partners or research how to best make their creations. The buzz of being in the biz is swarming!

The final stage of the hero’s journey is a hero’s return. After a long journey full of twists, turns, and challenges a hero finds their way home but they are never the same, the journey changes a hero forever. Just think of beloved Elsa and Anna in Frozen II (a fan favorite for many), they battled elemental spirits, searched for hidden truths, and Elsa was even frozen solid! After each hero faced their final battle they set course for home and returned the same but different. Elsa and Anna both found treasure in themselves, they found courage, leadership, new responsibilities, and identity. They heard the call to adventure, left home, and then returned as new versions of themselves. They were changed by challenge, changed by experience, grown by vulnerability and courage.

You see a food wrapper on the floor of the kitchen, it isn’t yours, do you walk by or do you pick it up? You notice a friend forgot their lunch in the coat room, do you remind them, do you grab it, do you do anything? Your friend looks sad, what do you do? A fellow learner is running in the school, what do you do? These are daily questions running through the minds of learners at school, perhaps you have similar questions running through your brain as you go through your days. Decision making is tough, but choosing if, when, and how to act is toughest!

Was the big bad wolf truly bad with all his huffing and puffing or was he simply a misunderstood wolf with a bad case of allergies in need of some sugar? How do you know which story to believe in the case of Pig vs. Wolf? What do you do when you see or experience injustice?

This week learners extended their journey of debate to the courtroom and began their judicial system education with a fairytale mock trial.

When you think about Halloween you most likely think about dressing up, assuming a different identity for the day or evening. This act can be thrilling, time consuming, and wildly creative. So, why don’t we dress in costume more often?

Dressing up is an act of play, a simple and essential part of life. Play is at the heart of every child and I argue that it is at the heart of every creative individual (everyone).

When I was in 5th grade my teacher gave every child a certificate, some for high achievement, for helping, and for me I received the certificate for why. A few years ago I reflected on this memory and for the first time realized that perhaps my many curious questions may not have been welcomed by Ms. Mallory and thus that certificate was a not so subtle hint that my curiosity was a bit too much for her. When I was eleven I was proud of this certificate and as an adult I can say definitively that asking why and being curious is still a core part of my identity. I am still deeply committed to why’s, asking why or how something works, asking why someone feels strongly, and I believe that asking questions is at the root of all people’s creative curiosity.

Ms. Mallory may not have loved my questions but here at Acton we thrive and celebrate learners and their abundance of questions!

When I experience an Exhibition I am always intrigued by how learners navigate the session topic but more curiously I love to witness the ripples and variety of growth on display. Last night learners grew in confidence, others grew in experiencing the pride from earning their first badge, and more seasoned learners grew in their ability to articulate the systems and democracy they helped create. Probably the most growth I witnessed last night, perhaps you noticed this gem too, was the amazingly brave leadership of 8 learners, the “Leadership Team”. These learners were chosen to be leaders by their peers and these learners truly shined last night. I am absolutely in awe of their bravery (some shy just a few months ago). Last night they were ready, prepared, spoke to a crowd with pride. They were proud leaders, proud of their school, proud to be part of the Acton parliament of owls! I am simply proud to bear witness.