How does it feel to choose your own educational challenges, including to accept the challenge of a real world apprenticeship?

Here’s a quote from this week’s Journal Contest, from an Eagle who last year attended an excellent suburban school:

“Public school and Acton are complete opposites. Now I don’t have to wait for my friends in Math. Now when they are falling behind, I can keep going.  Here at Acton, I can run freely because I’m not in a cage like Tweety Bird anymore. Now I feel like a Road Runner, running as fast as I want and stopping at any point.”

Here’s the same Eagle discussing “lessons learned” at his real world apprenticeship:

“The most important lesson I learned from my apprenticeship was to be patient and loyal, because when my golf teacher said: ‘I need you to do an inventory of our clubs,” I was about to say ‘I quit, because this is the most boring thing ever.’ But I told myself I needed to stay loyal and do it.

So I did it and the next time I had my apprenticeship I got to do a lesson on the course with my teacher and teach someone.

This will help me on my Hero’s Journey because now I know there’s always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”