Shift gears overmuch?  Your transmission will suffer.

So what’s the connection between a rotten banana and correct usage of the past progressive*?  What about a link between precise language, kindness, and a rather annoying buzzer?

Scattered and smothered are fine at the Waffle House but less than optimal for the pursuit of excellence.  At Acton, we strive toward holistic cohesion in our curriculum, though juggling many tasks is a real-world skill that also comes into play in our classroom.  Ironically from a guide’s standpoint, the task juggling unfolds quite naturally, while the cohesion requires a bit more forethought.

To connect the above dots: Eagles are working as Detectives-in-Training, learning valuable science as they pursue the skills they’ll need to not only solve crimes but also make a persuasive case against a suspect before a jury.  At the same time, they are creating their own mystery crime stories, using logic, artistry and their fabulous imaginations to pursue excellence as writers.  (* and brushing up on their grammar along the way- though a quick survey of adults on campus suggests that while it’s incredibly important to be able to use tenses effectively, no one actually cares what the tenses are called).

Underlying the “Learning to Know” and the vital “Learning to Do” is the even more essential “Learning to Be”, and a focus on character building and discussion skills permeates every “know/do” quest.  In today’s launch, we went over the new student-generated community standards and honor code with a careful focus on defining any potentially vague terms.  Terms like “scapegoat”, “cheat” and “bully” were hashed out to a unanimous understanding by the community.  Students circled the discussion back to the positive by brainstorming what steps to take to prevent negative situations from beginning/escalating.  At the end of the day, we introduced a new reward for our daily Kindness Hero, challenging all to channel their detective skills toward looking for evidence of kindness in their peers.

Throughout all of this, Eagles passed around a buzzer, to hold themselves accountable for accidental use of the verbotten “um”s and “like”s.  Hooray for excellence in discussion skills, but here’s one vote for Buzzer-Free Fridays starting, um, now.