Customer feedback matters a lot at Acton Academy.  So we continually question our Eagles about what matters to them.

This week Ms. Laura spent time in the Yurt asking what were the most important parts of AAA to preserve for the future.  Here, unedited, are the Eagle’s responses:

1.  Keep discussion time
2. Keep the Socratic method
3. Keep the students in charge of writing the guidelines
4. Guidelines – not rules
5. Have more interviews with heroes – people sharing their stories to us
6. Keep letting students work at their own pace
7. Keep freedom alive
8. Create a separate space for town meetings – like a council room
9. Have proof that we can do things in the real world – we can contribute and think and make good decisions
10. Attract more students – grow! Advertise with sweatshirts and lawn signs J
11. Get more space
12. Have more outside time
13. Don’t spend too much money
14. Keep the morning launches with great video clips
15. And of course, one Eagle really wants sports teams and a cafeteria!

“Power corrupts” is the phrase often associated with Lord Acton.  But what Lord Acton actually wrote was: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

There’s a big difference between the first quote and the second – the words “tends to” and “absolute” and “absolutely.”  Our Acton Eagles understand the difference, because they actively lead their own community.

Yesterday we elected a new Council, in accordance with the governing principles drafted by the Eagles.

Under the terms of the governing constitution, three members are elected; each Eagle has three votes to cast; there must be at least one male and one female on the Council; term limits are enforced and no member can serve a second term until every Eagle has a chance to serve at least once.

Before the vote, a discussion.  Which is most important when electing a leader: character, skill or charisma?  What criteria will you use to evaluate candidates?  Should the quality of the campaign speeches count a little or a lot?

Six nominations; six speeches; 42 votes. Each candidate had read chapter 17 of Machiavelli’s The Prince, and would address in his or her speech whether it was better as a leader to be loved or feared.

Pictures from three of the speeches below.

The new Council members each were elected by a one vote margin. In other words, we had no shortage of leadership material.

Next came the post election discussion.  Did you use logic in casting your vote? Emotion? Intuition?  Did you stick to your criteria or abandon them?

We celebrated the outgoing Council members, who will be passing along a notebook of “lessons learned” to the new council , a form of institutional memory, our own version of The Prince, a voice of experience to help in difficult times.

Then, a rich discussion about power, and why absolute power “tends to corrupt.”  What advice would you give to someone who wants to be a servant leader in politics?

If only some of our grown up politicians could have been there to hear their advice.

A group of self governing ten, eleven and twelve year olds.  In charge of their own learning.  Establishing their own rule of law and civil society.  Profiting from mistakes.

As a society, we expect far too little from young adults.  They are capable of great things, and these small lessons of daily life and community are going to serve them well when the stakes are far larger.

Lots of high fives in the room during core skills today!  As students sprint towards Thanksgiving break, enthusiasm for acquiring math skills is running high.  Several members of the class have passed the 100 skills mark on Khan Academy, putting them ahead of schedule for the class requirement of 107 skills by the end of 2012.

Diving into their Independent Learner Badge pamphlets, Eagles are looking to one another for suggestions about engaging yet challenging books to add to their to-read Shelfari shelves, testing their typing skills, and gearing up for the other missions they’ll have to accomplish to earn this very important milestone.

In art, more work on dragons while listening to stories of mythological beasts (today: Theseus and the Minotaur ).

MyHJ brought a lively discussion about flow- what is it? How do you know you’re in it?  Can you get into it at will?
A very special presentation followed the MyHJ work session:  one of the students chose to contact as a potential guide a former financier who lives on the other side of the world and retired from his illustrious career to dedicate his life to helping the less powerful – animals, children, the poor.  Ana gave an amazing, inspiring presentation, and even incorporated Socratic discussion techniques.  After a heartfelt round of applause, students commented that they felt as if they’d been in the live audience for a TED talk!

In project time,  Ms. Anna introduced Pavlovian behavior theory with a hilarious (and memorable) clip from the series “The Office”, followed by a brief intro to some of Dan Ariely’s work on behavioral economics.  Students were then unleashed to learn about tree diagraming and the principles of Bayesian probability.

Pairing up to play (and chart the results of)  Rock, Paper, Scissors provided a practice in calculating percentages, a chance to create and analyze tree diagrams, and a visceral introduction to Bayes’ theory. The debriefing session afterwards yielded opinions about whether or not one can “win” at R,P,S using probability and logic.  Jack explained the Bayesian theory beautifully, based on his own interpretation of his tree diagram results.

When does a young adult accept full responsibility for their own actions, and truly make (and experience the repercussions of) their own decisions? Today, the students called a town hall meeting to discuss two items important to the community, first a vote to revisit whether to mandate a full hour of silent work time during core skills, second a return to the stubborn issue of poor sportsmanship on the playing field. Important questions arose: am I being listened to? who do I ultimately answer to? what are the ramifications of error? who gets to decide?

The student council ran the meeting as a streamlined huddle, showing respect for all points of view yet honoring their commitment to stay on topic, avoid repetition, and keep it to fifteen minutes.  Grievances were aired, solutions proposed, disagreements weathered.  Perhaps a stronger community emerged from the wobbles of dissent.

The cold didn’t stop the Eagles from playing hard during their lunch break; a mentally refreshed  class regrouped for art, working on their watercolor paintings with intense focus.  Half the students introduced their drawn dragon by (often Latin) name, wowing their peers with the creativity and thought they put into the backstories for their paintings.

A larger group, including some Acton 3rd-5th graders, came together for more decision making at the end of day, as the Green Light panel reassembled to hear presentations from the film crews working on The Bandit and The Thing in the Dark.  “Asking us questions will make our work stronger,” one student advised.  Ellie did a fabulous job moderating, the presentations were professional and engaging, and once again the projects received green lights all around.

What habits can you develop, starting today, to strive towards excellence in everything you do?  The middle school students grappled with that question and committed themselves to developing the following four habits, put forward by their classmates:

1) Pay attention to details     2) Take small steps

3) Keep your mind on what you’re doing       4) Keep the space around you clean 

Reflecting on how well they stuck to that commitment today, Eagles gave themselves high marks for the most part- while acknowledging that, when a squadron of F-16s appeared in the sky north of river, most of them failed at habit number 3.

Sarah pointed out that habit #2, taking small steps, helps her as she reads Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  The language is “difficult but worth it”.  She disciplines herself to only read a few pages at a time, and digests before moving on.  Her journal reflection about that process (“Hardest thing I did this week?”) won the Friday reflection writing challenge- her classmates admired her perseverance and sense of adventure in taking on an classic written in the style of a different era.

What qualities make a presentation persuasive and strong?  After watching a few videos of examples of what to do/what not to do, Eagles came up with their own set of standards and tried them out at the end of the day when two film crews appeared before a panel of Elementary School  peers to present their pre-production documents to a student-moderated panel, hoping to get the green light to move into actual production.

The elementary students provided thoughtful feedback and raised important and challenging questions.  The crews were able to synthesize their effort, their genuine enthusiasm for their projects, and their ever-improving powers of persuasion to receive honest and unreserved GREEN LIGHTS to go, go go forward into production!  Congratulations on a week well spent.

It’s easy to make learning too difficult.  To focus too intently on curriculum or rubrics or teacher training, and not enough on the learner.

I’ve found that lighting an entrepreneurial spark in children is relatively simple;  entrepreneurial curiosity and creativity are as natural to children as breathing.

The experience doesn’t need to be any more complicated than:

• Make something with your own hands;
• Sell it (safely) to someone you don’t know, for more than it cost to make;
• End up with some extra cash in your pocket.

Case in point, today’s Acton Children’s Business Fair, attended by many Acton Academy Eagles: 97 businesses; 189 young entrepreneurs; over 1,000 satisfied customers.

Above – a picture of an Acton Eagle selling 25 cent chances to shoot his little brother with a paintball gun.  A double entrepreneurial bonus!