In the depths of World War II, Winston Churchill reminded the British people: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” 

On December 31st, 2020 Laura and Jeff Sandefer celebrated “end of the beginning” of the Acton Academy network by turning over the original Austin Main campus to longtime guide Chase Pattillo so they could focus on the owners, guides and families in the over 200 Acton Academy campuses in twenty-five countries that the original campus has spawned.

We wish “Godspeed” to Chase as this post will mark an end to the original ES. MS-LP blog series we have maintained since the network’s founding, freeing Chase to write an ongoing history for his new tribe.

We leave with a deep sense of gratitude to Charlie, Sam, Ellie, Chris and all of the Acton Eagles and parents we have enjoyed over the last dozen years, and cannot wait to see what Acton learners, guides and owners build all around the globe.

Early March 2020. 

Like most of the world, Acton Academy Middle School and Launchpad Eagles were moving ahead with life, deeply invested in building cities for the Electrified Quantum Community Quest (The Electricity Quest) and preparing their “I have a dream for my community” speeches on such topics as, city zoning and planning; recycling; public education; mass transit and whether city gurus Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs were heroes or villains.

Then the world stopped – but not our Eagles.

Delivering on Session Five’s Electricity Quest

Before adults could spell “Zoom,” squads had reassembled with some Eagles on campus and others working from home, all continuing to wrestle with the session’s overarching question: “Are great cities planned or do they emerge?”

Eagles continued to solve over fifty simulated and hands-on challenges to earn building supplies, as tasks were delegated between studio and stay-at-home workers with a ferocity Google and Amazon would have admired.

Who was right about city design – emergent advocate Jane Jacobs or master power broker Robert Moses? 

As Eagles built circuits for their cities they pondered: was Edison right about DC power or was Telsa’s vision of A.C. electricity the best approach?

Eagles also had to decide which type of electrical generation to use – coal, gas, wind, solar and nuclear – and the costs and risks of each. The winning city would have the most beauty, the highest per capita income and the lowest cost of living per capita.

Did the Eagles pull it off? Just spend some time at their virtual exhibition and you can decide for yourself.

• LP: Electricity Quest Exhibition
• MS: Electricity Quest Exhibition 

Session Six: the Programming and Problem Solving Quest

The pivot continued with Session Six and the Programming and Problem Solving Quest and the Big Important Question essay writing challenge.

In the Programming and Problem Solving Quest Eagles learned how to write code as they pondered the overarching question: “Is artificial intelligence discovered or created?” and answered questions like:

• What can computers/robots do and why can’t they do everything humans can (yet?)
• How do different programming languages differ and how are they the same?
• How do I tackle large and overwhelming tasks or problems?
• How can simple rules or elements combine to form complex, dynamic behaviors?
• How can various technologies be combined to create new products that help people?
• How can I identify and fix something wrong in a complex system such as a computer program?

Eagles learned different programming languages, built digital games, and programmed a real drone to autonomously fly while using artificial intelligence to process images and machine learning to make decisions in a final flying obstacle course at the exhibition.

In the Big Important Question essay challenge, Eagles explored how the process of writing an essay can help the writer formulate and organize an informed, coherent and sophisticated set of ideas about something important.

Eagles used Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Essay Writing Guide to explore questions like:

• Does evil exist?
• Are all cultures equally worthy of respect?
• How should a man and a woman treat each other in a relationship?
• What, if anything, makes a person good?
• What is intelligence?
• Who has a better life – an optimist or a pessimist? and
• Is the modern University doomed?

Finally, Session Six also was a time for Eagles to identify and land apprenticeships like the SpaceX apprenticeship shown above, using the six steps that follow– not an easy task during a pandemic.

1. Find an adventure that matches your gifts and passions.

2. Do deep research about your target company and who will be hiring you.

3. Create a compelling email, phone and in-person pitch, each advancing you closer to hearing the magic phrase: “I’ll give you a chance to prove yourself!”

4. Craft a clear covenant between you, your employer and your parents.

5. Prepare to execute by showing up early, working hard, staying late and taking careful notes about who you meet and what you learn.

6. Follow up afterward with a thank you note and request for a letter of reference.

In the end, the virtual Programming and Problem Solving exhibitions were a big (virtual) hit. Check out the exhibitions below.

• LP: Programming & Robotics Quest Exhibition (website w/ video)
• MS: Programming & Robotics Quest Exhibition (website)

Session Seven: the Art Quest

In Session Seven, Launchpadders and Middle Schoolers remained divided between campus and home but connected as a tribe with multiple Zoom calls and squad meetings. 

All around the world queries poured in asking about the success of the Acton Academy “distance learning tools” – and we always had to explain it was our extraordinary learners and the culture they had built – not the tools – that allowed them to continue to operate at such a high level.

Session Seven’s Art Quest asked: 

• Are artists born or created?
• Can everyone become an artist or just a gifted few?
• What do all artists, from ancient cave painters to Michelangelo to graphic designers all have in common?

Eagles first dove deeply into basic drawing skills, from learning how to “see” as an artist; to using a pencil to draw hands, feet and faces; to the subtle techniques of shading.

Next Eagles shifted to ink and landscapes, and later to using color and drawing mythical beasts, as well as using watercolor.

 Finally, it was time to move to the business side of art: assembling a body of work; pricing pieces and preparing just the right displays for the exhibition.

Was the virtual Art Quest a success? You bet – a little virus cannot overcome beauty and creativity.  See for yourself: MS/LP: Art Quest (website w/ video)

By all accounts, the separate MS and LP Classical Physics Olympics were a smashing success, if a bit taxing for Mr. Egg and his friends, many of whom suffered in the pursuit of science.

The Egg-hibitions started in each studio with genre selections:

Middle School featured readings from the Hero’s Allegory Genres, Pilgrim’s Progress like tales of young would-be-heroes who venture out on a great adventure, only to encounter villains named Victim, Distraction and Resistance, each bent on thwarting the quest, killing the would-be-hero and throwing him/her into a fiery hell of eternal damnation.

Launchpad showcased excerpts from the Thinking like Richard Feynman Genre, where LPers learned to use the great physicist’s superpower of childlike curiosity combined with deep research to reveal connections between the simplest and most fundamental rules of nature and its most complex patterns, from the tiniest scale to the universe.

After the genre readings Mr. Egg and his friends participated in each studio in six thrill seeking challenges as Eagles competed to see which approach below yielded the best results:

• Trial and error
• Observation and Prediction (aka the Scientific Method) and
• Theory and equation.

Along with many other lessons, Eagles discovered the real world is messy and the gap between theory and reality can grow because of:

• A misunderstanding of the problems, definitions or tools;
• Inaccurate measurement
• Inconsistent units; or
• Other real-world complications.

Eagles also learned solving a large complex problem requires:

• Breaking the problem into smaller problems that are more easily solved;
• Solving those smaller problems with the right tools; or
• Recombining the solutions to address the more complex problem;

The first Olympic event was balancing a lever, so delicately poised that even a smidgen of error meant Mr. Egg would be crushed.  Next Eagles in each studio had to guess which mass would counterbalance a pulley system – one miscalculation and Mr. Egg would be crushed.

Event Three was the rolling ball bobsled, where armed with Kinematic Equations, Eagles chose just the right height, for just the right potential energy to overcome rotational inertia and friction to propel a ball off the edge of the table into a tiny, waiting cup below.

Event Four was a Static Bungee test, designed to calm Mr. Egg’s nerves for Event Five, his dynamic bungee jump into Lake Acton.  One inch short and he’s miss his bucket goal of diving into a river unscathed; one inch long and he’d crack his head on the bottom.

Before the grand finale, Eagles gathered for lessons learned, where several showed not only a deep appreciation for the difficulty of real-world science, but also an interest in science as a calling.

Tensions were high leading into Event Six,.  Teams One and Two were tied; Team Three close behind, Eagles had to calculate eggactly the right angle to shoot Mr. Egg to hit a small target more than 50 yards away.  Alas – Mr. Egg was not expected to survive this challenge.

After a hard-fought battle, the victors were crowned.  Mr Egg and his friends?  Let’s just say sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make a physics omelet.  

“Does power corrupt?” is our Overarching Question for the year.

No better way to explore this question in a time of pitched political polarity, than putting 1950s crusader Joe McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee on trial and asking: Are these patriots defending the United States against Communist subversion or An evil band of demagogues, trampling the civil liberties that make America great?

At the exhibition, middle schoolers dressed in character, taking strong stands, marshaling evidence and validating courses while appealing directly to logic or a fundamental principle of morality, each side attempting to debunk each other in a mock testimony at a U.S. Senate trial.

When juxtaposed against this session’s Gratitude genre, the exhibition highlighted the power and peril of a free society:  gratitude for all that we have been given, and a promise to defend freedoms – like the freedom of speech – so we can pass along our blessings to future generations.

Is money an objective yardstick, a tool to compare the needs of one person to the wants of another, as economists say? 

Or as psychologists say is it more of an inkblot for longings and fears, a way to compensate for the unconditional love they never received from a parent or that security blanket they never had as a child?

Whatever the role of money, when it comes to investing, should we see it scarce or easy to earn? A precious commodity that must be hoarded, or manna meant to make life more delicious, like a delicious dessert? 

In Session Three Launchpadders dug deeply into questions like these are they crafted Investing in My Future manifestos and money autobiographies with:

• A financial origin story: how they learned about money and who taught them;
• Favorite money myths and cautionary tales;
• Investment heroes and villains;  and 
• Personal investment principles/

The writing challenges complemented the Investing in My Future Quest to explore how to invest, and whether the pursuit of money would lead to a prosperous life or if the love of money would corrupt absolutely, including:

• The risks and rewards of various types of investments;
• The pros and cons of different investment strategies;
• Choices between financial times horizons;
• Tradeoffs between cash, risk or time more important, as well as the impacts of inflation, taxes and fees.
• Whether to put all of your financial eggs in a few excellent baskets or spread them out, in case you are wrong and whether it is possible to predict market moves.

At the Investing in My Future Exhibition, Launchpadders offered their money autobiographies; revealed age-old investing principles and pitched investment products and strategies to visitors, all to see who would invest real money alongside them.

The grand finale was a complex, real-world simulation where adults and Launchpadders competed over an accelerated twenty-year investment horizon.

Each Launchpadder this year has worked hard to discover a Superpower Skill, a gift or talent to be honed to serve others, not only to earn a good living in the real world but also to attract world-class opportunities likely to lead to a calling.

Our goal with this session’s New Media Quest was to offer an authentic glimpse into life as a media professional, held in tension between wanting to create something beautiful and needing to satisfy customers or patrons. 

Launchpad was transformed into a production studio filled with cameras, lighting equipment, and editing bays.  Every day there are creative deadlines, blogging prompts, and photography challenges. 

On the artistic level, Launchpadders asked:  Why do the best photos transcend the medium and transform?  What happens deep inside when you take in a captivating image? How does it change you? How the most powerful photos change the life of a community and nation?

As Launchpadders prepared for the exhibition, they had to weight artistic, commercial and personal goals to decide what mattered most:

• Personal satisfaction for creating great work?
• Selling all of your prints?
• Leaving the guests in awe? or
• Just having a good time?

At the exhibition, parents and guests browsed, asked Eagles about their creative process and bid on their favorite print in a silent auction.

By the end few prints were left unsold and each artist left with some extra spending money.   Yes, art may be its own reward but so is honing a potential Superpower Skill and selling something you made with your own hands.

Quick – what’s the most important skill for an entrepreneur: Sales, Operations or Finance?

If you survey seasoned entrepreneurs, you’ll find most agree that Sales is the most critical function. If you have an army of enthusiastic customers who vote with their dollars, you can solve most operational or financial problems. Without eager customers, your business quickly becomes a money losing black hole.

Our Session Two Middle School Genre and Quest was Storytelling: Websites that Sell.  Our Overarching Question:  “Does power corrupt?” fit perfectly, as sales skills can be used to serve or deceive.

M.S. Eagles practiced blogging, writing drip emails and choosing the powerful words and images to help move a prospective customer through the five steps of a Sales Funnel:

1. Increasing awareness and desire
2. Offering a benefit
3. Qualifying
4. Answering objections; and
5. Closing.

Eagles also learned to storyboard as a way of rapid prototyping and rated several free website creation programs, as each team went through multiple rounds of critique preparing to:

• Market a real product or service for a real business; or
• Pitch a “must have” item for the studio; or
• Sell something during Socrates’ time (which fits into this session’s Civilization focus.)

Learning to sell. Building websites. Two critical 21st Century skills.

Imagine walking into a social event.  You see an ocean of people, each with their own story, and an opportunity to learn, to laugh, and maybe…just maybe, to love through conversation.

Are your palms sweating, just reading about the challenge of talking with a stranger?

Then you must not have attended the MS Build-a-Tribe and Becoming a World-Class Conversationalist Exhibition.

All session long, while creating Hero Boards and crafting the covenants that will bond the studio, MSers practiced the art of conversation, even going as far as to strike up conversations with random strangers in a park.

At the exhibition, MS Heroes showed off their new-found skills in live interviews with Acton Founder Laura Sandefer and award-winning filmmaker John Papola; unveiled their Hero Boards and read the best in-studio Personal Hero Stories.

Get caught with nothing to say?  Not an Acton MS Eagle, because they have places to go and conversational skills to make someone else feel like a hero too.

Our Launchpad is a tightly committed group of high school-aged heroes, dedicated to finding a passion, forging genuine relationships, mastering core skills like reading, writing and math, and delivering world-class projects – all to find a calling that will change the world.

Strong knit cultures and world-changing adventures do not come easily.  A good reason for tackling the Build a Tribe & Free Agent Quest to boldly face the threshold into adulthood and committing to finding an extraordinary first job where they could:

• Use a “superpower” to earn enough money to survive independently of parents;
• Hone a deliberate practice that attracts fascinating opportunities; and
• Use the positive aspects of the REAL YOU to contribute to a culture.

During the exhibition, Launchpadders also demonstrated Heroic Interviewing skills with a real employer, showed videos of their Next Great Adventure (NGA) promises, as well as completing a badge and NGA plan for the year.

Finally, through exploring each person’s individual “Why?” and creating a Culture Deck, our young heroes wrote a powerful LP Mission Statement with a promise to build a culture Google or SpaceX would envy.

A message to Grammar Zealots: I understand your pain, since I hear the Grammar Zealot’s siren call from time to time.

You may be a Grammar Zealot if:

• Your own grammatical mistakes embarrass you or you are horrified when your children use poor grammar in front of somewhat pompous Ivy League-like friends. (If you don’t have any pompous Ivy League-like friends, good for you!)
• Spelling errors made by others annoy you, and/or
• You are overly proud of your own handwriting, which looks like wedding invitation-style calligraphy and/or feel slightly superior because your spouse’s handwriting looks like hen scratching.

Here’s the deal:

1. Good grammar matters – a lot.  If you use poor grammar in written or oral communication, many people will dismiss you.
2. However – and this is important – we have found learning proper grammar is relatively easy for young people IF THEY CARE ABOUT WRITING AND SPEAKING.
3. But most young people learn to loathe writing and speaking if a parent constantly nags or corrects them about grammatical mistakes.

So our goal is to encourage powerful communication, delivered with proper grammar through the following:

1. Provide your Eagle with exciting writing and speaking challenges that include a public performance;
2. Offer a few world class examples; a recipe or algorithm for creating the final product and gamification to make it fun.
3. Make multiple drafts, critique and revision a part of the process and arm your child with forced rank critiquing templates – or far better, ask Eagles to create their own criteria and rubrics.
4. Add a final green-lighting step where submissions with poor grammar are rejected, and the penalties for re-submitting work to classmates grow exponentially more expensive for each re-approval.

If you are patient, and reward your child with Growth Mindset praise, his or her fellow travelers will provide the community,  incentives and coaching that leads to a desire  to write and speak well, and individual critique and gamified programs will deliver the tools to reduce grammatical mistakes.

So fellow Grammar Zealots – if you have my left brained, engineer like longing for perfection — stand down.  Find something else to obsess about.

When a Guide isn’t launching, he or she often has little to do.  Unlike a traditional teacher, the ways in which a guide can intervene in the studio are strictly limited.

However, guides do observe how individuals and the tribe are progressing as energy ebbs and flows, in order to offer leaders and individuals choices to increase the pace and fun of learning as the tribe matures.

 Below is a diagnostic framework guides use to help elevate the tribe:

1. What are you observing in the studio culture, in terns of energy, intentionality, cliques, civility and attention to excellence? (line one)
2. Does the data from Journey Tracker and posted on the studio walls verify or cast doubt on your observations with regard to tribal leadership, kindness, effort, excellence or intentionality? (line two)
3. Should you trust the Eagles or take an action to inspire, equip or connect? (line three)
4. Since you likely cannot act on your own, who will you approach? (line four)
5. What is your time horizon for addressing this issue and when did it occur? Is it an immediate or long term issue? (line five)
6. What action are you going to take? (line six)
7. How will you deliver your message to the tribe? (line seven)

When in doubt, guides default to the decision the furthest to the left, which allows heroes to sort out the problem:

Beyond choosing launch topics and influencing the systems guides have control by covenant over challenges, badges, Freedom Levels and can make suggestions to Council of different productivity hacks or changes in studio systems.

Two other sources guides use to check studio diagnostic health are the You Know You Are Visiting an Acton Academy checklist and AA Levers of Control.

Red flags

Below are some red flags that might suggest the need for a guide to hold up a mirror to the studio, interject with a launch (without scolding); post or suggest a new process or system; ask Council or Squads to act or inform parents.

• One or more heroes falling far behind in:
  • Genre or Quests
  • Khan
  • Servant Leader
  • Reading and DB
  • Or badge plans in general.
• Ignoring Freedom Levels and Boundaries (Silent Core Skills; Collaboration; Phones)
• A Toxic Eagle or parent[1]
• One or more heroes (often male) banding together in a Peter Pan mini-tribe, where social standing and “being cool” are held as more important than work.
• One or more heroes (often female) who begin to gossip or act cruelly toward others.
• Boys and girls beginning to cluster together.
• A lack of interest in excellence, suggesting peer audits may be necessary.
• A general sense of victimhood.
• Evidence of distraction from video games or web surfing, in violation of the studio contract and Freedom Levels.
• Lower Freedom Level heroes who are showing little progress, clustering during collaboration time, with an approved collaboration card from Squad Leaders.
• Not following Rules of Engagement in discussions
• Eagle Bucks being ignored or used to punish
• Refusing to follow the processes, recipes or templates offered in challenges.
• Lack of participation or low energy in discussions.
• A clear and serious interpersonal conflict that goes unresolved.

Guides ask: Which “lever of control” do I need to move when I see a red flag?

Belief

• Inspire with a launch
• Remind heroes of the importance of their Hero’s Journey with example, role models and personal testimony.

Boundaries

• Protect personal space
• Observe broken windows and reset intentionality with a mirror

 Incentives and Accountability

• Post individual or group progress
• Ask Council for an audit
• Post or specify a process
• Request council to change incentives: ST/LT
• Create a special challenge or outing

Interactive

• Coach the Council or a Leader
• Ignore a behavior
• Deflect a question
• Call for a Conflict Resolution

A Warning Against Too Much Guide Intervention

When the studio is humming and the tribe is enthusiastically challenged, learning occurs at an amazing speed.

It is important for a guide not to try and micromanage the studio.  Guide expect highs and lows and try at all costs not to intervene, even if the studio collapses.  Rebuilding the culture is one of the most valuable lessons learned by young heroes, even if it is frustrating for adults.

Generally, it is better for a guide to step back and let the situation deteriorate.  When it gets worse, a guide should step back again and have faith that eventually leaders will rise up and want to remedy the problem.  When the leaders emerge, a guide can offer choices and encourage the leaders to assemble a majority of heroes who support raising the standards before taking action, in order to isolate and split those who do not want to keep the studio sacred, respect promises and invest in a healthy culture.

Yes, guides answer questions not.  But with the right tools, it’s easy to see how a bit of nudging (carefully limited) can keep a studio humming…until it collapses!

[1] See Adam Grant’s Givers vs Takers.

A Hero on a Hero’s Journey must be willing to scale great heights, even in the face of resistance, distraction and victim-hood.  Because it takes courage to find a calling in life, and to use it to change the world.

Is this asking too much, too soon, from preteens and teenagers?  Would you trust middle-schoolers to set their own goals for an entire year?  To arrange and lead a field trip?  Certainly not.

Except we do trust our  Acton Academy MS Eagles to self manage, self govern and lead. So, this week our tribe headed to Austin Bouldering Project.

Before leaving, MS Council led a discussion to craft a contract for the outing, asking:

•  “How will we  hold ourselves accountable?” and
• “What guardrails do we need to be respectful of the coaches and space?” and
• “How we will celebrate and enjoy each other?”

Our Eagles drafted a contract, signed it and kept their promises — and then some.  All without an adult in charge.

Heroes may not conquer every peak, but heroes do walk into a challenge, individually and as a tribe.   Because the strength of your character matters more than the view from the top.

The Chemistry and Cooking Exhibition was — well, it was an extravaganza.

• Why does hot sauce burn your tongue when it’s really cool?
• Why does a baked cake rise and why are some cookies hard and crispy while others are warm and gooey?
• How do you cook a perfect steak or soufflé?

Almost everyone would love to be a better cook, but becoming a Master Chef is hard work.  Almost everyone would love to know more about what happens when you mix two elements, but studying Chemistry can be SO BORING.

Acton’s answer to the conundrums above?  The Chemistry and Cooking Quest, where Middle School and Launchpad Eagles took on two worthy challenges for six weeks:

• Choosing a difficult dish to measure, combine and cook to perfection and
• Using the recipe and dish created to explain atoms, elements, molecules and chemical reactions.

Friday, each studio held a Chemistry and Cooking Exhibition: a Top Chef Cook-off and National Science Bowl Chemistry Quiz where teams competed to create surprise dishes while using models, drawings, simulations and descriptions to explain how Chemistry can help a chef.

A panel of judges ruled which one-minute Chemistry pitches qualified for extra ingredients or more preparation time as a studio audience cheered from the sidelines.

The better the pitch, the more points to construct a culinary masterpiece.

Science meets real life.

Deep science learning; practical cooking skills; teamwork and decision making under pressure — plus a lot of fun. That’s how we make science meaningful and enjoyable at Acton Academy.

Every few weeks we have the pleasure of hosting new Acton Academy owners for orientation.

At the end of our latest session, as we circled up for lessons learned a longtime educator and new Acton owner said: “It’s as if all my life I’ve been observing caged tigers, believing I understood them; today for the first time saw the magnificent creatures living free.  Free tigers are not the same as caged tigers and I will never forget the difference.”

Free tigers are not the same as caged tigers.  A nice thought as we kick off a new session.

Do citizens have a responsibility to provide feedback to others?

Middle School Eagles recently debated whether Council should review and rate 360 feedback, rewarding Eagles who provided a large number of high-quality reviews with more freedom.  In other words, an individual would earn a higher Freedom Level by caring enough to offer feedback to others.

After a vigorous debate, the motion was passed.  High quality feedback is officially a responsibility.

On Wednesday, the students from the Acton MBA were named by The Princeton Review as The Most Competitive MBA’s in America for the seventh straight year, and the Acton School of Business also won the Best Administered title.

On Thursday, as part of investigating the power of diagnostic frameworks, the Acton MBA’s squared off against the Acton Academy Launchpadders in an eighty minute, Harvard Business School style Socratic discussion.

For several days, Launchpadders dug deeply into the story of David Martin, a young business school graduate who in 1996 longed to open an internet cafe in Jamaica.   Preparation included using the Acton MBA’s Ultimate FIT Framework; Understanding Customers Framework and tools such as Unit Economics and spreadsheets.

Who won?   Use the this link and the password DWBH18 (just think: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”) and you can judge for yourself. (The discussion starts about five minutes into the video.)

In the end, the judges were unanimous: Launchpadders triumphed for the second victory in a row.

Perhaps someone should notify The Princeton Review.

Launchpadders have been on a Decision Making Quest, where through discussions, simulations and hands-on activities we’ve explored the best processes, recipes and algorithms for making decisions.

At the simplest end of the spectrum is the study of probability, where the outcome repeated, independent probabilistic decisions can be modeled mathematically.  Thursday night, we put the equations to the test with a Casino Night.

Launchpadders studied probability and the odds of different games of chance.  Then LPers  estimated the likely profits given the number of guests who would attend, each who would be given 20 chips and invited to play games for one hour and forty-five minutes.

Based on the estimates, LPers bid Eagle Bucks for the right to host a table of Craps, Blackjack; Roulette; Baccarat or Slot Machines, with the profits (or losses) from each table accruing to the owner.

After a night of spirited play, followed by an auction for prizes —  with its own set of decision-making lessons — Launchpadders learned at least one important lesson:

Play long enough, and the house always wins!

If nothing else, LPers learned never to wager precious time and hard earned money against hopeless odds, because in this case, the past history of losers in the City of Dreams will  determine  the future of those who foolishly tempt fate again.

It’s not easy to attract, equip and inspire parents and young people who care more about learning than prestige and comfort, and who are willing to stay the course when a young person stumbles.

Most of the world sees “education” as a way to “provide cogs for a productive society;” or “getting my child in a competitive college so I feel like a successful parent” or something akin to  belonging to a prestigious country club.   Since at Acton we care more about learning than education, arguing seems beside the point.

Occasionally, however, competence — or incompetence – is displayed in such a compelling way it’s worth sharing.  The chart above brings to mind the sage advice: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

Who ensures “excellence” in an Acton Academy studio?  The Acton Eagles, of course.

But shouldn’t an adult be grading papers, handing back drafts covered with red ink?  Well, in a word, “no.”

First, criticizing a young person for grammar errors seldom leads to a love of writing.

Secondly, a single teacher can’t provide enough one on one customized writing critique; and

Finally, an adult issuing judgment robs young people from learning how to offer powerful critique, which in itself buildings writing skills and enthusiasm.

So we trust young people to hold high standards, whether in approving a Genre Badge (for writing) or offering between three and five in-depth critiques during the development of each finished piece.

Personal Finance is this session’s genre, where each Eagle will face an opponent to  debate real-world  questions like “Is College Worth the Cost,” or “Should I buy life insurance?”

This week the studio was abuzz with practice debates and high-quality critique offered in small groups and in front of the entire studio.

At the end of each rehearsal warm/cool or Six Traits critique was offered to support rewrites and subsequent rehearsals, with comments like: “Strong  evidence to back up your points, but your tone sounded too combative” or “Your opening statement hooked me and was supported by compelling evidence but your closing lacked a clear call to action.”

Lesson learned: our Eagles don’t need an adult to hold high standards or improve their writing and critical thinking.  A peer is a far better substitute.  Because young people are far more capable than we ever imagine.

Eagles earned 126 of their 147 planned badges, with eleven Eagles one or above badge plan and many more only a badge away.  Bottom line – MS Eagles set big goals, held one another accountable and the results showed.

Today, the Eagles earned even more freedoms, including the  freedom for most to work anywhere they please and for some to collaborate with a wider range of partners.

To paraphrase Ben Franklin: “”You have your freedom, if you can keep it.”  In return for loosening the guardrails, each Eagle will have to maintain a minimum number of points this week, or return to their previous more restrictive Freedom Level.

Our lesson learned as guides: Rather than start MS Eagles with less freedom and ask them to earn it, it’s better to let everyone experience the sweet taste of freedom, and allow those who use it wisely to keep it.

Rewards first for all, especially when it comes to freedom.  Then natural consequences for those who need a few more guardrails to build stronger habits.

For years, Acton Academy Middle Schoolers and Launchpadders have dreamed about beating the Guides at Ultimate Frisbee, much like Cleveland Brown’s fans long for a winning season.

On Friday, following the Session One exhibitions, Launchpadders and Middle School Eagles challenged Tim “Too Tall” Nikolaev; Chase “Never Miss” Patillo; Ben “The Shack” Bazan;  Chris “Bulldozer” Fisher and Jeff “Steph” Sandefer to a basketball game.

Despite great fan support, much like the Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals, the outcome was predetermined.

After the slaughter (20-18), Eagles continued in a spirited contest with mixed teams of ES, MS and LP Eagles playing against each other, a fun end to a terrific session and keeping hope alive that one day the Guides will falter.

Acton Academy Launchpadders know it takes a cohesive culture to power a world changing organization.   But there’s a big difference between “knowing” about leadership and executing as a leader in the real world.

In the first two weeks of Session One, Launchpadders drafted contracts,  forged their tribe, delivered Next Great Adventure Boards, wrote a pitch to a magazine editor for their “My Life at 30” story and created music videos to celebrate the question: Does the past determine the future?

For the last three weeks, Launchpadders experimented with leadership tools and frameworks to see which best fit their personalities and the opportunities they want to pursue.   Last Thursday, at the Leadership Quest Exhibition, Launchpadders:

• Presented the leadership skills they acquired and tested to strengthen the ES or MS studios, inlcluding Mission and Vision Statements; Hiring Funnels; 360 Peer Reviews; Gamification, Rituals and a dozen other tools.

• Described a super-culture they had explored, like Google or the Navy SEALS, and how its main archetypal features fit (or did not fit) with their own vision, goals and aptitudes as a leader;

• Delivered their Next Great Adventure plans after Launchpad, with a focus on the mentors, heroes and industry peers they will seek out for Stars and Steppingstone interviews; and

• Presented How My Past Determined My Future at Age Thirty argumentative essays.

Which Launchpadder will lead a company culture fashioned after a pirate ship?  Who will build a non-profit with a culture that nurtures like a family?   Whose organization will hum like a well-honed machine?  Only time will tell.

But now our future leaders know how their personalities, actions and decisions can help determine the future, one world changing organization at a time.

Thursday afternoon Middle School Eagles hosted parents, aspiring Acton Academy owners and visitors for the MS Behavioral Economics Exhibition.

In the first two weeks of Session One, Eagles formed their tribe, signed contracts, delivered created Hero Boards, wrote a Hero’s Essay and created music videos to celebrate the question: Does the past determine the future?

For the last three weeks, Eagles have worked on Behavioral Economics experiments, from “The Winner’s Curse;” “Sunk Cost Fallacy;” and “The Endowment Effect,” exploring questions like:

• Do most people make rational decisions when it comes to money?

• More importantly, do you make rational decisions when it comes to money, and if not, should you?
• Are there reliable experiments to help decide when to ‘trust your gut’ and when to slow down and apply rational thinking, experiments that will lead to more happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment?

On Thursday, guests toured over Behavioral Economics experiments performed by Eagles.    One guest bested the Wisdom of the Crowds, walking away with a giant glass jar of coins; another irrationally bid $26 trying to win a $20 bill at auction.

At the end of the session, Eagles and guests shared “lessons learned,” debating whether allowing markets to work during a hurricane was moral or not.

Do rational decisions or human emotions determine the future?  Our middle school Eagles know it’s a question we’ll all be debating for some time.

This year, our Overarching Question is: “Does the past determine the future?”  We’ll explore whether heroes are born or made, how chemistry predicts elemental outcomes and whether political campaigns divide or unite.

We started our first week in middle school  Learning to Learn, Learning to Do and Learning to Be as individual heroes. In two weeks, we expect to be forged into a powerful tribe.

This week, Eagles dug deeply into a Hero’s Essay writing challenge, answering Who am I?; What do I promise? and Who do I want to become?  Each also reflected on how to overcome resistance, distraction and victimhood.

We also launched the Acton Network Film Fest, a music video competition open to over 100 Acton Academies around the world, as well as started drafting our studio contracts.

Friday afternoon featured our  Giant Hamster Wheel Contest, with teams of Acton Launchpad, middle school and elementary Eagles competing to conjure duct tape and paper into a contraption to propel the winning team across campus.

What happens when Launchpadders, middle schoolers and six year olds take on a difficult challenge?  Judge for yourself.

Today, over 100 Eagles competed to build hamster wheels to propel their team across campus.  The catch?  Only paper, rolls of duct tape and scissors were allowed.

Spirits were high, with Eagles using words like “friendship”, “friendliness”, and “teamwork” to describe what team would need to win.

Before long, hamster wheels started to emerge, along with proof of the power of multi-aged studios.

Cheers rang out; then came an unexpected threat of rain; some wheels began to self-destruct.  A few less inspiring words were exchanged as tension mounted.   No Hero’s Journey is without an unexpected obstacle or two.

Encouragement mixed with frustration led to new experiments and strategies.  Sometimes the best ideas came from the youngest heroes on the field.

Who won?  The threatening weather.  The contest was called on account of lightning. In the real world, unexpected setbacks happen.

The good news?  The debrief was abuzz with energy.  Eagles of all ages are even more excited to charge together towards the grand adventures  ahead.

Do you ever wonder if it’s worth the extra effort to be a parent at an Acton Academy?  If so, check out the post below from Laura’s Parent Blog:

On Being the Best Travel Companions

By Laura Sandefer

I am fortunate to be in Park City, Utah with the Launchpad Eagles hiking, alpine sliding, playing games, cooking, debating life’s big questions and sleeping on floors, or air mattresses. (They are kind enough to give us old folks the beds.) The ages of travelers range from 14 to 19 years old.

The Eagles planned and paid for every detail of this trip – with no adult intervention or follow-up.

I had my doubts. As we pulled up to the airport at 7 am on Tuesday, I anticipated at least one airplane ticket not being secured.  Yet within an hour, we were casually waiting at the same gate for the same flight.

As we landed, I wondered if they really had rented a van in advance. Sure enough – an Eagle pulled out the confirmation number and handed it to me. The reserved vehicle was exactly where they told me it would be.

And you should see the daily itinerary! Up at 7:00 am. Breakfast cooked and cleaned up by 8:00 am. Hiking trails pinpointed and selected. Restaurants researched and reserved.

While I’m here as a chaperone, the truth is, I am merely a fly on the wall. They don’t need me in the least and at the same time, they are not avoiding me. They kindly include even adults in their midst.

The chaperones keep looking at each other and shaking our heads in disbelief. These young people are the most capable, responsible, spontaneous, fun, engaging and fully alive humans I have had the honor of being around.

Not often do you see graduates return to hang out with incoming freshman simply for the pure joy of it. Not often do you see the inclusion of the youngest or less athletic or less vocal in a high school group. Not often can you trust completely that no one will try to find loopholes in an agreement or avoid adult eye contact. Not often do you see young people spontaneously pull out cards or improv games rather than cell phones when the inevitable delay happens on a trip. Not often do you hear so much laughter coming from deep down inside. Not sarcastic or dark humor aimed at demeaning someone. Simply joyous laughter.

Trustworthiness. Compassion. Kindness. Playfulness. Joy. This is is what I am drinking in on this trip.

These Eagles have learned over time at Acton what it means to show up with authenticity and courage, ready for adventure, ready to help each other. They have learned how to be trusting and trustworthy. They have learned to be problem-solvers and leaders. To top it all off, they have a politeness that is natural – even jolting – toward each person we encounter.

Can you imagine being the waitress who sees 20 teenagers storming into your section and sitting down for dinner? I saw the look of dread in her eyes but had no worries because I had heard the Eagles on the sidewalk before entering. One said to the group, “When you give me your money, include tip and tax. Don’t skimp. We’re not dividing this bill.”

The deepest compliment is from someone like that waitress who says, “Wow. That’s an amazing group of kids. Such a pleasure to serve them. Thank you.”

Giving young people freedom and responsibility all along the way in their learning journey can look messy and feel terrible as a parent. We cringe when we see our young children make choices that carry negative consequences. But when we give them this freedom early and allow for ambiguity, we really are equipping them to be able to make big plans in their futures and carry them through with maturity. They begin to trust themselves. They are fine out in the world on their own. And they are a blast to be with.

Young people with a deep reservoir of confidence paired with humility – this is the sight I’m beholding today in Utah. And this is what makes for a great group of travel companions.

The Middle School Studio spring ranch trip always is an important time for celebration.  This year was no exception.

Eagles started with a spirited team competition on the obstacle course, then competitive paintball target practice and a kayak race on the lake.

Around the fire pit, each of our departing Eagles received a ceremonial gift and our best wishes, followed by selected readings by Eagles, sharing deep and insightful thoughts about the importance of living every moment with gusto.

At dawn, we gathered to watch the sunrise, celebrating the start of a new day, the heroic Hill Country pioneers who settled Texas, and the blessings of living in the freest nation on earth.

Nine years in the making.  Countless hours of work by Eagles, Guides and owners.  The time had come to launch our first Launchpadders into the real world:

Ellie has been accepted into the University of San Francisco on a full Merit scholarship, but would be deferring a year to travel the world helping to launch more Acton Academies.

Sarah is a National Merit Scholar who will be attending the University of Texas at Dallas Honors College in Engineering and Mathematics on a full Merit scholarship.

Sager, fully prepared and qualified for a competitive university, is going directly into  high tech, with a “stars and steppingstones” plan for success and fulfillment as a video game producer.

But those brief descriptions in no way capture the depth of their characters nor the world changing potential we had gathered to celebrate.

We started the morning with words of assurance from Laura Sandefer.

• Their wings are strong.
• Their minds are tough.
• Their hearts are warm and open.
• They are ready.

Next we heard from each graduate, of lessons learned, lives transformed and grateful hearts.  Then time for diplomas and three individual awards, named after our Launchpad pioneers, to be given each year in their honor.

Playwright and entrepreneur Steven offered  words that will echo for weeks to come,  reminding us that real heroes focus on relationships and how we serve those around us by listening and being present.

Then it was time for our three heroes to cross the threshold into the real world, and new adventures.  Gone, but never to be forgotten.

Was it worth it?  Every single minute.  For the honor or serving Ellie, Sager and Sarah, with deep gratitude for all they gave in building Acton Academy, and with eager anticipation for all the good they will do while changing the world.

We are not big fans of standardized tests at Acton Academy.

Standardized tests fail to measure what we care the most about: grit, perseverance, warmheartedness, tough-mindedness and the attributes of self-management and self-governance that make our studios hum with energy and learning.

Even worse, some schools “teach to the test” in ways that encourage memorization and regurgitation and kill curiosity and a love of learning.

Did I mention we are not big fans of standardized tests at Acton Academy?

Nevertheless, we do give one standardized test each year, the widely accepted Iowa Test series, and we aren’t above celebrating the results:

In the Elementary Studio, curiosity and good citizenship matter more than traditional academic advancement, yet ES Eagles still advance 1.0 to 1.7 grade levels each year.

In the Middle School studio, learning intensity increases, and MS Eagles advance between 1.5 and 3.0 grade levels per year.

After a few years, the cumulative impact is apparent.  ES Eagles are 1.7 to 2.5 grade levels ahead, on average, while MS and LP Eagles are 3.0 to 5.0 grade levels above average.

Even more telling, between 38% and 60% of Middle Schoolers have already placed completely out of high school, depending on the subject.  Most Launchpadders have placed out of high school in all subjects.

Yes, the standards for most national tests are low.  Plus, our data is limited to a few dozen Eagles in each studio, so from a national perspective, it’s anecdotal.   Nonetheless, our results in the upper studios are understated, because many of the older Eagles maxed out long ago, and stopped taking the test.

While we aren’t fans of standardized tests, it’s still reassuring to see how well a learner driven community can perform, even when there’s no teaching to the test, because there’s far more important learning afoot.

There’s nothing bigger in Texas than high school football.  After all, who wouldn’t want to move from Westlake High quarterback to NFL superstar, like Drew Brees?

Except Westlake High School has 2655 students.  If you are the 26th best football player, or slightly below the top 1%, you’ll be sitting in the stands with everyone else.

At Acton Academy, if you are on a middle school or Launchpad team, you’ll get to play.    A lot.  Usually against people about your level.

Except if you are exceptional.  Then you play club sports or in the big leagues.  Like our graduating Launchpadder who is going to the US Rowing National Championships.

And guess what: she never even mentioned to anyone she qualified for nationals!

What would it be if elementary aged Eagles could participate in the Launchpad Foreign Language Quest – including taking part in after school activities?  Better to let you read the  answer from an Eagle:

In typical schools, students are divided into one grade rooms where most of their friends and acquaintances are with people who are the same age. They have limited time to interact with people who are not being taught the same material.

One of the things I  love about Acton as an Eagle is that I am given a chance to build  relationships with people who are both younger and older than me. Opportunities to be with people I look up to are made possible and I get to learn lessons way beyond the level I would be learning at my old school. 

Surrounded by Launchpadders can be both an inspiring and intimidating — all at once. On the first day, speaking up and talking to new people was not easy, but as the days went on, I started to warm up to the LP Eagles, knowing that this was who I would spend half of my days with now. The shift from ES to LP was understandably hard, but my brain eventually adjusted to the workload and I quickly got to make some new friends. 

The Foreign Language Quest, in general, is fun and a great escape from the loud ES studio, but the standards are much higher, so I get more work done. In summary, it is an all-around great experience full of laughter, stress, challenge, fun, and new friendships.

Does our new Launchpad Foreign Language Quest work?  Check out the blog post below from one of the participants and judge for yourself:

The Benefits of Spanish Immersion

Learning a language can seem impossible. In the past, I have tried to use programs like Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish, but it never really stuck with me. I could remember ‘Hola,’ but that was about it.

In the past three weeks, that has all changed. In a short time, I have gone from embarrassing sign-language conversations with concierges about getting extra shampoo to having a two hour conversation in Spanish. On Thursday, I was even able to summarize the first two seasons of Breaking Bad for my (very patient) girlfriend in broken Spanish.

How could I make such a leap? There is one reason: immersion. It is very difficult to get a grip on the language if you are not experiencing it. You won’t have perfect grammar or vocabulary to start, but you will start to get a hold on it much faster than trying to learn in a classroom.

The beauty of immersion today is that you don’t have to travel to immerse yourself. Thousands of Spanish songs and podcasts are at your fingertips, and Netflix now offers many of their popular shows and movies with Spanish audio. You can easily surround yourself with content in that language, and you’ll be surprised with how fast you catch on to the language.

It is also important to communicate with native speakers, most of whom are friendly and constructive when you make mistakes. If you can get through one or two embarrassing conversations, you start to improve. Speaking in that language starts to become fun!

Another great tool, which I have written about before, is Duolingo. Since August, I have used Duolingo to build vocabulary. When I started to get serious about speaking in that language, I realized how valuable that vocabulary practice has been.

Learning a language is actually fun and easy if you can immerse yourself in that language. Find a native speaker, watch your favorite show in your target language, and practice vocabulary on Duolingo. Quickly you will be able to hold conversation in that language!

George Mason professor Bryan Caplan’s just released The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money may sound polemical, but it’s a closely reasoned study, packed with economic analyses.

Kaplan makes a strong case America wastes hundreds of billions of dollars and countless lives by over-investing in an educational system that fails to live up to its promises, by almost any measure.  In other words, what we are doing as Acton parents in experimenting with a new model matters — a lot —  for our children and the world.

Some take-aways:

• The real world and humanistic value of traditional K12 and higher education is abysmal. Probably lower than you think. Close to useless for many students.
• Young people are smart. Most understand traditional education is boring and a waste of time.
• Learning to read, write and do simple math is important. But the real-world value for traditionally taught subjects like foreign languages and social studies is far lower, and in many cases next to nothing.
• However, employers will reward high school and college graduates for the signaling power of a degree. It’s easier for employers to use degrees as a proxy for intelligence and hard work than to risk being sued because you used an IQ test in hiring.

Yet, the rewards of degrees do not come without costs in terms of lost earnings and tuition.  When the costs and benefits are carefully measured, Caplan concludes:

• “Go to high school, unless you are a terrible student.”
• “Go to college only if you are a strong student or a special case.” Special cases include a full scholarship; majoring in a subject like engineering or placing a high value on prospecting for the right spouse.
• “Don’t get a master’s degree unless the stars align.”

Our heroes are different.  Our heroes will be armed with a strong work ethic; a hunger for a calling; a deep understanding of why civilizations rise and fall; real world skills and an armload of evidence from apprenticeship recommendations and portfolios that prove what they can deliver.

However, as parents we mustn’t neglect that for many heroes, the signaling power of a prestigious enough college credential, in the right major, obtained as cheaply as possible, still has value – or needs to be offset by proof of a marketable skill and deep industry knowledge.

My take on The Case Against Education comes from a quick read of a data packed work you could spend months unpacking.  I would welcome the observations of anyone who wants to dive into it more deeply.

Management consultant Margaret Heffernan recently made a case for reducing “pecking orders” in the world that struck me as interesting, incomplete and a tad misleading, with a dash of NPR-ish over celebration of radical egalitarianism thrown in for good measure.  So for those of you focused on studio culture, below are a few observations drawn from work at the Acton MBA and entrepreneurship:

1. Dominance Hierarchies are a fact of nature.

Pecking orders – or more stuffily, dominance hierarchies, seem deeply embedded in our evolutionary nature, from primates to perhaps 300 million years in lobsters.  Yes, it feels good to be at the top of the heap, and in ancient times you got the chance to spread your genes more widely.

2. There are two types of dominance hierarchies – and it matters a lot which one we reinforce.

Dominance hierarchies can be built based on competence and voluntary exchange, leading to the immense wealth and tolerant freedoms we enjoy in free market democracies, or dominance hierarchies can be based on power and prestige, more attractive at first to radical egalitarians because they seem “fairer,” especially if hard work and taking risks is  unappealing, but with a dangerous tendency to deteriorate into totalitarian societies (see the former Soviet Union; pre-capitalist China, Cambodia, Cuba and North Korea for the deadly side effects.)

You need to look no further than the salary distributions on Salary.com to realize that with hard work and a pleasant manner, being in the top 1% of some skill set provides more than enough income for creature comforts kings would have marveled at a century before.  Likewise, in a multi-aged Acton Academy studio we’re blessed by so many competency based “pecking orders” that each Hero can discover and hone a gift that will change the world.  Nearly endless pecking order opportunities, based on competence, in a civil society may be the magic sauce of Acton Academy.

Of course, this is only true if in middle school we can find a way to break up the popularity and prestige based Peter Pan cliques of boys and similar “mean girl” cliques – something we have not learned enough about yet.

3. Human motivation is far more complex than oversimplifying “competition versus cooperation” or denying individual genius.

Heffernan seems to suggest if we just “created more social capital” in organizations and paid less attention to individual genius, the world would be a kinder and better place.  I disagree.  My experience is that successful companies take on the DNA of their founders, and through hard work and luck succeed in the marketplace – usually for a short time before the creative destruction of the market offers customers better or cheaper choices.

In some cases, like investment banking, you are better off with the culture of a pirate ship.  In other industries, at other times, a culture Gandhi could love will prevail.  Motivating humans towards a vision requires a complex mixture of competition, cooperation and tribalism; intrinsically, extrinsically and otherwise encourage as shown by the slide below that summarizes the approximately 100 years of management theory we use to create incentives for our Tribe.

Our secret weapon for the Acton Academy network will be a continue focus on Positive Deviance, sharing clues and experiments, influenced by our own biases and hunches but proven and disproven in studios, until we can invent responses to various cultural challenges.  There will be no cures for human nature, but I’ll be looking to heroes like Juan Bonifasi of AAG, who I consider orders of magnitude ahead of me in these areas.

Lots to read on this – of course – by I’ve found Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life to have some challenging, if politically controversial insights.  Likewise, the work of Nassim Taleb, most recently in Skin in the Game.

Now on to more positive deviance!

Kudos to Launchpadders for pioneering a new way to master a foreign language.

Despite A’s in high school and college Spanish, the title above is courtesy of Google translate.  Transcripts notwithstanding, like most traditional students I never mastered a foreign language and dreaded the classes.

Our Launchpadders — plus two elementary Eagles who have joined the Foreign Language Quest — are choosing a different path.  Without a teacher, they are learning to speak Spanish by  — speaking Spanish.   Armed with tools like Duolingo and Modern States, Launchpadders fearlessly engage with native speaking peers on sites like WeSpeke, accepting a bit of early grammatical stumbling as a way to make friends and learn about different cultures.

How is it going?  Here’s what our customers report:

• I love that we immediately started speaking Spanish.
• I really like how Duolingo lets you move at your own pace.
• My favorite thing has been the launches where we’ve been forced to take ourselves out of our comfort zone with improvisation – in Spanish.
• Benny Lewis’ tools have been super helpful for beginning to “hack” my way to fluency. 

And let’s not forget that Launchpadders who pass the CLEP test at the end of the Foreign Language Quest may earn up to nine hours of college credit.

Viva la revolution!

Our Session Six MS Embracing Life and Facing Death Quest asks: “Is death the final authority in a Hero’s life?”

As someone who recently faced the deaths of a father-figure, a sister and a dear friend, it’s a minefield of uncomfortable thoughts, emotions and questions; hidden lines seldom noted in a world where many die alone, in an empty room full of buzzing machines:

• Social taboos
• Spiritual and existential questions
• Highly personal questions about the transfer of intergenerational wealth.
• Many, many topics seldom broached in polite company.

This morning, our MS launch showed a picture of a 13-year-old, tragically killed this week in a car wreck. The questions: What if this had been you? What three words would you want on your headstone, in what order? Who would read your eulogy and what would you want it to say?  Did we cross the line by making death so personal?

Next week, Eagles will haggle over funeral prices, taking advantage of economic disruptions so they aren’t taken advantage of by unscrupulous operators.  Will we cross the line by mixing money and grief?

A week later, Eagles will role play whether or not to withdraw life-support from a dying parent, with real life intra-family battles over childhood wounds and future wealth transfer.  Will we cross the line by raising questions that could go unasked for another decade?

Late in the Quest, Eagles will visit a hospice, and with permission, discuss life and death with someone who knows his or her time on this earth is nearing an end.  Will we cross the line by asking too much emotional maturity from MS Eagles? 

Eagles and parents may opt out of any topic or challenge; we trust them to draw the right lines for their families.  But important questions, once raised, are seldom forgotten.  That’s why we want heroes intent on fully embracing life to start asking them as soon as possible.

Dr. Gregory House lorded over the fictional Princeton Plainview Hospital as a Sherlock Holmes-like diagnostic genius on the television show House M.D.  Time after time, House would find just the right clue to solve the case; except when he failed and the patient died!

For the last five weeks our Middle School Eagles have stood in the shoes of Dr. House,  diving deeply into subtleties of diagnostic medicine, building models of the various systems of the body (Respiratory; Circulatory; Digestive; Nervous; Endocrine; Skeletal-Muscular and more); while at the same time devouring the latest medical research on a disease of their choosing.

On Friday it was time for the Medical Quest Exhibition, where parents, new Acton Academy owners from around the world and other invited guests became patients in a three-act play addressing: “Who is the ultimate authority of a Hero’s health: you or your doctor?”

Act I: Research Funding Pitches: Each Eagle became a leading medical researcher pitching for funding, describing the latest scientific breakthroughs in a devastating disease like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

Pitches were designed for a specific set of funders: National Institute of Health Director Francis Collins; Gates Foundation CEO Susan Hellman; Billionaire medical philanthropist John Huntsman or an individual investor participating through a crowd sourcing website.

The Eagle researcher who captured the percentage of funding from its target audience, represented by parents and other exhibition visitors, would be crowned the winner in each category.

Act II: Bodily System Stories and Displays:  Teams of four to five Eagles chose one of the human body systems and created a work of art (photos; videos or sculptures) to bolster an interactive story telling session about the function and care of that particular system.

Act III: The Medical Diagnosis Challenge: The final challenge was our main event, as teams of Eagle doctors diagnosed patients played by parents and Acton Academy owners who had been armed with difficult cases, subtle symptoms and even a few  false clues.

For the last five weeks our middle school Eagles tackled the same interactive games, videos and simulations used by nurses, doctors and emergency room technicians. Tasks included honing observational skills; practicing patient-centered questioning; exploring common cognitive biases and interpreting blood tests; CAT scans; X-rays and a host of other diagnostic tools, as well as collaborating to convert patient clues and tests into a differential diagnosis – just like Dr. House.

Many of the cases were perplexing: Did the patient have heartburn or was she moments away from a massive heart attack or a pulmonary embolism? Was stiffness in a shoulder a muscle strain or the beginning of septic arthritis? Did fever and stomach pain mean the flu, or the early stages of an Ebola-like epidemic?

Each minute of diagnosis cost $100; each test cost between $150 and $1,500, with an additional charge for an expert interpretation . A correct diagnosis was worth $10,000; if your patient died, the hospital was charged $20,000 in additional insurance fees. The winner would deliver the most effective health care for the lowest cost.

Our mock patients were dramatic, collapsing in pain; fainting and providing a host of subtle clues, some true; others leading to dead ends. The Eagles used well planned protocols and online symptom checkers to sort through aches, pains and test results and come up with a diagnosis.

Then, without warning, the game became much harder.

The lights of the flickered and then, an announcement: “The city has just been struck by a hurricane and our internet access has failed.” Now the Eagles had to rely on old fashioned logic.

A few minutes later, the PA system boomed again: “We’ve received word of a major train wreck. Prepare for the Emergency Room to be swamped. You may no longer see patients one at a time but instead have no more than 30 seconds to triage every injured or ill person.“

Even the best teams were stretched to the limit.

Finally, it was time to bring the exhibition to an end. A satisfied but weary group of middle school and Launchpad Eagles gathered for “lessons learned” and hard earned praise.

Study biology in a textbook? Not our style.  It’s far more powerful and more fun to learn biology through applying 21^st Century Skills you may need in the real world, to solve your own medical challenges.

Our Eagles emerged with a deep appreciation for the skill and dedication of doctors and nurses, and now are armed to become co-creators of a healthier future.

Perhaps a few will become doctors, nurses or medical researchers – all because of a few weeks of hard work, deep concentration and dedicated teamwork – and one putting real world learning to the test.

We love to encourage a love of reading in Eagles, even if it starts with a comic book.

Eagles who begin with Calvin and Hobbes before long pick up Harry Potter and eventually are deep into War and Peace or Anna Karenina.

In order to qualify for a Deep Book badge, a book must be  nominated and approved by Eagles, who follow a protocol for identifying “life-changing and world-changing books.”  Here’s the latest Deep Book list from Middle School and Launchpad.

Encourage curiosity.  Allow choice.  Celebrate excellence in a self-paced environment.  Three of the secrets of a learner-driven community, serving heroes who someday will change the world.

During Session Four, Eagles stepped into the shoes of over thirty Biology heroes, experiencing firsthand the courage it takes to demolish scientific paradigms in a search for truth, and move from the discovery phase of science to invention and then to innovation to transform ideas into tangible advances.

At the Biology Quest Exhibition, we celebrated the evolutionary creativity Eagles showed in delivering experiments about Cells, Plants, Animals, Humans and Biospheres, while exploring whether an apprenticeship with a paradigm buster, a puzzle solver or a data gathering type of scientist seemed to best match each Eagle’s passions.

Eagles also took part in a Biology Bee to show how much they had learned about the natural world.

After all, the goal of learning about science at Acton Academy isn’t to simply repeat some tired historical experiments or memorize facts, but to use deep insights into nature as a way to change the world.

Let’s face it.  Freshman college Biology often serves as a “weed out” course designed to identify those who aren’t prepared for rigorous university-level work.

So, it was a risky challenge for our Launchpadders to attempt to earn six hours of college credit in five weeks, while still maintaining full responsibility for reading deep books, writing a difficult genre piece, keeping up with Khan Academy math and civilization and tackling real world Acton MBA challenges for their Next Great Adventure.

At first, Launchpadders took the CLEP test preparation in stride, digging into Khan Academy, Bozeman, Crash Course and Modern States videos, all while devouring a college-level biology textbook.  After a practice test or two, the intensity picked up as deep Socratic discussions and Eagle led review sessions were added.

This morning, eight brave Launchpadders headed for the testing center, credentials in hand.  When the test results came in, four of the eight had passed with flying colors and the other four within 1 to 3 points of passing

Yes, traditional tests often are a collection of useless minutia.  Yes, there are far better ways of learning how biology can advance your Hero’s Journey than a standardized test.  But now our Launchpadders know they can deliver first-rate university work – in their spare time.

Three cheers for the heroes of Launchpad!

We struggle mightily with middle school studio culture day to day.

Sometimes it helps to realize that no matter how many times we misstep, an Acton studio works in the long run. Period.

Today we received this note from a parent:

I was reviewing an independent essay my son wrote for an academic audition. What 8th grader can whip out a 500 word piece like that in one day, completely unguided and without any pre-draft collaboration, while surrounded by a big group of middle school friends? 

 Acton Academy has prepared him for life in ways that other schools would never consider. The fact that he’s been able to traverse the bureaucracy, identify the deliverables, use Google Docs and scanners to compile everything together, and submit on time without almost any help is truly remarkable.

Hats off.

Later, his uncle added:  Not exaggerating, that essay would get a perfect score on the GMAT essay section.

Be patient.  Acton Academy works in the long run.

Okay, so dissecting frogs’ legs is a bit old school.  But who wouldn’t want to open up nature and take a look inside?

Today Middle Schoolers and Launchpadders joined in the first of a series of hands-on experiments for the Biology Quest.

The overwhelming response was summed up by an Eagle: “Way cool!”

This year’s overarching question at Acton Academy is: When does a hero submit to authority?

 What rules your daily actions and thoughts:

• Your Conscious Mind,
• Your Unconscious Mind or
• The narratives deeply ingrained by your culture and upbringing?

During the Psychology Quest and Self Authoring genre, Launchpadders tried to answer this question as they:

• Explored different schools of psychology, including:
  • Behaviorism and BF Skinner – “We are like rats in a maze. Forget emotions, focus on decisions and actions.”
  • Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud – “We are driven by our unconscious mind.”
  • Humanism and Abraham Maslow. – “We are driven by our needs as a whole person.”
  • Cognitive psychology and Ulric Neisser – “We primarily react to the processes that govern thinking and feeling in the brain.”

• Dug deeply into the work of Jordan Peterson and how myths shape our views and actions.

• Wrote introspectively on the Self Authoring Project about how past narratives, current values and future dreams shape our thoughts and actions.

• Selected one of the moral frameworks below, and tried to live consistently by its tenets, day after day:
  • Utilitarian – act in a calculated way to bring the most happiness to the largest number of people, even if it isn’t just, right (virtuous) or loving.
  • Justice/Fairness – treat everyone the same way, by the same set of rules, even if it leads to more unhappiness in more people, isn’t right (virtuous) or loving.
  • Virtuous – do the right thing, upholding a major virtue (name it), even if it leads to more unhappiness in more people, isn’t just or loving.
  • Judeo-Christian – always act in a loving way towards others, even if tough love is needed, even if it leads to more unhappiness in more people, isn’t just or right (virtuous).

• Performed hands on experiments and deep Socratic Discussions about good and evil, including:
  • Dreams and dream analysis;
  • Lucid Dreams;
  • Active Imagination;
  • Shadow Work; and
  • The Bandana and Stanford Prison experiments.

In the end, LP Eagles voted not to hold an exhibition, because so many of the lessons learned were intimate and personal.

If you want to see the morals of our next generation being formed in real time, the final discussion of the session is well worth watching.

In middle school this session, we reenacted the Trial of Socrates.

While we had a serious focus on Greek Civilization, even more energy was injected into the art and science of logic and rhetoric, including Socratic Smackdowns, Finding Fallacies and other challenges designed to arm Eagles with better argumentative skills (our apologies to parents!)

Eagles also explored the power of archetypes, as they rode the line between truth and fiction to craft their own Greek Myths.

Our exhibition featured not one, but two reenactments of Socrates’ Trial.

The verdict?  Two separate courts found Socrates innocent of corrupting the youth, believing in false Gods, and “promoting the Rule of 30” by narrow margins.  Strong arguments on the part of the defense and prosecution left the jury questioning whether history got it right or not!

At the end of the trial, Eagles shared the following “lessons learned:”

• The Exhibition showed who prepared and who didn’t, especially when it came to questioning Socrates (parents – it’s also well worth noting the Session 360’s that show how much effort your Eagle is investing in quests.)
• Democracy means different things to different people.  For some, it is simply not having a dictator; others see it as all citizens having equal powers.
• Session Three is not a ‘holiday session’ but just as challenging and tough as other sessions.
•  Ancient Athens was not a democracy in the modern sense because many did not have the right to vote.
•  Because so few had the right to vote, and it was done in person, it was harder to rig an election.
•  It’s much harder to craft a powerful, short myth than it first appears.

The power of logic and evidence.  Using Ethos, Pathos and Logic to win the day.  The power of myth to shape lives, in ancient times and today.

Quite a lot of learning in a three week period!

Holidays are a time for reflection, gratitude and surveying the horizon for new opportunities.

Bernard Bull is a deep thinker and respected voice in the education world, with over 200,000 followers.  Last night, Bernard called Acton Academy “one of the most important educational stories in our generation.”

We know better than to read our own press clippings.  We understand how much work remains to be done.  We also know each of us, and each of our heroic families has been given a great gift, the chance to make a real difference in the world, individually and together.

Middle School is one example of how much work remains. Thanks to the genius of Maria Montessori, Socrates, Sal Khan and others, we have a robust elementary studio model on which to build.  Middle school is an entirely different world, where we still face challenges.

The Peter Pan Syndrome in young boys (and some girls) is a real one, embedded deeply into the human archetype.  We won’t “solve” it, because it’s not a solvable problem, or Lord of the Flies and Pinocchio wouldn’t still be classics.  My bet is we’ll discover a vessel and structure to allow many middle school aged heroes and families to grow.

Laura and I are deeply grateful to have each of the Acton Eagles and parents in our lives.  We know it’s a gift.  So we hope after this coming week you get some well deserved rest over the holidays, and come back refreshed for more discoveries and challenges in 2018.

Do you have a bucket list – a list of exotic locales you’d like to see before you die?

Well, the middle school and Launchpad Eagles have a bucket list.  Plus, they know how to plan a trip to each place, whether it’s a bare bones visit, a luxury adventure or something in between.

Even more importantly, if our Eagles are called to write and deliver a world-changing speech – they know how to do that too!

During Session Two, MS and LP Eagles selected a historical hero – like Winston Churchill.  Then each wrote an eight to ten minute speech in the voice of their hero  and chose a city somewhere in the world to deliver it.

Eagles dug deeply into speech preparation and delivery by identifying the needs of an audience, crafting memorable taglines and hooks, calling an audience to action and, of course, watching dozens of world-class speeches.

Next came the task of planning the trip, including:

• Detailed itineraries and budgets (at various prices) to the city where they delivered their speeches;
• A list of favorite travel apps;
• Google Earth tours, and
• A bucket list of places to visit around the world and in Texas.

At the Exhibition, we saw powerful renditions of historical and modern politicos, social activists, artists and entrepreneurs, including: Thomas Jefferson advocating for the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the delegates of the Thirteen Colonies in Philadelphia and Mahatma Gandhi calling an audience of Indian citizens to peaceful protest near Ahmedabad. Leonardo Da Vinci even made an appearance!

Eagles also pitched their travel planning services to visitors, banding together to form travel agencies, and the agency that generated the most revenue won.

Strategy was key. Would the winner sell high-priced travel planning services to a few customers or low-priced travel planning services to as many customers as possible? Did it make more sense to spend a significant amount of time with each prospective customer or as little time as possible?

Our winner, AA Travel Solutions, found success by qualifying customers early and selling luxury travel planning services.

After the Exhibition, Eagles gathered for lessons learned where they showed a deep appreciation for the difficulty of delivering an eight-minute speech and a newfound respect for the art of trip planning and sales.

Specific lessons learned included:

• Eight minutes is a long time. Speak slowly.  
• Customers are fickle. I had someone talk to me for 10 minutes and not buy anything!
• Every business begins with a customer need. Once I learned we were selling our travel planning services, I really had to change the way I thought about my budgets and itineraries.

Powerful take-aways for Eagles who will soon be running businesses and delivering their own world-changing speeches.

Education Guru Bernard Bull thoughtfully featured Acton Academy in his latest blog post: Show Me What You Measure in Your School, and I’ll Tell You What You Value (if you care about young people and innovative learning, Bernard’s blog is a must read!)

Bernard reminded me what we measure and why at Acton to deliver on our promise to inspire each person who enters our doors to find a calling that will change the world.

1. Weekly Points to encourage hard work;
2. Badges to celebrate excellence; and
3. 360 Peer Reviews to strengthen warm hearted and tough-minded habits that lead to healthier relationships.

Work hard, strive for excellence and treat others with respect.  Three key ingredients for a hero on a Hero’s Journey.

If you want to enjoy some Acton Academy laughs, check out Amanda and Jack Go Glamping,  a lighthearted romantic comedy featuring Chris Carpenter as an Acton-like Lord of the Flies character.  Every few minutes, I found myself chuckling at a reference to badges, SMART goals or another Acton ritual.

Chris has worked hard on his acting, directing and filmmaking skills, and it shows, both in his starring roles in various local productions and his work in  Amanda and Jack Go Glamping.  He’s a real pro.

The indie film – which can be found on Amazon or I-tunes or select local theaters — is directed by former Acton parent Brandon Dickerson, and Acton parents Jeff and Marcy Carpenter and Steve and Jenny Williams serve a Executive Producers.

Seeing Chris’s performance as an Eagle-in-the-woods is alone worth the price of admission!

Two of the best predictors of happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment are industriousness and the ability to work well with others.

While there’s a hereditary component to these traits, you can develop positive micro-habits to enhance them.  One of Acton Academy’s secrets is how we forge heroes on a Hero’s Journey into a supportive tribe, and along with strong parental support, develop positive micro-habits.

But how do you know if your tribe is healthy and getting healthier?  How do you measure the mix of individual personalities and aspirations, and tell if they are multiplied by a common cause?   How do you detect wayward individuals or the rise of cliques and warring factions?

Welcome to the Culture Map a tool we’ve developed to measure the health of a tribe.

The Culture Map asks each Eagle how close he or she feels to every other Eagle, and where there might be an unresolved conflict.  By plotting the strength of relationships, you can measure if a group is moving more closely together or further apart.

Here’s how Middle School has progressed this year, from early in the year to the end of Session One to today.   The closer the Eagles are to the center, the closer they feel to each other.  Concentric rings around an individual indicate a conflict with another person.

Clearly, we have some work to do, but we’re moving in the right direction.

Launchpad has made even more remarkable progress.  Starting with a relatively close-knit tribe, and becoming even healthier as the year progressed.

What would the Culture Map look like at your place of work, your neighborhood or your place of worship?

Khan Academy (KA) is a website with short videos and adaptive game-based exercises in a wide variety of subjects, most notably math, where it covers from “1+1=2” to advanced Calculus.

We’ve been fans of Sal Khan from the start, personally, as philanthropic investors and professionally, and were delighted to play a small part when he launched Khan Lab School.

If you are an Acton Academy parent, you may have become accustomed to hearing a mild expletive uttered before “Khan” when an Eagle makes a sloppy mistake and sees a mastery challenge disappear.  You may have even heard “Khan doesn’t work for me.”

Well, we finally have enough data to set the record straight:

If your Eagle dedicates 25 minutes a day, every day on Khan Academy math, watches the videos and asks for encouragement when needed, KA is a powerful way to learn math, offering deeper and more comprehensive coverage than the average traditional math class.

We encourage Eagles to do math during silent core skills time, so they can earn their way to higher freedom levels.  If your Eagle is struggling, he or she may need help removing distractions, overcoming resistance or avoiding victimhood – but it is unlikely Khan Academy is the problem.

KA Math in a Nutshell

1. The secret to KA math? 25 minutes a day, every school day.

KA does work for learning math, and it works extraordinarily well.

An MS Eagle needs to invest 25 minutes each school day, five days each week, for 36 weeks a year will finish Algebra I in middle school.

Minutes of Work to Finish KA MS Subjects

An LP Eagle needs to invest 42 minutes each day, five days each week, to complete all required high school math in Launchpad in 2 years, setting the stage for Pre-Calculus and Calculus.

Minutes of Work to Finish KA LP Subjects

An MS Eagle who comes from another elementary school needs an additional five minutes per day to catch up on the first half of Pre-Algebra we cover during ES.

ES-MS Skill Overlap

2. KA math is deeper and more extensive than a traditional math class.

Mastery of math through KA provides more depth and coverage than a traditional school.  We estimate KA math is between 2-4 times more efficient and effective than the average classroom lecture.

3. KA math works for Eagles at all levels of intrinsic math ability.

Some Eagles require 20% more time than the averages above; some 20% less.  But when an Eagle decides he or she is serious about completing math, KA works for all levels of math ability.

4. Some Eagles soar through seven years of traditional math in as little as 18 months.

Eagles who start to love math can rocket ahead or catch up quickly.  We believe most differences in advancement rates are a matter of attitude, not aptitude.  By investing 90 minutes each day – 30 minutes at Acton Academy and an hour at home – an Eagle can finish all of middle school math in nine months.

The difference in time to completion is not a matter of talent, but largely the amount of time invested.

A Few Caveats:

1. Learning math is hard.

An hour of intense concentration on Khan Academy burns up a lot of brain energy and is draining.  But this is exactly what deep mental work is supposed to do.  So when your Eagle complains: “Math is hard;” the best response is: “It sure is.”

2. Eagles must watch the KA videos for a specific problem. 

An Eagle absolutely, positively must watch the videos – there is no substitute, unless he or she wants to Google to find different YouTube videos.

3. Eagles who do KA math every day do far better than those who binge and procrastinate and binge.

One secret to doing well with KA math is to do it every day.  It is very easy on Khan to track when your Eagle is working on math, and whether he or she is truly focusing on videos and problem sets that will help, or wasting time to log minutes.

4. A subject like Algebra Basics is not the same as a school year of math.

Do not make the mistake of assuming each KA subject area equals a year’s worth of work.  An MS Eagle from our ES should finish Pre-Algebra plus 30 skills in Algebra Basics in the first year of MS and Algebra Basics plus 40% of Algebra I in the second year of MS, to be on track.

5. Encouragement and companionship can help.

Some Eagles like to sit next to a parent, sibling or friend and collaborate.  As long as the encouragement delivers more learning than distraction, having a coach is helpful.

6. KA math is not Math Utopia

Everyone would like to have Euclid sit next to him or her to learn Geometry.  And it would be much better to learn all math in a hands-on, real-world way or to dive deeply into Set Theory; real-world risk management, computational math and other areas.

But this Math Utopia doesn’t exist – yet.  If a parent or a college admissions officer wants an Eagle to trudge through a traditional math sequence, KA math is a terrific way to proceed.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line? KA Math works.  If your Eagle is struggling, we hope you’ll follow our lead in the studios, and use Growth Mindset encouragement and focus on incentives and consequences designed to address Resistance; Distraction and Victimhood, until KA math becomes a deeply embedded habit.

Acton Academy has a proven model for Middle School and Launchpad Eagles who want a life-changing apprenticeship.  It’s one of the most popular challenges we offer.

The Apprenticeship Quest takes each Eagle through the following steps:

What do you want?

How do the adventures you have chosen match with your gifts, passions?

Have you done deep research?

Do you have deep knowledge about the person you are pitching, including what he or she cares deeply about and the hiring process and position?

 Do you have a compelling pitch?

Do you have an email, phone and in person pitch that cannot be refused?

Do you have a clear covenant? 

Have you agreed on a clear set of terms with your parents and the business owner describing what you have promised and what you can you expect?

Are you ready to execute? 

Are you willing to show up early, work hard, stay late and take careful notes about who you meet and what you learn?

Will you follow up afterward?

Did you write a sincere thank you note and ask for a letter of recommendation?

Along the way, Eagles learn to manage a portfolio of apprenticeship possibilities, including a “dream opportunity,” a “reach opportunity” and a “sure thing.” Important preparation for landing a “next adventure” later in life.

Does it work?  A recent middle schooler who has a passion for political science followed the formula with Uber-Politico Karl Rove.

He followed the process, and:

• Wrote a genuine “you are my hero” email asking for a five minute phone call to explain how apprenticeships work.
• During the call, he asked for a ten minute in person meeting to explain how he could serve.
• At the in-person meeting, he asked for a chance to prove himself, promising to show up early, stay later and do whatever was asked with excellence.

The result?  A life changing apprenticeship with one of the giants of politics.

And the kicker?  This young man had already completed all of his formal apprenticeship requirements.

How do young heroes-in-the-making prepare for an uncertain and fast changing future?  What skills will be the key to success, satisfaction and fulfillment in the 21st Century?

Hedge Fund Guru Ray Dalio believes radical transparency and algorithmic decision making hold the key to the future.    Polymath Stephen Wolfram made a similar point when visiting Acton Academy last spring.

Whatever the answer, standardized tests and rote memorization likely won’t make the list.

Here are the ingredients we go through when creating every Quest at Acton:

1. Name an important real world challenge you’ll encounter on your Hero’s Journey.
2. What are the most important questions to explore?
3. Describe a process or recipe to increase your chances for success.  Can it be improved?
4. What are the most difficult decisions you’ll face?  Is there a framework to help make better decisions under pressure?
5. Find a world class example so success is more concrete and measurable.
6. Set milestones and deadlines.
7.  Form a team with the right vision, mission and skills.  Add incentives for individuals, squads and the tribe.
8.  Schedule a public exhibition or sell your creation to a customer, so in the end, you’ll get honest feedback so you can improve over time.

Now look closely at the eight steps above.  What do you see?  It’s an algorithm for creating algorithms to increase happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment in the world.

Creating algorithms to live by for a Hero’s Journey.   That’s what we do.

In the early years in the elementary studio, Guides provide more of the game elements.  Our goal, however, is to quickly inspire and equip Eagles to be Gamemakers themselves, so we’re no longer needed.

If you look at the meta-process above, what Eagles are learning to do is create algorithms for life.  Maybe not as crisp and clean as Dalio or Wolfram, but perhaps even more applicable to real life.

Best

Jeff

Thanks to the Film Fest and Eagles paying close attention to the new Pyramid of Intentionality –which asks Eagles in lower Freedom Levels to put in a minimum amount of work in Silent Core Skills each day– we’ve started the year with more positive energy than ever before.

Our next quest:  Your Friend Strategy for life!

No one completely grasps the alchemy of college admissions, where an applicant’s fate often depends on an over-caffeinated twenty-five-year-old reviewer, sifting through dozens of applications each hour.

Luckily, Acton Academy graduates have a choice:

• Translate badges into a diploma and transcript identical to those issued by top college prep high schools, a strategy most effective for second tier state universities with more bureaucratic admission hurdles; or
• Present a rich portfolio of work and a fistful of reference letters from apprenticeships, an approach favored by alternative schoolers and homeschoolers for more selective universities like Stanford or Harvard.

Increasingly universities like Harvard and Stanford covet self-directed, focused graduates like ours and offer large discounts on tuition.

During Session Seven many Eagles are out on apprenticeships; often families choose to travel for all or part of the summer.  The pace in the Middle School and Launchpad studios slows.  Exactly the right time to explore the artist in each of us and the following questions during the Art Quest:

• Are artists born or created?
• Can everyone become an artist or just a gifted few?
• What do all artists, from ancient cave painters to Michelangelo to modern graphic designers all have in common?

In the first part of the Art Quest, Eagles dove deeply into basic drawing skills, from learning how to “see” as an artist; to using pencil to draw hands, feet and faces; to the subtle techniques of shading.

Next Eagles shifted to ink and landscapes, and later the use of color and drawing mythical beasts, as well as using watercolor.

Finally, it was time to move to the business side of art: assembling a body of work; pricing pieces and preparing just the right displays for the exhibition.

Was the Art Quest a success?  Let’s just say that like our earlier New Media Quest, the patrons voting with their pocketbooks certainly seemed to think so.

Acton Academy’s Apprenticeship Quest is one of our most transformational challenges.

The apprenticeship process equips Middle School and Launchpad Eagles to find and secure apprenticeships  with little to no assistance from adults.

Included in the process:

1. Digging deeply into your gifts, activities that bring you joy and deep burning needs in the world to create a prioritized list of apprenticeship possibilities.
2. Writing a compelling introductory email to a business owner you see as a hero or role model, asking for a short phone call to explain the Acton apprenticeship model.
3. Crafting a phone pitch explaining how apprenticeships work, including a promise to show up early, work late and do whatever it takes to add real value, and asking for a chance to meet in person.
4. Creating an in-person pitch, where you ask for a chance to prove yourself.
5. Learning to manage a portfolio of apprenticeship possibilities, just in case your first choice runs into logistical problems.
6. Negotiating a contract with your employer and parents to make sure goals and promises are clear.
7. Having a plan to add value in the first few days and a way to capture the lessons you learn.
8. Following up with thank you letters and a request for a reference letter.

Step by step, Eagles learn to find and land just the right steppingstone job towards a calling – all on their own.

Does it work?

This summer, Eagles landed twenty five apprenticeships —  from a leading role in a feature film to troubleshooting a Calculus course for Khan Academy, to working at an airplane parts manufacturer to working for a cooking school —  each Eagle took one step closer to finding a calling that will change the world.

“Imagine you were able to donate a museum to the citizens of Austin…”

As part of the Session Seven Art Quest, Launchpadders received a challenge:

Imagine you and your six best friends have sold your businesses, and want to leave a gift to the city of Austin – two new museums to be built at Zilker Park.  Given your civic spirit, the city has agreed to match your contribution, with 70% of the funding going to a world class museum of one type, and 30% to a regional quality museum.

The catch?  You and at least five of your friends must agree on which two museums to build, and which one will “world class.”

Armed with the challenge, off we set out for:

The Dallas World Aquarium;

The Perot Museum of Natural Science;

and the Dallas Museum of Art.

F

The Dallas World Aquarium received high marks for “telling a story” with it’s exhibits, offset by high admission prices and relatively fewer visitors.

The Perot Museum featured DNA testing; world class gems; dinosaurs and hands-on science quests that would have fit in well at Acton.  Those arguing for the Perot pointed out the high number of visitors and potential for learning; those against its $185 million price tag.

Hard working philanthropists get hungry, so a refueling stop at Hard Rock Cafe was a necessity.

Exhibits at the Dallas Museum of Art ranged from Chihuly glass to honoring the heritage of the cocktail to sculpture to the Voyage of the Icebergs by Frederich Church.  Proponents argued for the power of art to transform; detractors for the need for more comfortable benches.

The final verdict for Austin’s new museum?  A world class Natural Science Museum and plus a lesser aquarium: the Art Museum of Austin at Zilker Park simply would have to wait.

A simple field trip?  Not for Launchpad.  After all, one of them likely will build one of the world’s great museums, so we might as well start making the hard decisions now.

Often, we are asked what type of families are a good fit with Acton Academy.  We used to say: “Anyone can flourish,” but recently we realized we must have Eagles and parents who have the courage and conviction to set and hold high standards.

Originally, we believed if either an Eagle or both parents were committed, the odds were good an Eagle would soar at Acton Academy.

We still believe almost any young person can succeed at Acton.  But we now know an Eagle and both parents must be fully committed to a Hero’s Journey or it puts too much pressure on the studio.

In other words, if our Acton Academy is a model for hundreds of Learner Driven Communities, we cannot ask Eagles to put up with studio-mates who shirk work or disrespect others or parents who allow such behavior to continue.

A Courageous Stand Against Corrosive Forces in Modern Society

Acton Academy families face three corrosive forces in modern society:

• Resistance – a fear based reluctance to take the first step in learning a key skill; and
• Distractions – addictive like behaviors towards video games, television and social media.
• Victim-hood – lashing out at others rather than courageously assuming personal responsibility for life’s surprises and challenges.

Under and over-parenting in America has led to:

• The average nine-year-old spending over 50 hours per week in front of a screen;
• Child obesity increasing 500% in a single generation;
• Americans medicating teenagers at seventeen times higher rates than parents in Great Britain.

Even more troubling than tumbling rankings on international tests is the loss of self-control, conscientiousness and civility that are the bedrock for a satisfying and fulfilling life at age 30 and beyond.

Celebrating Eagles and Parents Committed to a Hero’s Journey

Acton parents refuse to cede critical responsibilities to schools in return for a report card that makes them look like successful parents.  They care less about being “liked” by their children or short-term happiness, and instead accept the struggles, failures and lessons needed to prepare for a fulfilling life in the real world.

Acton parents are willing to hold the line when an Eagle refuses to work or acts disrespectfully:

• Overcoming Resistance by insisting Eagles take the first step.
• Removing Distractions by setting strict limits on or even eliminating access to television, social media and the internet;
• Ignoring Victim-hood and instead letting the natural consequences of studio contracts and covenants shape habits and decisions; and
• Making manual labor or a much less attractive traditional school the alternative to Acton Academy instead of a painless transfer to a less demanding school where every child receives a trophy.

Here’s to a great year in 2017-18, as we build a Tribe of Eagles and parents who can be a model for hundreds of Acton Academies all around the world!

Guides at Acton Academy are gamemakers who propose exciting challenges, set  boundaries and invite Eagles to start a life changing journey.

Guides authority is limited by an Eagle-Guide contract that restricts the role to five primary tasks:

1. Guides lift the eyes of Eagles to the horizon.

Guides believe each Eagle is a genius who deserves to find a calling that will change the world.

Guides inspire Eagles by offering a Hero’s Journey through life, beginning with the end in mind; discovering precious gifts and using them in a joyful way to serve others as they build a strong community.

2. Guides are gamemakers who provide challenges, frameworks, processes, tools, milestones and world class examples.

Guide’s offer real world challenges that resonate with young heroes.  A Guide is a gamemaker who describes an exciting quest; sets incentives and rules and invites Eagles to play.

3. Guides hold up a mirror of accountability.

Guides encourage Eagles to create covenants to govern the studio and then allow Eagles to learn from mistakes.  Guides insist on due process and if the studio isn’t living up to its promises, hold up a mirror so the tribe can decide to do as they promised or explicitly lower its standards.

4. Guides shepherd the energy of the learning community.

Guides feed and nurture learner driven communities through the rhythms, rituals and reflections that build a healthy community, proposing intrinsic and extrinsic rewards tfor individuals, squads and the studio to boost intentionality and energy.

5. Guides prepare Eagles to become gamemakers.

A Guide’s final and most important role is to catalogue, record, document and simplify processes so Eagles can become gamemakers themselves.  Guides celebrate as Eagles take on more and more of a Guide’s responsibilities until having an adult in the studio is no longer necessary.

What do Guides NOT do at Acton Academy?

1.  Guides do not pose as Unicorn Teachers.

We each long for a personal tutor with the wisdom of Socrates; the curiosity of Nobel Physicist Richard Feynman; the developmental knowledge Jean Piaget; the pedagogy of Maria Montessori and the emotional intelligence of Oprah Winfrey.

Unfortunately, such Unicorn Teachers do not exist.

2. Guides do not act as parents.

Guides do not nag or try to force Eagles to work.  Instead, guides trust parents to parent.  Guides never offer parenting advice.

3. Guides do not offer insights about individual Eagles.
   

Many parents wish a trusted adult to ensure them their child is “above average.”  Acton Academy believes it is impossible for one adult to make accurate insights into the thinking and motivation of dozens of young people.

4. Guides do not grade or lecture.

Guides do not grade.  Excellence at Acton Academy depending on whether an Eagle has given a “best effort or improved over time.

Guides never lecture.  Guides ask questions instead.

5. Neither Guides nor owners offer financial advice, become enmeshed in family drama or act as bill collectors.

Guides are not financial experts, family counselors or bill collectors, so they do not help parents in these areas.

6. Finally, Guides never answer any questions…EVER.

How many teachers are there at Acton Academy?

We often imply that there aren’t any teachers at Acton Academy.  That’s not true.

Traditional schools have classroom teachers to maintain discipline, dispense knowledge and assign passing grades.  The teacher-to-student ratio at most traditional schools is 1 adult to 20 or 30 students.

At Acton Academy, the teacher-to-Eagle ratio is nearly infinite, because our Eagles have access to subject matter experts from all over the world — from Sal Khan to Richard Feynman to an unknown genius on a YouTube video —  plus Socratic coaching from peers; mentors from scores of professions and heroic role models from antiquity to the present.

At Acton Academy we equip Eagles to engage teachers, coaches, experts and mentors whenever they need one, rather than to be captive to a single teacher-as-authority figure.

No parent enjoys watching a child suffer.  Most parents are uncomfortable if a struggles or is unhappy.  Some parents feel every mistake made by their child means parental inadequacy.

So the following advice from veteran Acton Academy parents may be hard to take:  When your child is struggling: Celebrate!

Celebrate?  Yes, celebrate.  Because if your child is failing early, cheaply and often, she is becoming more independent.  She is learning how to survive and succeed in the real world, in a community where it is safe to learn from mistakes and grow. She is developing GRIT.

If celebrating is too difficult for you, practice doing nothing.  Let natural consequences teach valuable lessons.

If doing nothing seems a dereliction of your parenting duties, then provide empathy: “Gee, that sounds hard.”  Perhaps add growth mindset encouragement: “I see you are trying hard.  I would call that ‘grit.’”  Finally, send them back into the game with an affirmation: “I trust you can figure this out.  I’ll look forward to hearing what you decided to do.”

If apathy sets in with your Eagle, you may need to provide some boundaries and consequences at home.  Perhaps even offer a far less attractive alternative to Acton Academy to increase the stakes.

Anything enabling beyond this is likely to do long term harm.  Our job is to prepare our young heroes to change the world.  Not to prevent struggle or unhappiness.

Setbacks that aren’t permanently damaging encourage grit, courage and perseverance.  Again, our job is to prepare our young heroes to overcome challenges and soar, not to remove all obstacles to make life easy, or to be a best friend.

The Costs of Under or Over Parenting

We celebrate our Acton Academy parents who care enough to move counter-culturally and know that failing to set boundaries; focusing on short term happiness or ceding critical parenting responsibilities to schools in return for glowing report cards and cheap trophies has a cost.  All you have to do is consider the statistics:

• The average nine-year-old spends an average of 50 stupefying hours per week in front of a video screen.
• Constant snacking has replaced family meals, leading to a 500% increase in child obesity in a single generation.
• Americans medicate disruptive teenage behaviors 17 times more than parents in Great Britain, instead of holding young people responsible for their actions.

The most troubling result isn’t that children are poorly prepared academically, even though it’s true America’s ranking on international standardized tests is plummeting. The most troubling result is the loss of self-control, conscientious, civility and character that are the bedrock for a satisfying and fulfilling life at age 30 and beyond.

Below is specific advice from veteran Acton Academy Guides and parents:  

 1.  What should I do as a parent if my Eagle has an issue in the studio?

Great question.  Our goal is to arm Eagles to solve their own problems. So:

1. Ask your Eagle for permission to become involved before you do anything.
2. Resist the temptation to email a Guide unless there is a threat of serious, immediate harm.  Guides are not allowed respond directly to parent emails or texts, but to follow a process that equips the Eagle to solve his or her own problem.
3. Ask your Eagle whether she should approach a Guide or Council with the issue and help her frame the issue in a positive light.
4. If the issue remains unresolved, ask your Eagle to write an email to Council and copy Guides, expressing his frustration and a proposed remedy.
5. If the issue is a personal one between Eagles, ask your Eagle to call for a Conflict Resolution session, by email to Council with Guides copied.
6. If the issue is serious and remains unresolved, an Eagle may call for everyone involved to meet to address the issue, and parents are welcome to observe but not participate.  We’ve found requiring everyone to be in the same room discourages mixed messages and triangulation, and often deescalates issues.

 2.  What if I’m worried about how my Eagle is progressing academically?

Our Tracker system allows you to view the work your Eagle produces.  Reviewing Weekly Points, Badges earned versus plan and Eagle Bucks asked/versus requested (or 360 Coaching Reviews) will give you a far more accurate picture of progress than a report card or standardized test.

If our Eagle seems to be struggling, as parents we offer encouragement as well as asking the following questions and seeking verification:

1. Are you doing 45 minutes of Khan Academy each and every day?  Are you watching the videos?
2. Do you have a Deep Book and are you reading at least 45 minutes each day?
3. Are you doing every challenge for the Genre (writing) prompts?
4. Are you doing every Civilization challenge?
5. Are you guarding against distractions and avoiding being asked for Eagle Bucks?

Quests are like dessert.  If your Eagle is struggling, verify that the required effort is being put into Core Skills first; then ask about Quests.

3.  What if my Eagle says she just can’t learn from Khan Academy?

Many parents worry that without a teacher it’s impossible to “learn math.”  We’ve found just the opposite:  Khan Academy is a powerful tool and requires users to learn to think critically from a number of perspectives and master a  broad set of mathematical approaches.

In contrast, many traditional math teachers simply ask students to repeat a limited number of simple algorithms as homework.   And despite what we might hope, seldom do traditional schools deliver powerful theoretical insights.

Eagles who have a hard time with Khan Academy typically struggle because they do not do the work or refuse to watch the videos.  It is likely they would find the lectures of most traditional math teachers even more boring.

If your Eagle is struggling, start by making sure she is spending 45 minutes a day, every day on Khan.  Encourage her to watch the videos, every time, and only afterwards to seek Socratic help in the studios.  We’ve also found as parents that sitting beside an Eagle who is doing Khan provides encouragement.

4.   What if my Eagle simply refuses to work hard?

This is a difficult question, because human motivation remains one of the great unsolved mysteries.

Our studio systems, modeled after companies like Google, are designed to reward effort, excellent work and leadership with more freedom.  For those struggling, increasingly higher amounts of effort and goodwill to remain in the studio.  We even offer ways to provide grace and a chance to start over.

When we still see motivation issues as parents, the three most likely suspects are:

• Distraction: Is your Eagle, like most, drawn into social media, games, web surfing or other types of cheap distraction?   If so, as a parent, you may need to strictly limit access to these distractions.  While extrinsic rewards have their limits, some parents have found tying electronic access to Weekly Points will increase motivation. When in this situation, we often ask ourselves if we are fiddling with our own Iphones instead of paying enough attention to those around us.
• Resistance: Sometimes it just takes courage to take the first step.  Encouragement and modeling are a powerful tool here, and we would highly recommend The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield, perhaps even listening to it on the way to school for older Eagles (there is a bit of racy language, but only in a few places.) We often ask ourselves when we see resistance in our Eagles, when is the last time we took a difficult and courageous first step in front of our family?
• The Victim: Often Eagles gain attention and solace by playing the part of the victim, and almost all families have some form of the Dreaded Drama Triangle.   We highly recommend listening to the book as a family or watching the videos, and committing to use the language of empowerment instead. At the very least, while being empathetic we refuse to allow our Eagles to blame others or circumstances.  If you were born in America and attend Acton Academy, the lament that “life is unfair” rings hollow. When the Victim is the issue, we ask if we are modeling negative or blaming language ourselves, or playing the part of a Rescuer or a Persecutor.

 5. Why can’t you force my Eagle to ____________ ?

Many of us wish our Eagle would spend more time on handwriting or spelling or Math, and when he doesn’t, long for a learning community or school to require the behavior.

Unfortunately, learning doesn’t work this way.  Someone has to want to learn, if deep learning is to occur.

We’ve found that Growth Mindset language and praise – and most of all patience – work better than criticism.    We also have systems at Acton Academy to reward hard work and growth by rewarding effort (Weekly Points), excellent work (Badges) and leadership (360 Coaching Reviews) with more freedom.

6.  What if my Eagle is unhappy?

Our promise is to equip and inspire your Eagle to find a calling that will change the world.  Struggles and difficulties are part of the journey.

We are encouraged by research showing we all have a natural set point for happiness, and tend to revert to that level no matter what the circumstances – so chasing happiness often is a dead-end journey.  Acton Academy focuses on long term satisfaction and fulfillment rather than momentary happiness.

Acton Academy parents have found our Eagles grow most when we comfort them and listen emphatically, but do not try to solve the problem ourselves or allow blame to be cast on others.  “I hear you. That must be so hard.  I trust you to find a way to solve this on your own and can’t wait to hear how you did it” seem to be the most powerful words we can use as parents.

If your goal is to have a child who is happy all the time, Acton Academy may not be the right place for you.

7.  What if my Eagle wants to leave Acton Academy for another school?

Acton isn’t a fit for all young people and families.  But often we’ve found that the requirements to do real work, live up to your promises and treat others with kindness and respect can lead to a knee jerk reaction to look for greener (and easier, less accountable) pastures.

When faced with this dilemma, some Acton parents suggest offering an unpleasant alternative: like a difficult after school or summer job requiring manual labor or a transfer to a rougher traditional school environment, to show your Eagle you believe she has what it takes to succeed and do not believe it is wise to always make life easier.

A parent’s job is to prepare children for a fulfilling life in the real world, not to remove all obstacles or be a “best friend.”

 8.  What if my Eagle is facing a problem that makes me especially anxious?

Our Eagles take extremely difficult situations in stride every day.  It’s called life.  Most of our hearts would break if we knew the challenges Eagles quietly and bravely overcome.

We’ve found when an event makes us especially anxious – like social anxiety or bullying — is more likely about an unresolved issue we faced in childhood than a problem our Eagle is confronting.  However, once an Eagle senses our concern, he or she may consciously or unconsciously return to the topic, because it brings attention and comfort.

If a situation makes you particularly angry or anxious, before lashing out or overreacting, ask: “Is this more about me or my Eagle?”

9.  What is my Eagle claims to have been treated unfairly?

Life isn’t fair.  Acton Academy’s rules and processes aren’t perfectly fair either, but they are much more just than most communities in the real world.

Our parents have found that the best response to unfairness is to acknowledge the unfairness of the world, and trust and empower your Eagle to do something about it.

10.  What if I’m frustrated because I keep emailing Guides and never receive an answer or resolution?

Guides are never allowed to come between an Eagle and her parents.  Our job is to let parents parent; let Eagles learn to solve their own problem in a safe environment; and as Guides ensure the guidelines and due process Eagle create are honored.

All emails sent to any one Guide or Owner are immediately copied to all Guides for transparency and to ensure everyone is on the same page.  Plus, we keep track of the number of emails we receive from each family.   As a yardstick, the average Acton Academy parent sends one or less emails a year about a specific incident regarding an Eagle.

11.  What if my Eagle gets a strike or an honor code and has to spend a day at home?

If our Eagle has to go home for a day, this is a powerful opportunity for deep learning.  Everyone makes mistakes, including cheating and lying, but when discovered, it gives us a chance to encourage deep introspection.

As parents, we’ve found it far more powerful to reexamine our Family Mission and Plan, look explicitly at facing resistance; remove distractions and disavow the Victim.

 Final Words

Acton Academy offers an encouraging environment where Eagles can earn more freedom by assuming more responsibility and grow as they learn from mistakes.  While we have a great deal of energy and fun in the studio, learning from real consequences and doing real work can be hard at times.

We’ve found the most successful Acton parents understand that growth requires effort, and occasionally discomfort.  So when an Eagle falls, the best a parent can do is help the child back up, give him a hug, and send him back into the arena.

Because it is much easier to learn the most important lessons in life early, at home and at Acton Academy, than to dodge them, only to have to same problems reappear a decade later.

Next post: What do Guides do?