Last week we had a high school age girl come to visit the Fire Studio as a debate judge. She was here for the hero led quest and stayed through Studio Maintenance. She had been talking about how things generally felt slightly chaotic, but she could actually tell everyone knew what they were doing and were doing it even amidst apparent disorder. (Probably an accurate description of these awesome hero led quests where the heroes are running their own quest for the first time!) Then she saw studio maintenance begin and said on her way out “These kids are, like, scarily competent!” Scarily competent… what an accurate description of our incredible CHOICE heroes in both studios!
In the Spark Studio… the heroes enjoyed many challenges while demonstrating awesome competence this week. One of the favorite new works was creating a song. Heroes had two shakers, one small, one large. They wrote the notes of their song, each hero deciding how to distinguish the small shaker notes from the large shaker notes, and even adding notes for when to play both shakers at the same time. These composers wrote and played magnificent songs!
Outside, heroes wanted to build a Pokemon school/lab. They needed to move wood pallets that were stacked on top of each other. Architects explored how to manipulate the bungee cords to move the wood pallets to form walls. Construction workers then worked together to move long wood boards and placed them on top of the pallets to create a roof. They used carefully selected tree stumps and crates to serve as supports for the walls. All this was done without the help of an adult or Fire Studio hero.
Tuesday afternoon heroes started exploring with a few of their leftovers from lunch. A few heroes wanted to make juice with their oranges and apple slices. They perused kitchen supplies, discovering a few tools that worked and some that didn’t. This sparked the idea to make juice for snack the next day. Heroes wrote a shopping list of the needed food and materials. The next day during snack we made juice! First heroes decided they needed a system for knowing who goes first. They decided all the names were to be drawn randomly and written down, then chefs would make their juice 2 at a time. Heroes chose their fruits to blend in a blender, added some water, and enjoyed their own personal juice creation.
On Thursday, heroes were given 3 ingredients: baking soda, vinegar, and boiled red cabbage water. They were simply challenged with making as many colors as possible. Through this process one hero discovered mixing vinegar and cabbage water turned the mixture pink. Some heroes discovered mixing cabbage water and baking soda turned the mixture light blue. Heroes experimented with various amounts of each ingredient. Heroes loved discovering the explosion that resulted when they combined vinegar and baking soda! In each situation scientists used the materials presented, experimented and adjusted, and did so with little assistance or instruction from an adult.
And then of course we just had a blast on our field trip to Discovery Gatway on Monday. Heroes were actively engaged in building construction towers, navigating through a maze, buying groceries at the market, creating dams in water, building a fast vehicle, piloting a helicopter, exploring a wind tunnel, and treating fake injuries.
Whether the Spark heroes are composers, chefs, construction works, architects, scientists or simply having fun, they are truly scarily competent!
In the Fire Studio… the heroes went snorkeling at Bonneville Seabase. Snorkeling turned out to be more of a challenge than most of us thought it would be. It was inspiring to see how most every hero did something in either their challenge zone or their panic zone. The satisfaction they felt at doing hard things was awesome to watch. As we were leaving, the employee who had been with us throughout the whole morning said to me, “We need more kids like your kids!” I whole heartedly agreed! They were competent in doing hard things, helping one another, cleaning up after themselves, being kind to one another and having fun!
I witnessed the heroes competence in every part of our schedule last week:
Discussions: This last session I have hardly given a launch. The heroes are giving most all launches. I hear them asking engaging questions, encouraging people to take a side, usually keeping track of their time and holding each other accountable to their rules of engagement. They engage in respectful dialouge and disagreement without the presence of an adult.
Studio Maintenance: I continue to be amazed by their Studio Maintenance. Every day I think, no way this is going to get cleaned (I know… a fixed mind set) and then most every day, they surprise me. I should stop being surprised at how good they are at cleaning up their studio. Are they this good at cleaning their rooms yet?
Core Skills: This last week of Core Skills heroes have been dialed in. Heroes know what their final goals are and most are incredibly focused. It is really fun to watch them work efficiently and effectively. (I should have taken some pictures!)
Music Theater: And who knew the heroes were also competent in film? Watching them during Music Theater, I was impressed with their ability to write a script and then direct, act and film it their sketch comedy.
Civ: For the last day of Civ the heroes played a charades/taboo type review game of all the different peoples, events and ideas they have discussed throughout the year. I wish that I was able now to converse about the myriad of topics these young people are able to!
Quests: During the hero-led mini quests this week the heroes did origami, learned about our solar system, and thought through nutrition and balanced eating. It’s great to see the older heroes not just be able to share something they enjoy doing or learning about, but also practice the skills of technical writing (writing the challenges they’ve designed and posting in Journey Tracker), oral communication (running launches), and human resources management (organizing groups of heroes, holding them accountable).
Thursday morning was the quintessential example of competence in both studios. Due to a combination of various circumstances, for the first 3 hours on Thursday, there was only one guide present for both studios. Was this a problem??? not at all! The Spark heroes joined in the Fire Studio morning grit challenges, meditation and discussion. They followed the Fire Studio rules of engagement and many Spark heroes shared their opinions during the discussion. After the discussion, the older Fire Studio heroes needed to complete their Lit Circles, so the younger Fire Studio heroes paired up with Spark studio heroes and enjoyed the morning together. The older heroes acted as mentors during a writing challenge and the younger heroes guided the older heroes through their works. Were adults necessary??? Not at all!
Our heroes aren’t perfect. We are all on a learning journey which definitely doesn’t look like a straight line. Daily there are disagreements, heroes are disengaged at times, and we are all making mistakes. BUT, we agree 110% that our heroes are “scarily competent” and oh so much fun!