Session 3, Week 2
The holiday season is a time of tradition. Individual families and cultures all over the world enjoy traditions that bring them joy and identity. We have enjoyed learning about many of these traditions through our weekly Global Dance. This week marked our last week of Global Dance. As the heroes presented their cards and hero brought flowers to their Global Dance guide, it was sweet to see how much the heroes enjoyed her and learning about traditions from all over the world.
While the dancing has come to an end, thanks to the refugee quest, heroes continue to explore traditions all over the globe. And just as families and cultures have their traditions, CHOICE has its own traditions. Some traditions stem from being part of the worldwide Acton Academy network, many stem from our own unique community.
In the Spark Studio Storytime is one of our favorite traditions! We love the connection that happens when a hero is so involved in a story that it comes to life. We love sharing our love of books with the heroes and exploring how we can relate to and learn from the things we read about.
As the heroes are developing their own love of reading, they wanted to play a bigger role in Storytime. Heroes now bring their own stories and ask to read them to the class. They do this without prompting or assistance from the guide. What a beautiful new tradition!
In one of our stories, we read a story about an African school, and following their tradition, made soccer balls from plastic bags.
We read a story about a middle eastern girl’s fight to learn and were then inspired by their Islamic geometric tiles to create tessellations.
Tribe time was full of Oohs and Ahs as we marveled at the tradition of mandalas. We saw that monks sometimes spend hours creating mandalas out of sand, just to immediately sweep it up. During the work cycle there were conversations debating if they valued the process more or the product more.
When the daily challenge was to explore an art form that helped them feel peace, many heroes explored artforms that were introduced earlier that week. One hero who started the year as a timid writer, decided to write because now writing is an art form that brings her peace! We love watching new traditions form in heroes’ lives.
In the Fire Studio this week we were reminded that change can also be a tradition! When a process or system isn’t working as well as we like, at CHOICE we have the ability (and long-standing tradition) to change it! Core Skills is a tradition practiced by all Acton Academies. At CHOICE, we have already changed that tradition by including Writer’s Gym and Exploratory Works. We added another change this week. Heroes have been complaining about how loud their studio was during Core Skills; that they couldn’t read a book or focus on math. We often found them sitting on the stairs because it was “too loud to do work in the studio”. This week we experimented with a silence challenge during individual Core Skills time. When the heroes discussed it at the end of the week, it was a nearly unanimous vote that the silence was amazing! It provided a beautiful environment where heroes could focus and even get into flow! There are a few details still to work out, such as how you get help in silence, but it looks like they have created a new tradition!
Team building challenges are an important aspect to building a tribe, and thus an important tradition at CHOICE.
Games are a strong tradition at CHOICE. Before school, after school, during lunch and during Collaboration time (which still has plenty of noise 🙂 ) we find heroes playing games. We love this tradition!
In the Middle School we find many traditions similar to the FS. We are still playing games.
We are still enjoying team building challenges.
We still go outside together for grit every morning, rain, shine or snow!
We are still enjoying Core Skills
We are still engaging in Town Hall each week.
And while sometimes as adults we struggle to not interfere in discussions such as this week’s 10 minute long debate over allowable music in the boys’ “man cave,” in the end, the process of sharing ideas, discussing, advocating, voting and making decisions together, is a truly valuable tradition at Acton Academies.
Many of the traditions in MS are similar to the FS but have added a layer of rigor. For example, MS heroes must pitch their Deep Books to their studio and have them unanimously approved. To be approved, heroes must convince their fellow travelers that the book is in their challenge zone, is world changing and is part of their heroes’ journey.
Another example, rather than only completing guide created Exploratory Works during Core Skills, MS heroes have begun creating their own Exploratory Works relating to their own passions. The engagement level is astounding.
Quest has its own set of traditions. During Quest we:
- Go on a Journey – this week’s journey for the MS and FS combined was to make a very small boat. Each squad had the same materials, and had to make one or two boats for a speed challenge, and/or a capacity challenge. The force they used to move their boat around an obstacle course in a kiddie pool was breath from 2 heroes. We then counted how many pennies each boat could hold (the largest amount was 170 pennies, the smallest was 4). The heroes then graphed the data we gathered from the experiment.
- Problem Solve – One of the challenges this week was that the heroes couldn’t speak above a very quiet whisper during the creation of their boats. The narrative was that they were being smuggled across an ocean, but there were border guards nearby. If the heroes were heard then they would have more deprivations coming their way. Instead of complaining, they took on that extra challenge and stayed calm, using body language and a lot of patience to get their work done.
- Read Quest related books and stories – This quest in particular gives the heroes more dedicated time than usual in their daily schedule to read books. Through their reading they are connecting with individuals and their traditions all over the world and hopefully developing compassion. One hero broke into tears this week as the refugee in their book had to leave behind her little brother. It is not uncommon for heroes to get lost in their reading and realize well after another activity has started that it is time to move on. Though staying on schedule is also something most heroes value, we love that a daily tradition of feeding the mind with great ideas and stories is part of CHOICE culture.
And of course, after the messiness of Quest, the daily tradition of Studio Maintenance is essential! This ritual which happens every afternoon, involves every hero, and deals with a lot of messes, is amazingly accompanied by very few complaints. Watching the heroes restore order to their space and hold each other accountable for the quality of their work reminds us that they are building traditions of responsibility and excellence.
While we think of most traditions happening at just certain times of the year, at CHOICE we have patterns and traditions forming that happen every day. These traditions bring both joy and identity. One lasting and important tradition found in all studios at CHOICE is that of having FUN! We love the tradition of fun at CHOICE, and we take it very seriously! Learning is everywhere, and it is enjoyable to pursue it. Afterall, childhood only happens once!