Session 6, Week 3
Before 1848 young people were taught with all ages together, by one teacher in one room. From 1848-1870 America started adopting the educational systems they saw in Europe. Part of the change was separating children into different age groups. While we are not so bold as some philosophies which have all students ages 4-17 all together, we do see great benefits from the mixed aged studios and close interaction between studios. Here are a few benefits we saw this week…
A Spark Studio guide looked around at recess and saw that every spark hero was playing with at least one hero from another studio. This was 100% organic! Sometimes the older Heroes reign back how hard they play in order to make it fun for everyone, and sometimes they play the way they would play with someone in their same studio.
Growth happens when heroes play with someone who’s skills are slightly more advanced than theirs and this happens regularly at CHOICE.
When children feel loved by adults it creates stability, and when they are also loved by mentors it’s empowering. We often have heroes from the other studios take on leadership roles, and the sparks love them. The experience is invaluable for the older learners as well – it builds confidence, grows compassion and expands skills and talents.
Earlier this year a teenage mentor (who was visiting a CHOICE family from another country) spent time mentoring the spark heroes. When someone mentioned he might be coming back next year, the heroes were jumping for joy and could not contain their excitement.
But spark heroes also get the opportunity to be mentors to the younger heroes in their own studio, and they gain confidence as they help others.
And Spark heroes know they too can help heroes from older studios! When some of the DELTA heroes accidentally knocked over a game, a Spark hero jumped at the opportunity to help them.
A mixed aged studio allows the learning pace to be more what the individual needs, rather than what the majority needs. This allows learning and creativity to flourish!
When I am asked about the school, people are often shocked to hear our Fire Studio has learners whose ages span traditional grades 2 up through 5 or 6. Most respond with something like “that sounds really hard!” While there are moments when providing relevant resources for so many developmental levels is tricky, I am convinced the one-room-school-house model is actually an easier learning environment for everyone involved and here are some of the reasons why:
Because there is no single learning level in the Fire Studio, all heroes are truly on their own journey. This removes comparison from the learning experience, leaving much more room for joy.
Combined ages also raises the bar in teamwork. Heroes at CHOICE not only practice the skill of working together every day, they do so with heroes younger and older than themselves–even heroes in the other two studios, helping them be much more real-world ready!
Mixing several development levels also opens up mentorship opportunities that are more rare in single-age learning groups. This week a Spark Studio hero ventured to the Fire Studio to work on his language goal. He soon realized he had made a mistake in pen and didn’t know how to move forward. Quickly, he had 3 older heroes comforting him with stories of mistakes they had made in Writer’s Gym and offering ideas of how to complete his challenge in creative ways.
Older heroes are often helping younger heroes learn new games, understand directions, or grow in the CHOICE culture.
The younger heroes contribute important aspects to the studio as well. For example, one first-year Fire Studio hero brought the idea of spirit days to the studio to Town Hall–her idea passed and this week, many heroes enjoyed participating in Crazy Hair Day!
Younger heroes also give excellent feedback from their fresh perspective on what is going well or not so well in the studio. It’s incredible to see the bold and thoughtful ways new heroes participate in Socratic Discussions, Town Hall, and even Council!
One thing that really stands out when reading about One-Room-School Houses is: In a space of 100 people, everyone knows each other’s names. This seems beneficial in many ways: In the Detective Quest, the Heroes had narrowed the footprint impression found at the crime scene down to a VANS shoe. There are a lot of people who wear Vans at CHOICE, including Guides! So off they went to search for anyone at CHOICE wearing a pair to take measurements, see how tall they were, take fingerprints, and ask for handwriting samples. It was a joy to watch the Fire Studio heroes comfortably approach adults and DELTA-aged heroes for all of this information and then see the DELTAs so kind and accommodating.
As mentioned, the Heroes have been learning Forensics. The skill they practiced this week was to organize their evidence and match it against the 3 suspects. One Hero came up after Quest looking quite worn out, with ruffled hair and said, “I like this Quest, it is making me think very hard.” Those who figured out the culprit earned a promotion sticker for their detective badges and suddenly grew a mustache!
During casting, some heroes had wiped plaster on the building and asphalt. The studio went out as a group and were challenged to finish cleaning it in 90 seconds. However, there was a handful of heroes who had not returned after the 90 seconds. Other heroes went to check on them and found them scrubbing all the plaster off the building and asphalt in great detail. Had to capture the teamwork, creativity, and back straining scrubbing that was taking place to take care of our building.
The DELTA Studio has spent some time recently discussing the natural tendency to become more self focused during this time of life. It is part of natural development. However, mentoring, serving and playing with younger heroes is a powerful way to counteract that tendency.
Often, we see the best in the DELTA heroes come out in their interactions with their younger friends.
During quest time, the DELTA heroes worked collaboratively amongst themselves on descriptive writing and on human sculptures this week. There was no hesitation to capitalize on the strengths and ideas that each hero brought to the undertakings, regardless of age, gender, or size.
Many of you witnessed one of my favorite moments of a mixed aged school on Wednesday at pick up. The DELTA heroes had a group challenge (much harder than I expected) to wiggle from one side of the turf to the other while holding the legs of the hero in front and not using their knees. Unbeknownst to them, they would earn 4 skittles for this time consuming and difficult challenge (they did it just for the challenge sake). When the younger studios came out for pick up and saw what the DELTAs were doing, many of them instantly wanted to try. I watched young heroes work on this challenge with faces dripping with sweat, but not willing to give up, for over 30 minutes. The reward for their perseverance went far beyond the 4 skittles, they were accomplishing something they had seen their older friends do, and were practicing grit through the process!
Spending your day with classmates up to 5 to 10 years older or younger than you is a beautiful way to counteract the divisions and cliques that often naturally occur in schools. It’s a constant reminder that individuals develop at their own rate, that there is beauty and simplicity and innocence in earlier stages of development, that increased age comes with increased responsibility (not just freedom), and that we all have different gifts and skills that don’t depend on our age. CHOICE heroes not only know one another’s names, but they know they can play together, help one another, learn from each other and have fun together. Maybe I don’t want to return to 1848 (I love my dishwasher, my washing machine and my car), but I do want to learn from some of the wisdom of that age. One piece being, it is a gift to have mixed ages together!