Session 5, Week 2
During our Open House on Tuesday evening a 12-year-old hero came running in breathless and said “We have a parking problem out there, can we take care of it?” The next hour saw 4 heroes (2- 12-year-old boys, a 12-year-old girl and an 11-year-old girl) managing the parking all on their own! It shouldn’t surprise me. I should be used to the competent nature of these heroes, and yet after 5 years I still get surprised!
This session the Spark heroes have been learning all about communities, our very own community and many others around the world. This week we connected with a friend just across the street. He showed us the airplane he built and took us on a tour of his airplane hangar. He told us that what started out as a 3-year project ended up taking him 14 years to complete.
As he answered question after question from the Spark heroes, he also challenged them –just because something is hard doesn’t mean you can’t do it. That reminded us of a favorite saying we have at CHOICE: Because it’s fun to do hard things.
As we visited with this neighbor we heard the Sparks asking questions like: Is that a blueprint? (Ooo! We just talked about architecture last session.) How did you learn how to make this? What was the hardest part? Do you ever get scared? The Sparks immediately found ways to connect with this gentleman (using skills from our Golden Years session!) and were engaged in learning about his Hero’s Journey.
A hot topic the past 2 weeks between the Fire Studio and the Spark Studio has been who is in charge of cleaning up the fort building materials. It has been a beautiful exchange of leaders in each studio bringing their proposed solutions to the other studio and asking for feedback. After a few studio discussions, they peacefully shared their frustrations and reached an agreement. All this was done without an adult proclaiming the dos and don’ts of the fort building materials.
The way the spark heroes were able to connect with a new and older neighbor, the way they were able to draw information from previous quests, the way they were able to solve problems without adults giving edicts… are these surprises or just run of the mill daily occurrences in the Spark Studio? Probably both!
*The pictures and text of the Fire Studio do not correlate because it is hard to get pictures of these beautiful moments of surprise!
For the first 20 minutes after lunch on Thursday, the Blue Fire Studio was without a guide – surprise! The guide returned to find the leaders had gathered the studio, finished up the book we have been reading for story time, and then divided the studio into groups for their Tribe Challenge—math edition! The guide returned as they were cleaning up their math games on time, preparing for Silent Core Skills to follow. She asked the studio what the last 20 minutes might have looked like if they weren’t so self-driven and responsible. Responses were a comical but stark contrast to the maturity and self-driven education Blue Studio had just exhibited!
On Monday morning Fire Studio heroes practiced answering questions that families looking into CHOICE often had. The positive, creative answers heroes gave did not surprise us, but what did surprise us was that nearly every Fire Studio hero enthusiastically volunteered to come to the Open House Tuesday evening to meet new potential heroes and answer parent questions! Many heroes were able to come on Tuesday and their focus, work, and friendliness was either what we have come to expect from them or a beautiful surprise if you just consider their age!
A hero was so proud, even surprised by their completion of a full writer’s gym level!
A hero was near tears after a couple of failed attempts to pass a math level, but that feeling of surprise success on the third try made all the effort worth it. That is the joy of mastery based learning!
It is a daily surprise (bordering on miraculous sometimes) how great the studio looks after Studio Maintenance every day!
Quest continues to be full of surprises with “Secret Passages” for those who are completing challenges at a faster pace, fun Thursday challenges, and watching heroes work through partnership dynamics with incredible maturity. Resolution Rooms are a beautiful gift to occasionally get to sit in on, and more often – get to hear about and see the results of.
Walking into the DELTA Studio Civ is always a surprise – I never know what I will find. This week I found a re-enactment of King Phillip and a Macedonian military strategy!
I have continued to be surprised by the enjoyment most heroes have found in the Chemistry Quest. I think they have been surprised as well. It feels good to learn!
As the girls were cleaning out the boat for the next step, they found a lovely surprise. A disgusting bowl full of mold (I think it was oatmeal originally). I am grateful it was no surprise to them who had to clean it out!
I should stop being surprised by how focused Silent Individual Core Skills is. There is no reward, no punishment, it is just what they do now!
Sometimes it surprises me how hard it is to get the DS heroes to go outside at lunch. But it never surprises my how much fun they have once they are outside.
Jolliness this week was a discussion about what humans tend to do in groups vs. what the heroes want their CHOICE tribe to be. It is no surprise that it takes continual effort and focus to make a tribe rather than be a group.
One of my personal favorite surprises of all week was walking around a corner to find a guide hiding. As I jumped in real surprise she hushed me. I didn’t understand until I watched her pop out a moment later and join in some game the Sparks were playing. I was no longer surprised. I got it.
I think that explains all my thoughts this week. At first glance I am surprised. Surprised by the maturity, capability, competence, willingness and sheer awesomeness of the heroes. But as I think about it a minute further, I am no longer surprised. I get it. This is what they are working towards every day. This is what we ask of them. This is what the environment fosters. And most importantly, this is who they are becoming.