Session 2, Week 4
“Aha moment – a moment of sudden insight or discovery.” We have all felt those moments. They feel incredible. Sudden inspiration, clarity, and excitement. But what are the conditions that produce those “aha” moments? What happens right before the Aha? Let’s explore that question through looking at the aha moments we saw in each studio this week…
Spark heroes have so much curiosity and wonder. Their days are full of ahas because of how they look at the world.
Their “play” is laced with scientific observations & reasoning, and resulting ahas because they truly care about and find meaning in what they are discovering.
“This is too thin for ink. I need to add more salt.”
“I’m trying to match the geodes up. “These crystals are bigger. I wonder if this geode is older.” “Even small things like seashells could make fossils?!” “I can show you the story of the fossils.”
“It spins better if you hold it like this.” “This one has more power because it’s heavier.” “I can spin it and balance it on a piece of paper!” “Why does it look like it has a circle when it spins?” “It won’t spin in here.”
If I position the ball just right and hold the ball with the tips of my fingers, I can pull it out of the jar!
“Now let’s put them all in order! Which one goes first?”
Heroes working hard on challenging goals often results in aha moments. One hero celebrated with joy after conquering his fluency in language. He had been trying for 3 days to master that skill. When spark heroes struggle and persevere, the resulting ahas are beautiful!
Engaging in discussions produces ahas. The Spark Studio launched this week with a great discussion on “Are dinosaurs still on the earth today?”. Some heroes felt like dinosaurs can be found in the form of alligators and reptiles. Others felt like dinosaurs are closer to birds than reptiles. As each side supported their opinion some heroes changed their stance. You could see the aha moments in their faces as they changed their viewpoint or discovered new information that supported their current viewpoint.
And as we have ahas it is so fun to share them with others! We love seeing heroes so excited they even come into other studios to share what they have created or discovered.
We often hear from parents and teachers outside of CHOICE that the school days surrounding Halloween are a wash. Yet in the Fire Studio, this week might have been one of the most focused and engaged weeks of the year! Aha moment for us guides!
Here are just a few of the many aha moments we observed this week for the Fire Studio heroes:
After several long lunchtime meetings, the volunteer Halloween Party committee put on a fun and creative celebration Tuesday, entirely without guide planning or intervention. When I asked the hero who headed up the committee how she felt about the event after all the work, her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “AMAZING!”
A hero came to a guide frustrated to tears that he had unsuccessfully checked two different dictionaries for a definition he needed in Writer’s Gym. They spoke together of options for his next step and he wandered off, looking unenthusiastic. Several minutes later, though, he came bounding back with a huge grin and a high five celebration of his success. Similarly, another hero gave his guide several failure high fives after unsuccessfully attempting a math quiz multiple times, but then came the huge high five of success and it was all the sweeter for the struggle it took to get there. We witness this several times every week. The struggle produces even greater joy… aha!
One hero on council received some cool feedback from fellow council members this week about how she is fulfilling her council role. She took the feedback with humble acknowledgement and described what she would do to improve next week. Aha moments happen in council meeting as council members recognized that their work and their feedback impact each other and the studio in real ways.
Heroes new to Choice spent this week taking the IOWA exam. For one hero, initial anxiety gave way to confidence as he gained experience taking the test. At the end of the week he proclaimed to me that IOWA “isn’t too hard; it’s actually no big deal.”
Three new exploratory works came out this week about fossils, the human heart, and engineering catapults. Each new hero interacting with the works followed a similar pattern of curiosity, struggle, and finally elation at their new discoveries.
The original plan for quest this week was to spend 1, maybe 2 days exploring geodes. But the questions and interest was so high, we spent 3 days! One Hero commented on how geodes are even more beautiful than originally thought because of what they have been discovering. Aha!
When making our own geodes to use for an art mural heroes were only provided with red, yellow, green, and blue liquid dye to color their salts, and yet they created forest greens, orange browns, deep malachite greens, bright citrine, and even black malachite colors. The Heroes are using their color-blending knowledge whenever they get a chance.
The Heores received their little white writing books to use throughout the year, and created their first Haiku. In the beginning we heard:
“This is impossible!”
“No, that is 8 syllables, not 7!”
“I’m stuck!”
Then, as focus deepened, the comments became:
“How do you spell uranium?”
“Is diamond 2 or 3 syllables?”
“Listen to my Haiku!”
“I am a genius!”
“Aha!”
We cracked open our geodes on a beautiful day! Heroes helped each other, kept each other safe, and were patient in their tapping in hopes to get a perfect crack. There was no perfect crack, but in the end, they just loved seeing crystals in any shape or form!
On Thursday the Heroes explored salt (where the salts came from, salt caves vs. evaporation harvesting, why it is so full of minerals, and why It is essential to life) and of course we had to taste it! There was some natural hesitation from some heroes in eating colorful, strange, new salts and yet they overcame and tried it all. One aha from a hero – Cyprus Black Diamond Salt is my favorite! 
The DELTA Studio enjoyed some simple and fun ahas this week:
Not everyone agrees on whether it is better to “do what you love” or “love what you do.” They enjoyed a lively and engaged discussion where one hero stated that reading shouldn’t be necessary because he doesn’t love it. You should have heard the outrage from other heroes 🙂
Hunger games is an awesome book! Even reluctant readers are loving it after reading it based on recommendation from other DS heroes.
It’s harder to plan a trip that you have to pay for than if someone else is paying for it! The DS heroes continue to research and vote on their studio trip. Each heroes balance of what they want to do vs what they want to pay for is very different. It will be interesting to see their final decision.
Jolliness with Devon is engaging and enjoyable. The heroes are really connecting with him. Their discussion this week was particularly surprising. It revolved around personal beliefs about themselves. Heroes were very surprised and found it very helpful to hear what other heroes believed about themselves.
Choosing your words carefully is hard – and fun when practiced by playing Taboo.
You don’t need adults to make a deposit at the bank. (Depositing the money earned from selling solar eclipse glasses).
The day after Halloween is actually a very productive day.
Perhaps our greatest ahas in the DS are coming through quest this session. Quests are interesting things. Acton has a library of quests done at other schools that we often draw from. But sometimes we design them from scratch around a theme we feel strongly about or a topic the heroes have shown interest in. In either situation, there are lots of unknowable variables and consequent adaptation by the guides as we go along. This electricity quest has been one that has engaged the Delta studio heroes from day one, but has required a LOT of behind-the-scenes adaptation as we’ve gone along and observed how long the challenges are taking. It’s also been a topic WAY out of this guide’s comfort zone. The guide has felt ill-equipped to present the heroes with challenges that she barely understands! But in the midst of the background stress, we have seen so many gratifying aha moments and so much real learning. We are beginning to think that the learning opportunities for the heroes might just be inversely proportional to the expertise of the guide in a given topic! And that’s just right for our model! It’s easy not to answer questions when we don’t have many answers to offer. And it’s even easier to believe in the genius of these young people when they forge ahead and happily solve their own problems, knowing the guide is there to equip with supplies and learning resources, but not to directly teach. The heroes have shown serious perseverance as they’ve fiddled with the same series of electrical components several days in a row, and then finally have had LIGHT as the desired circuit was correctly completed. And in the teamwork arena, there have been several “ahas” as once frustrated teams have figured out how to capitalize on each team member’s strengths and move ahead.
So what conditions produce aha moments? No matter the age it seems that aha moments come after and through: struggle, engagement, meaning, curiosity, failure, wonder, frustration, the unknown, hard work, perseverance and discovery. Sounds like a typical day at CHOICE! Aha!