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From the Spark Studio

From Miss Anna This week we explored different avenues for increasing intrinsic motivation to do core skills. It’s so important to me that our heroes learn young that reading, writing and math is fun and meaningful! We are working with a “Core Skills” board, where each Hero gets to choose throughout the day which core skill they want to work on and when they will do it. 

At the beginning of the week, it was left by the wayside by a few heroes. However, it was interesting to me that even without prompting from me, these heroes said their fail-light (opposite of highlight) that day was not completing their core skills. The next day, they came back with renewed focus and got it done! They knew that it was ultimately their responsibility. Bonus: it was something they wanted to do. At the end of the week, we put all of our core skills plans in the middle of the rug and danced around them while singing this song that the heroes made up:

“Good job Spark! Core skills, core skills! (We say each hero’s name) We all worked hard!”

Some days it feels like the core skills spark has dimmed, but the laughter and excitement with this celebration gave me hope that it can always be rekindled with a little encouragement. 

Defying gravity! We jumped over the rod as it was raised higher and higher, graphed our results and compared our jumps to an astronaut’s jumps on the moon.

From the Elementary Studio

From JeVonne Kara asked me if I would cover 45 minutes of Quest time for her on Wednesday. I understood that time slot to be 1:30-2:15. I was in Spark Studio and the office until that time. I came into the Elementary Studio at 1:15 to ask Kara a question, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. I asked the heroes where she was and they informed me she had left a long time ago! I had misunderstood Kara and was an hour off. I was supposed to cover for her from 12:30-1:15. As soon as I realized this I took the following amazing picture:

What was so amazing to me about this picture? It was that it didn’t matter to the heroes whether there was an adult in the room or not. They were not motivated by an adult’s presence. They were not waiting for the moment the adult stepped out of the room to goof off. There had not been an adult in the room for 45 minutes and they were still actively engaged in their work. It was an awesome moment in time to see their internal motivation.

Another similar highlight moment came on Thursday. On Thursdays we sometimes designate one hour of core skills to math game time. During math game time this Thursday I stepped back and took a few pictures.

Heroes playing a math game
Many heroes have recognized that their times tables are not as fast as THEY want them to be; so instead of playing games many practiced their times tables.
More times tables
More times tables
One hero was in the flow with his Khan math and 2 other heroes were so wrapped up in their badge books they couldn’t put them down.

This snap shot of game time portrayed that more and more the heroes are recognizing what meaningful learning THEY want to and need to engage in. And when a hero is motivated like that… watch out world!

A few other fun events from the week:

The heroes learned about the Indian caste system as they created a depiction of the caste system while acting out the different roles. Turns out neither the Brahmins nor the Outcastes enjoyed the caste system. Another fantastic civilization experience!
After a launch on the Bill of Rights, the heroes voted to lose their right to a speedy trial and a lawyer. No one thought that right was very important. After these 5 randomly drawn heroes spent time in “jail” awaiting their trial, I think everyone gained appreciation for the 7th amendment!

We aren’t perfect. We have days when our intrinsic motivation is low and distraction is high. We have days when competition or a jolly rancher seems the only way to engage our older heroes. But young and old, we are seeing our intrinsic motivation grow. That brings a smile to my face as it will not only bless the heroes lives at school, but will help them change the world! Your heroes are world changers!