What a week it has been for learners at AABC. The first full week brought many new adventures and experiences for everyone in the studio. This week they finished filming and presented the Lip Dub. They also explored more Acton unique systems, created their hero boards, and began working on Core Skills!
The Lip Dub is always one of the most exciting things at the beginning of the year. In the AABC studio learners set out to create unique choreography for their lip dub to Best Day of My Life by American Authors. In many cases, compromises had to be made when creative ideas were not agreed upon by everyone. Sometimes it meant groups had to start from the drawing board to find something that everyone agreed upon while other groups merged ideas and altered ideas to fit together, much like a puzzle.
This week the learners were introduced to a few more systems that make Acton Academy so unique. Some of these systems include, the Hero’s Journey, growth mindset, character callouts, and perhaps the most important one, the studio contract and rules of engagement. The studio contract and rules of engagement are promises that the learners promise to hold each other to. The contract and rules of engagement change year to year as they are something that the learner’s create, not the guides. Similar to the lip dub, creating these two documents for the studio required compromise. While some learners believed that wording was extremely important, others thought it didn’t matter so much. The learner’s signed the studio contract and rules of engagement in a celebration on Friday.
Here at Acton Academy, we believe that every learner is a hero and on a hero’s journey. This concept was introduced during a morning launch and was further explored during Art where the learners worked on their hero boards. The hero boards are artistic expressions of who the learners are not just as people, but as heroes as well. Each learner took a board and designed it with their name, birthdate, interesting things about themselves and pictures. They had full use of the Maker’s Space, a room in the building stocked with art supplies and materials. In the Maker’s Space the learners not only do art, but use these materials to design solutions to problems they encounter.
Core Skills started this week with a bang! Each learner had the freedom to use their Core Skills time to explore the platforms we use in the studio. Even for our returning learners this time was a good opportunity to refamiliarize themselves with the process of Core Skills and acclimate to the new platforms, as we added a few new platforms this year. These same returning learners were eager to help out our new learners when they encountered log in issues or needed help with a platform that they already knew.
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