Session 2 – Week 3

“If you want to change the world, start by making your bed.” – Admiral McRaven

Our week started off with revamped efforts in studio maintenance. It was clear that a majority of Warriors were become careless in their duties and their sacred space was looking more like a typical college dorm room.  Warriors have made a deal with guides, if a guide has to step in and fulfill a Warrior’s studio maintenance responsibility, it will cost them one integrity point, but the cleanliness and sacredness of the studio must never be compromised. After several Warriors lost integrity points on Monday, Warriors responded with rejuvenated Studio Maintenance efforts.

Watching this commencement speech by Admiral McRaven during a morning launch also provided a lot of inspiration. Other morning launches included: revisiting humility, our Quality of the Session, where Warriors engaged in a discussion regarding the things we take for granted and watched this video about the dire water situation in Puerto Rico, a discussion about the Hero’s Journey and how to face difficult challenges like standing up to a bully, and a Socratic discussion about the perceived connection between money and happiness.

During the weekly Town Hall, Warriors voted to dress up for Halloween on Tuesday and are coming up with a proposal for extra time to understand the significance of the holiday and to play related games.

Warriors are advancing through their E-ship Quest quite rapidly! Their biggest challenge this week was Unit Economics Island, where they went through a Magic School Bus like simulation with Sally the Seller – who wanted to sell her own picture frames at the local market. They learned about various economic terms like sunk costs, variable costs, fixed costs, and revenue as they completed challenges to help them understand the unit economics of their own products.

Their biggest highlight this week was a video from one of Dallas’s most prominent entrepreneurs, Mark Cuban! Although he wasn’t able to come to the studio and visit as an Expert, Warriors were blown away by the fact that he took time out to send this inspirational video to them!

The Children’s Business Fair is coming up soon on Nov. 18th! Can’t wait to see their finalized products. Hope to see you all there!

 

 

 

Session 2 – Week 2

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”  – Stephen Covey

For several weeks in the studio Warriors were dealing with a breach of trust and integrity in the studio. Somehow several integrity points appeared to have “gone missing,” and several Warriors felt one of them was going into their cubbies, violating their personal space, and stealing integrity points.

For our unique and innovative learner-driven educational model, trust is essential. Not only do the guides and parents place tremendous trust and faith in Warriors to take ownership of their own learning, but Warriors also place an incredible amount of trust in one another. The studio is, in their own words, “a sacred space.” It is their home. When trust is broken in the home, amongst members of a family, it may take a long time to rebuild. This was an extremly valuable learning experience for all of our Warriors.

One of the biggest highlights this week was to see all of the Warriors come together and rebuild their trust. They decided to sign a pact affirming their revived trust in one another. They agreed that the studio should never be a place where they feel they can’t trust one another. Aside from the many outstanding aspects of our non-traditional model, which include: self-directed learning of core skills like math, reading, writing, and spelling, life-oriented quests that nurture curiosity and culminate in student led exhibitions, Socratic guides that replace traditional teachers,  which place emphasis on the intrinsic desire of everyone to learn, it is these life lessons in trust and unity, which really make our studio special.

Other highlights from the week:

1. Quest – Warriors are progressing rapidly through the Entrepreneurship Quest. Most of them have completed the first two islands – motivation and market island, and are ready to dive into Identity Island. For Market Island, they created their own surveys and went around collecting responses in order to develop a deeper understanding of the market for their products.  As they began Identity Island and really started to think about their companies, they were blown away by the story of Mikaila – the 12 year-old founder of Bee Sweet Lemonade, who started her business at an Acton Children’s Business Fair at the tender age of 4! You can read her story here and also watch this inspiring video for more information.
2. Guest Speaker – On Monday, we had a guest speaker from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society visit our Warriors and talk about cancer, stories about survivors, the work that they do, and how our Warriors could help fund research to fight against cancer. Warriors decided to start a spare change drive!
3. Morning Launches included a launch on how to stay positive in the most difficult times, e.g. if you found out you had cancer including some inspirational words from Jimmy Valvano and a story about a father who survived Stage 4 cancer, also a current events launch on the Rohingya Muslim crisis in Myanmar, and a Question of the Year based Socratic discussion on a quote by Ben Franklin – “An investment in knowledge pays the highest interest…”
4. Of course, Warriors enjoyed learning more about famous artists and diving deeper into primary and secondary colors in Art, working on more Baseball skills in their PE Unit, and working harder on their Sanskrit challenges. But they also had a blast with the various after-school activities this week: they made candles in celebration of Diwali, they continued developing their chess and basketball skills, and they were introduced to the principles of Design Thinking through very engaging hands on activities.

Looking forward to another amazing week at THA!

Session 2 – Week 1

“Follow your bliss.

If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid,
and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.”

– Joseph Campbell

The Hero’s Journey, a central theme at THA and also inspired by Joseph Campbell, is a journey that every THA Warrior embarks on in order to follow his/her bliss: to find a calling and change the world.  Through inspiring launches, thought-provoking Socratic discussions, self-directed Core Skills, daily SMART goal-setting, meticulous Studio Maintenance, mind-blowing Quests, and a holistic curriculum, the hope is that our Warriors are inspired to follow their bliss: to discover their passion and serve society in a meaningful way.

It was great to have the Warriors back in action this week! Our launches included but were not limited to – revisiting their sacred contract, reviewing survey feedback from the exhibition, discussing empathy and how it applies to interactions in the studio, conducting a Socratic discussion on seniority vs. effort and a Socratic discussion on our quality of the session: humility, launching our new quest for the session, town hall, and character-call-outs!

This session Warriors embarked on an Entrepreneurship Quest! As they dive into the basics of motivation, markets, identity, hiring, and competition, each Warrior has been challenged to create his/her own company, with zero involvement from any adults, especially parents (aside from providing transportation or an initial investment which must be paid back!). The quest will not only generate a deeper understanding of entrepreneurship, but it will plant seeds of responsibility, service, applied mathematics, and self-awareness. The E-Ship quest will culminate in a Children’s Business Fair on November 18th!

Warriors are pumped up and ready to go!

Entrepreneurship Quest Map:

 

Session 1 – Week 6 (End of Session)

In a school that rejects traditional standards of measuring progress: grades, report cards, GPAs, standardized test scores, etc. the Exhibitions play a tremendous role in demonstrating learning at THA.  Throughout the year, Warriors are challenged to plan and lead exhibitions at the end of each quest (usually every six weeks). The goal is to present their learning to the community in a unique and engaging way.

Last Friday our Warriors hosted their first exhibition of the year. It was an attempt to show parents the various aspects of their day-to-day lives and give a tour of the studio. They had a greeting committee, refreshments, gave personal tours, showed videos of their Power of Water quests, facilitated a Socratic discussion, and participated in a question and answer panel for the parents. It was quite an amazing experience.

But from a guide perspective, the most amazing part had nothing to do with the actual exhibition. A week before the exhibition, Warriors were challenged to plan their very first exhibition of the year – “The world is coming to your studio in week, and you have two hours to show them the amazing things you are doing. How will you spend those two hours? What will you show them?”

The guides stepped back and let Warriors take the lead. Seeing them come up with ideas, watching those ideas turn into a concrete schedule of events, witnessing them divide themselves into teams, seeing various Warriors volunteer to coordinate things for their teams, watching them create their own pamphlets and researching how to conduct a Socratic discussion, and finally, witnessing them rehearse the exhibition… it was magical.

Not everything was perfect – at times the discussion and panel felt long, the videos were hard to hear and see at times, they weren’t always speaking kindly amongst one another, etc. and we encourage parents to share their feedback so Warriors can continue to improve. But the most amazing thing was that, aside from a little shopping for refreshments, and some AV assistance – uploading videos to youtube and setting up the projector, the work was entirely their own. It is truly amazing what our Warriors are capable of!

Other pictures from the week! Enjoy!