Exhibition of Learning

We celebrated 🎉 our Learners and all the young humans at all the other Acton schools worldwide, hosting guests at their exhibitions this past week!

Our studios have been humming with excitement all week and maybe some nerves.

What do children learn? For many, this means proving themselves through a series of mechanized hoops–machine-scanned textbook tests, achievement and competency tests.

When mastery is the final goal and not an A any longer, proving this becomes a more messy process and yet more authentic. These exhibitions expose the very heart of what they‘ve learned and what they know.

We may not give homework but everyone has been working hard at home for weeks, wanting to accomplish numerous hard challenges they’ve set for themselves. We know how difficult it is for parents to watch their children struggle and the normal first instinct is to remove the impediment to make things easier for them. An ROA parent finds a way to step back, giving their children room to grow in numerous ways, mostly invisible to the naked eye. There are no metrics that can measure the skills and traits they are honing and developing on a daily basis.

Resilience,

Social Skills,

Integrity,

Resourcefulness,

Creativity,

Empathy,

Assertiveness,

Persistence,

Critical thinking skills

And so many more than can be enumerated.

Our question to parents…

What is most important for you:

A. What my child produces over a session?

B. Their communication skills?

C. The progress they make on their core skills ?

D. Their attitude towards learning and working with others?OR

E. Something else?

What do you wish you would have heard from your own parent(s) when you were their age?

How will you receive your child's gifts?

"While these events give a sense of finality to a particular quest, project, or challenge, exhibitions are more like weigh stations than final destinations. Unlike a final test in which you are free to forget what was learned when it's over, the learning from one exhibition extends into the next session." - Laura Sandefer

And we are definitely extending the learning throughout the year from this session’s exhibition. The seeds they’ve planted will be producing bountiful harvest from which they will be gathering their ingredients for next session’s quest-the Science of Cooking. Stay tuned!