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Civics and Self-Governance at Acton Academy "Town Hall"
An American Presidential Election Day 2024 special insider's look at a special feature of Learner Driven education (891 words)
Joshua Blatman
November 05, 2024
In recognition of today being the 2024 American Presidential voting day, I wanted to give a special inside peek at a unique self-governance process at Acton Academy.
Back when I first heard, ’Acton Academy is something different’, I didn’t know what to believe.
The term, “Learner Driven” was said in passing, but I didn’t really understand what that meant either.
Jeff and Laura and the early group of Acton owners developed their own “Learner Driven” educational model by combining the best of every model they could find (Montessori, Waldorf, etc) while making every decision in favor of children developing real-world, personal agency. This meant learners would have to make real choices, solve real problems, and deal with real issues.
Real-World Civics at Acton Academy
Social constructs have codes of conduct.
We have real-world, learner-led, civics.
For real.
You hear Jeff and Laura say, “you’d be amazed at what children are capable of!” (Jeff even says it midway through the first half of this interview on “LiberatED with Kerry McDonald” that I had watched the day I drafted this article), but I’ve seen it with my own eyes at both Spark Christian Academy (on the Ohio/Indiana border) and at Acton Fall Creek (in Northeast Indianapolis)—find the Acton Academy closest to you here.
With humanity’s heroes as sign posts
Young heroes at Acton Academy develop a culture (“tribe”) around empathy, agreements, agency, and ownership.
One way a sense of ownership is cultivated is by celebrating growth over results.
Another way Acton nurtures a sense of ownership is by creating personalized learning plans. With personalization through game-based adaptive technologies for core-skills, progress is based on each child’s pace and timeline to mastery (think badges in scouts), rather than disempowering children with high-stakes testing and grades that label everyone as a grade-quality learner and move them at the pace of the curriculum.
We use game-based adaptive technologies to deliver individualized core skills, allowing each learner to progress at their own pace. This signals to children that Acton is a place for hard work, collaboration, and meaningful personal growth instead of compliance to an administrative agenda or unhealthy competition with peers.
This encourages and develops children’s intrinsic motivation to work hard and hold high standards, while encouraging virtuous habits.
Heroes make the rules — no “Experts” allowed
This nurtures the habit of making heroic choices.
Children, and humans in general, take more ownership over their communities when they get to self-govern; so, another way a sense of ownership is cultivated through the co-creation of classroom rules. “No experts” are allowed. Everyone has to be willing to agree to the same rules that they want for others, staff included.
The group faces tough questions like:
What kind of space does a hero need for learning at their best?
Psychologically safe learning environments are created when children field this type of question among each other with learner driven rules as guardrails, just like a real society.
With the context set, let’s talk about…
Acton Town Hall
Imagine it’s midyear and two heroes have a disagreement that might affect others somehow but they’re not sure (we use ‘heroes’, ‘learners’, and ‘fellow travelers’ to describe children, not ‘students’).
Write it down and put it in the box.
Imagine a hero has an idea for a better process in the classroom.
Write it down and put it in the box.
Imagine one particularly empathic and insightful hero noticing something about how an interaction made someone else feel, and they think the class should have a new rule.
Write it down and put it in the box.
Everything gets addressed in Acton Town Hall.
Imagine a family meeting of heroes.
A box with the week’s issues is brought forth and children learn to run a town hall at least as well as any local government. Adults stay quiet except to share “preference-less” guardrails that support children’s freedom to choose and act on their own preferences.
For example:
An Acton owner, guide, and mom of a learner had to let one of her guides go (fired). The owner-guide-mom knew her daughter will notice at school the next day, so she tells her daughter what has happened and what will be different at school tomorrow.
The daughter says she knew the guide wasn’t going to make it.
The mom-owner-guide asks how she knew.
The daughter says: “because she made her preferences known.”
Children have ownership of their preferences too. In Learner Driven education, adults ask Socratic questions, offer choices, and help children reimagine their learning space, so Learner Driven invokes a new approach I call, “Classroom as a Teacher”.
Just like how we adults learn from the world around us.
The Acton Academy Town Hall is a safe space of sometimes high energy, but children work together, solve problems, and develop real-life skills like empathy, self-awareness, and clear and effective communication. They practice the virtues of civics.
It’s a foundation to develop virtuous cycles and become the adults of their potential.
It’s life and it’s beautiful.
Talk soon,
BTW, “Hero” is defined as a person you look up to. History is loaded with them, real and mythological. Books are written about “The Hero’s Journey”, codified in the work by Joseph Campbell.