Week 2: Building the Tribe

At Acton Academy, the first Session (6 weeks long) is dedicated to "Building the Tribe". What do we mean by this? Each person at Acton Academy - owner, guides, parents, and learners - are on a Hero's Journey. Just like Harry Potter, Han Solo, Moana, and Elsa, each one of us needs supportive, honest fellow travellers to help us on our unique journey. Someone to hold us capable of being the best version of ourselves, someone to push us beyond our comfort zone, and someone to give us a hand up when we fall down. These people are our fellow travellers, and they form our tribe.

During these formative 6 weeks, your hero will be engaging in games, challenges, and activities designed to deepen the bonds between them and their studiomates, and to equip them with the tools they can rely on when they veer off course, or are in conflict - be it with themselves (encountering the monster of Distraction, Victimhood, or Resistance) or with one of their fellow travellers.

As they enter studio challenges they will be tasked with compromising, collaborating, leading, and conceding. In structured games they will learn the value of competition, the importance of grace (both when winning, and losing), and the impact of teamwork. At the completion of each activity there is time set aside for reflection, to process and internalize the lessons learned - about ourselves and our fellow travellers.

In doing so they are laying the foundation of understanding, trust, and respect they will need to build their mini civil societies upon, and ultimately, their studio contract - which they will sign at our first Exhibition. It's a time rife with both the beautiful and uncomfortable moments of human beings learning to be; to be in community with others, to be a fellow traveller to their tribe members, and to be a hero on a Hero's Journey. During this time, it's been inspiring to witness leaders step up and demonstrate heroic character traits. Through growth mindset praise (watering what we wish to grow) our guides are vocally shining a light on these choices, inspiring and equipping the rest of the tribe to rise as well.

To celebrate the journey thus far, we decided to venture off campus on Friday afternoon to spend time together as a community at Maffeo Sutton park. Studio lines were blurred as heroes of all ages walked, ate, and played together.

In his book "Tribes" Seth Godin wrote, "A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate." For each one of us at Acton, that shared interest is the pursuit of a Hero's Journey. Equipped with Acton's powerful tools of communication - contracts, promises, 360 peer reviews, conflict resolution, town hall - together, this tribe will soar.