Week 28: A new quest, muddy feet, and resolving conflict

This week marked the beginning of our E-Ship Quest! E-Ship is a game in which heroes seek to find and create a business that is right for them. In an “Entrepreneur-ship,” they will travel across a game board (the quest map) to islands that represent different questions an entrepreneur asks along his or her journey such as “What motivates me?” and “Do people want to buy what I want to sell?” 

The Goals of this quest are as follows: 

• Equip these heroes with the skills, tools, and frameworks needed to start a business;

• Learn more about themselves and what they love;

• Learn as much about entrepreneurship as possible;

• Create a business to launch and sell at the exhibition in 5 weeks

To pique interest and kick things off we watched this CNN interview with a young entrepreneur who turned down a 30 million dollar deal at the age of 14! It illustrated to us just what's possible when someone discovers the special formula to a happy and fulfilling career as an entrepreneur:

something you love + a problem or need you see in the world = your calling

After watching the video we revealed the E-Ship map, complete with the various islands we'll be exploring each week: Motivation Island, Market Island, Identity Island, and Economics Island. The first challenge of the quest was to create and/or decorate your own E-Ship, then post it to the first island of the map. Next, was to consider what motivates each one of us. Is it making money? Helping others with your product or service? Having more freedom? There's no right answer, but understanding your motivations is an important step in the journey of an entrepreneur. Other challenges on Motivation Island included brainstorming business ideas and considering who would be interested in our products, taking a Feedback Survey from friends and family to hear what they see as being our talents and gifts, and finally, creating and submitting a Business Idea Ticket detailing our business plan for the end-of-quest market. Included on this ticket is a plan of how we intend to finance our start-up business costs, signed off on by parents. Next week it's on to Market Island, where we'll conduct market research to determine the level of interest in our business idea.

Between plotting and planning our businesses, these heroes continue to work diligently through their core skills work. Our badge bell has been getting quite the work out as they continue to ring it and proudly post badges to their crests. Some of our older heroes have begun working towards their Servant Leader badges, by serving as listeners while younger heroes read their BOB Books aloud. This is one element of the "Learning to Be" promise we make in Acton Academy.

Spring is definitely in the air and the hours of open-ended play during Spark Play are often spent running barefoot through the field, swinging from the trees in hammocks, making daisy crowns, or relaxing indoors with good books, puzzles, or boardgames.

During these hours of free play each afternoon we've seen these children come alive with creativity - coming up with fascinating and elaborate games, getting lost in these worlds they're constructing together. We've also seen uncomfortable conflicts arise, where these young people are called upon to show empathy, confront the monster of victimhood, and seek to find common ground with their peers. In these moments I'm so thankful for the incredibly thoughtful tools provided to us by the Acton network; tried and tested means of helping to guide these young heroes through these difficult moments - these opportunities for great growth in Learning to Be.

In the very wise words of Thomas Crum, "The quality of our lives depends not on whether or not we have conflicts, but on how we respond to them."