Week 34: Malala, Muhammad, and morality

As our inaugural year at Acton Academy Nanaimo winds down, we're diving deeper into Hero stories and exploring our Overarching Question of the year; What is the Hero's Journey? On Tuesday we began with a book called "Malala's Magic Pencil", which tells the true story of Malala Yousafzai. In the book, Malala imagines having a magic pencil that could fix problems around her - such as stopping time to get more sleep or erasing the smell from the garbage near her home. As she grows older and sees injustices around her, especially against girls who are denied education, she realizes that real change comes not from magic, but from using her voice to speak out. The book conveys messages of hope, courage, and the power of education, and inspired these young heroes to believe that they too can make a difference in the world.

Malala's story infused energy and purpose into our own personal goals and gratitude for education. After hearing her story, these young people were inspired to buckle down and apply themselves to their core skills work, edging closer to another badge and getting out of their comfort zone by choosing challenging work.

On Wednesday we continued with another hero story, this time about a real-life Canadian hero, Greg Stewart. Born with part of his left arm missing and standing at 7'2", Greg faced many challenges in fitting in. Despite these obstacles, he discovered his passion for shot put and, in 2021, set a Paralympic record by throwing 16.75 meters to win gold. Greg's story emphasizes themes of self-belief, perseverance, and the importance of embracing one's uniqueness. Greg's journey showed us that dedication and resilience can lead to achieving remarkable goals, regardless of the challenges we may face along the way.

This week we celebrated two more summer birthday heroes - creating personalized cards (some, confetti filled!), giggling over cute baby photos, learning about their favourite things, and singing along as they take a spin around the sun (our candle) for each year of their life.

Breaking for Time in Nature and afternoon Spark Play is always cause for big celebration with this group! Favoured pastimes are foraging for mint, rock hopping on the river, lounging with a good book, fort building, and epic battles between The Bushmen (as they've come to call themselves) and invisible invaders.

These games of battle and warrior, though natural and developmentally beneficial, also bring up questions of peace and morality. At Acton, we have freedom to play with (pretend) swords and bows and arrows, to engage in fantasy play about battle and war. But what conversations are being had around the concept of violence? The responsibility to strive for peace? Where is the yin to this yang? This question was posed to me by a parent in our community, and highlighted a gap that needed to be filled. Morgan prepared a thoughtful launch with a beautiful book called, "What if Soldiers Fought with Pillows?" She read the true story of Mohammad Ali - a world champion boxer who could arguably kill a man with his bare hands, but refused to go to war where he would actually be tasked to kill, and was subsequently jailed due to his moral convictions. Fighting for sport was one thing, fighting to kill was another. It was a gentle way of acknowledging the distinction between fantasy play here at Acton and a true act of violence. It sparked a conversation amongst these heroes about their feelings and perspectives on combat games; why they like them, what they learn through this type of play, and how they can play the game safely.

Having these conversations and sharing stories of heroes who drew a clear boundary between violence in consensual sport (or fantasy play) vs violence causing true harm will help equip these young heroes to recognize this distinction themselves, and is something we will continue to shed light on as our group grows and the games progress.

It once again had me feeling grateful for our community of families who come to me with their ideas, wishes, and concerns. Together, we are better.

"The more we help others, the more we help ourselves" Muhammad Ali