Treasure Found
“Globally, every Acton Academy is different. While the systems are similar, almost everything else takes its own path because it reflects young heroes’ choices and their journeys. Uniquely beautiful!”
—Jia-Hong Tang, owner of Acton Academy Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
At 5:00 p.m. on March 5, 2017, I stood amid some 200 guests in our middle school studio. They had come to Austin from around the world for the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival—the largest music, film, education, and technology gathering on the planet. The SXSW crowd on our campus that evening was a mix of educators, innovators, artists, entrepreneurs, and foundation leaders, all curious about what it looked like inside Acton Academy, the small school turning heads as a disruptor in education. For the event, we had invited new Acton Academy owners from around the world to share their stories as a panel discussion after the social mingling.
I looked over at the world map hanging on the studio wall. There were forty-seven bright-pink sticky notes marking new Acton Academy locations around the United States and in Canada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Malaysia, Honduras, Panama, England, and beyond.
Thinking back to 2009, when I sat with seven children and two guides on our green artichoke rug, I laughed to myself. The scene before me had never been in our plans. We were simply doing what we thought was best for our own children, building the airplane as we flew it, each day writing a plan for the next, and hoping our seven Acton Eagles would remain airborne.
Acton Academy had grown beyond our sweet schoolhouse into something far greater. And this growth had nothing to do with us. The Acton story was not our story anymore. It wasn’t even a story about school, really. This story was about the unstoppable human spirit and the belief parents—from all walks of life and in all cultures—hold dear. They believe their children deserve to find a calling and experience life as a Hero’s Journey, an adventure filled with love, passion, meaning, and joy.
Although each Acton Academy has its own look and feel, there is something unmistakably shared—and you can feel it when you walk into any one of them. It’s a spark of positive energy that the children exhibit, no matter what time of day it is. “Why are the children so happy here?” one of the guests asked me.
I quoted Matt Clayton’s first comment when he saw the children on our campus. “Because freedom is ennobling.”
· · ·
A panel of brave souls
The guests saw Jeff step up to the row of seven stools placed in the front of the studio. They quickly became quiet as he cleared his throat.
“You are standing on sacred ground,” he said. “This is where learning is treasured and honored above all else. The Acton Eagles have claimed it as their own and protect it fiercely. We are all guests here, including Laura and me.
“I’ve invited a few brave souls to come forward and sit on these stools. They have started their own learner-driven communities—their own Acton Academies—with only a kit that’s still in development, a set of promises, some shared principles, and—most important—a shared belief that every child is a genius. Please welcome some of our Acton Academy owners from around the world.”
Jeff introduced them, stepped aside, and said, “They’re all yours. This is your chance to ask them anything.”
The questions started flying.
“Why did you open an Acton Academy?”
Joey Bynum, co-owner with his wife, Jayme, of Acton Academy West Austin, jumped at the opportunity to share his story. “I was getting my MBA at the Acton School of Business back in 2013. We were sharing the campus with the Acton Academy,” he said. “At the time, Jayme and I were looking for a place for our son to go to school,” he continued, “and I was thinking, wow, these young kids at Acton Academy are doing things that I’m just learning, and I’m getting my MBA! Why aren’t kids doing this kind of learning earlier?”
That question was enough for Joey and Jayme to launch Austin’s second Acton Academy.
Our old friends, Juan and Ana Bonifasi, sat on stools next to Joey and described why they had taken Acton to Guatemala. Next to Juan sat Mike Olson from Talent Unbound, the Acton affiliate in Houston. Tall and lean, Mike spoke quickly and could barely contain his optimism.
“When I looked at the opportunities my kids had in the traditional system, they would have done just fine. They would have gotten decent grades, played sports, and gone to college. But I looked at the future and the economy that is coming and our assumptions about the future—how those are going to change with artificial intelligence and automation.”
He said he saw the gap widening at a very fast pace between the traditional skills children are taught in a traditional system and what they will need.
“I wanted my children to be in a place where there is creativity, independence, and freedom,” he said. “I wanted open-endedness. I wanted them dealing with frustration, ambiguity. I wanted them to chart their own path.”
Rob Huge, dressed in a long-sleeved plaid shirt and khaki slacks, jumped in: “Don’t tell my kids this, but I didn’t do it for them.”
The audience laughed.
Rob named his Acton affiliate in Chicago “Greenfields Academy.” It was thriving with a pre-K, elementary, and middle school. “I wanted to spend my time working on something that was going to have a significant impact on the world.”
An arm shot up from the back of the studio. “What misconceptions about Acton Academy do you face?”
Veronica Klugman, an Acton owner from Tegucigalpa, Honduras—her shiny, straight black hair falling below her shoulders—sat still and erect on her stool. Though soft-spoken and unassuming, she commands respect with her rational, direct style.
“People say we don’t give grades,” she said. “But we do. Every grade we give is A+, because until a child masters something, they do not move on. It’s not enough to get 80 percent on a math test. That’s not mastery. A hundred percent proves you have mastered the skill.”
Joey added, “I’ve dealt with the misconception that people think life at Acton is one of the extremes—either that the kids are swinging from the branches, just playing around, or the extreme of overly rigorous academics that are micromanaged. Neither is true.”
Mark Klugman, Veronica’s husband and co-owner of Acton Academy Honduras, sat among the guests, his wooden walking stick next to his chair, and jumped in, further describing the feel of an Acton Academy.
“Acton is in motion,” he said. “If you look at a Montessori school or a traditional school, not much has changed in the last fifty years. But at Acton, we are changing as fast as your cellphone changes, because that’s how the world works. There is no bureaucracy. This is a conscious directive for the model so we can always be changing. The only thing that remains the same across the board is the principles.”
The next question came: “What type of parents do you attract?”
“About one-third of our parents come from public schools, one-third from private, and one-third from homeschool backgrounds,” answered Mike.
Juan’s response was less quantitative. “Responsible parents—parents who want to take responsibility for their own learning and their children’s learning,” he said.
Jeff added to this: “We ask children and parents to be on their own Hero’s Journeys. The ones who don’t want that leave—because it’s really hard work to choose the path of a hero. The Hero’s Journey is simple. It means when you fail, you get back up and get in the game again. Heroes don’t always win, but they do get back up. Parents who are ready to allow their children to fail, have a hard time, and then give them a hug, saying, ‘I love you, now back in you go’—these are the parents for us.”
A tall man with a shaved head and graying beard, his SXSW name badge affixed to his black leather jacket, asked, “What is the mind shift for the kids who come here for the first time from a traditional school?”<
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“We call it ‘freedom shock,’” Rob responded. “They just come in and wait around for someone to tell them what to do. When a kid walks into this from a traditional setting where they are told exactly what to do and when, we’ve calculated it takes about a month for every year they have spent in that environment to start thriving in ours.”
Joey’s story brought back memories from our first years of middle school. “They start out skeptical,” he said. “They look around and see there is an adult, an authority, in the room. And they think at some point that person is going to step in and tell them to either do or not do something. Then they are surprised when their neighbor, another student, says, ‘Hey, you are violating the contract that’s hanging on the wall. You owe me an Eagle Buck for that.’ After that, they never look at the adult in the room again.”
Ana Bonifasi spoke next: “Our daughter, Isabella, two months into Acton Academy after coming from traditional schooling, thanked us. She said, ‘Mom and Dad, thank you for starting Acton. For the first time, I’m thinking for myself.’” This drew applause from the crowd.
After several more questions, Jeff looked at the clock. It was time to wrap things up. We had time for one more question.
“How does this work with children who have learning challenges?”
Jeff estimated that perhaps one-third of our Eagles have some level of ADD or ADHD. They often just need to move around or change tasks in order to work hard.
“We also have children with mild dyslexia. We aren’t experts, and when professional intervention is necessary, we work with the parents to figure out how the child can remain in the studio and gain the after-school or at-home support to continue progressing and participating within the studio contract.”
Veronica shared her story: “I think many learning challenges are related to stress the children feel,” she said. “We had a student who every ten minutes did a cartwheel. We wondered whether her other school, which was very traditional, allowed this. They did not. So what did she do instead? She said, ‘I bit my tongue.’
“After three months with us at Acton, she doesn’t do cartwheels anymore, and she certainly doesn’t have to bite her tongue to keep from moving,” Veronica said. “She came to us in the second grade and didn’t know how to add, because all of her energy was spent trying to deal with her stress. Now, she’s a whiz at math and is learning.”
“How do you convince parents who believe in traditional school to come here?”
The owners all looked at each other. Almost in unison they said, “We don’t.”
I realized what Jeff and I had done in starting Acton Academy. All we really did was deliver a simple message: There is a new idea. It works.
Others are now taking the torch and carrying it to light up nooks and crannies in far-off places.
An unlikely treasure found (and a little magic for parents)
The social gathering of our curious SXSW guests spurred my pondering. While I’m fascinated and energized by the questions that continue to arise during this journey—questions about human motivation, culture, and learning itself—there is a treasure I’ve discovered that affects the rest of my life.
It is not a treasure I sought. Nor is it one I wanted. It does not include riches or comforts or successes or anything to do with the ecstasy of life and learning. My treasure is all about the agony. I have finally discovered on a personal level what passion truly means and I want nothing less than to embrace it. It means there will be suffering along the road. I don’t want suffering. But it is a necessary part of the true experience of passion. I will no longer work to avoid it and I will no longer fear it.
This treasure has become my magic mantra not only for building a learning community but also for being a happy, thriving parent. I can now say with conviction, “Struggle will teach you the best things about yourself.”
If children are given room to struggle and to figure things out on their own, and if they have support from a mentor, peer, or guide who knows them well and holds them accountable, they will learn more than we can imagine.
How can I make this kind of room? I must remember to step back. Wait to be surprised instead of right. Only then will I discover the wonderment of daily life.
This is abundance. It is the essence of a Hero’s Journey—and a biological and spiritual truth of being human.
I was able to learn this for only one reason. And it was our very first idea. The most upside-down, audacious idea of them all: Trust the children.
Epilogue
Homecoming
The SXSW event was over. The sun had set on our campus and the studio was empty and quiet. But the air had a fullness to it. The energy of thinking, creative people mixed up together to celebrate the wonder of learning lingered on.
I turned off the studio lights and walked to my car alone. Like all good introverts, I craved the silence of the drive home after the intense interaction of the day. I expected this moment would be a happy one. A peaceful one. We’d accomplished a lot.
But it wasn’t. I felt a homesickness that I couldn’t pin down. What was this “missing” feeling?
It was Charlie.
Now more than ever, I missed him at Acton.
Listening to all of the other Acton stories and witnessing so many people embracing innovation in education made his move away from it hurt even more. How could he not be experiencing this? Why is he sitting at a desk being lectured to all day?
In the months Charlie had been gone, he’d lost his love of reading, a tragedy I could barely stand. And he’d become worried about points on quizzes—like knowing the year Shakespeare was born. He’d also become highly stressed over missing any school—even if it was to go paragliding, his one true passion. He’d gotten his solo license as a thirteen-year-old, and zipping off for a four-day weekend was a natural opportunity when he attended Acton, just like other Eagles would take off if they got the lead part in a local play or had the opportunity to travel with family. “Five points off my total average,” he told me, “if I miss one more day of school.”
Sadder for me was learning that he feared taking a divergent stand in discussions at his new school. “The teacher has a right and wrong answer for discussions. If you take a stand for the side he sees as ‘wrong,’ he corrects you,” he explained. He went on to describe how students immediately ask the teacher the meaning of a reading selection if they did not understand it. And the teacher would give the answer. There was no struggling to try to figure it out and debate ideas among themselves.
At Acton, learning to disagree respectfully—and be disagreed with—is one of the great assurances of the Socratic discussions.
On the other hand, I saw how well he adjusted to teachers and assignments in the larger school. He’d proven to himself that he was fully capable of learning in a traditional atmosphere. He could walk into a room of people he didn’t know and survive just fine. He could make friends and compete on the soccer field and the track. He was making straight As.
“It’s his feeling of inadequacy that breaks my heart,” Jeff said. “Never has my son felt inadequate until he was in the system based on memorization, obedience, and standardized sorting of intellect.”
I reminded myself that this was Charlie’s journey. And as I’ve said to so many parents over the years, “Each person has their own journey. Acton Academy is not always it.”
· · ·
I pulled into my driveway. The lights were on in the kitchen, and I saw Sam and Charlie sitting and talking at the kitchen table, where we’d planned the first Children’s Business Fair, which has now, like Acton, taken on a life of its own. We had more than 1,000 shoppers at 115 booths in our front yard this year. We built a kit for that, too, and now there are more than fifty Children’s Business Fairs around the country.
I turned off the engine and sat in the dark, looking at them through the window. Th
is has been a messy adventure, I thought. In the early Acton years, I was playing either offense or defense, pushing forward or fighting off naysayers and doubters. I wish I had known to love the messiness, ambiguity, and questions. Instead, I felt miserable as I overexplained our idea and methods to parents, neighbors, and friends.
It took the children—the Acton Eagles—rising to the occasion, embracing freedom and responsibility with gusto, to set me free. It was the children who taught me how to be a parent. They were the ones who had the courage to grow.
· · ·
Three days later, Jeff and Charlie took off for a four-day paragliding trip during Charlie’s spring break. Sunday night, when they arrived back home, I saw that old look in Charlie’s eyes again, that look of exhilaration and clarity that he seemed to have more often in the early Acton days. He had again tasted the thrill of flight and couldn’t wipe the smile off his face as he described his long weekend. Now that’s the Charlie I had been missing—free and living large, unafraid, and willing to leap off mountains to get what he wanted.
But reality hits hard. We went to bed, and in a blink the alarm was going off at 5:45 a.m. There was no denying the fact that spring break was over. It was time to get Charlie back to his tightly managed school life.
We drove to school in silence, and I dropped him off with a heavy heart. His lips formed a tight, straight line—a look of resignation.
“I love you, Charlie.”
“Thanks, Mom,” he said. “See you later.”
I picked him up at 3:15, following the routine I had grown to accept and love, because it meant thirty-minute car rides with just me and Charlie—treasured time alone with my son. We listened to talk radio, the hosts hashing out the Austin City Council’s ongoing battle to try to bring affordability and calmer traffic to a city that continues to boom. Charlie’s love of political banter hasn’t waned, I thought to myself as he engaged aloud in an argument with the voices on the radio.
When we pulled into the driveway, Jeff’s car was already there.
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