Hero’s Visit

One of my favorite elements in the Quest, is the Hero’s visit. When we plan it, we want to find an adult or adults, who chose the subject of the specific quest to be their mission in life, and have them meet the Eagles. Hero’s visit is a tool we use in order to connect the quest to reality and by that to inspire the Eagles by introducing them to adults from different disciplines who might turn into role models.

To end the game design quest, we invited Eran for the Hero’s visit. Eran is a good friend of mine, who is also an entrepreneur and works in an amazing start-up that develops games for children and adults with special needs. Eran came to the studio and began by telling his personal story to the Eagles: how he came to work in game design. He then presented the game that the company is designing and during the presentation, he asked some fascinating questions: What is our target audience? How do you define it? How do you know if your game is successful? Etc. The Eagles enjoyed the game very much and asked a lot of questions. Finally, Eran told them about his failure and especially emphasized how failure is a constant experience in the real world. For the Eagles, it is a wonderful opportunity to connect their learning in the studio to the real world: to see a person who chose to design games as a profession and to hear about the difficulties, opportunities and characteristics of this path.

The role of quests in the Acton philosophy is to expose Eagles to diverse interests, to open them up to the real world. This experience is very enriching and creates inner motivation for learning, rooting it in curiosity and fun. Eagles discover which subjects they feel less connected to and which ones not only appeal to them, but also connect with their innate strengths. As time goes by, they can define their own personal interests and with their growth at Acton they are able to pinpoint the area where they want to expand and deepen their knowledge. The encounter with real heroes is so significant in this aspect because it makes theoretical learning practical and grounded, connecting it to the reality of our world in a direct and inspiring way.