Respect the individual pace

Today I want to write a little about how important it is to respect the learning pace of each Eagle.

I have already told you that at Acton each Eagle sets her own learning goals. Every morning they set the goals for that day, and at the end of the day they update their goal sheet to show if they met the goal. In addition, every week they sit with another Eagle from the studio, analyze the past week together and plan the following week. Working with the goals gives the Eagles a lot of independence, a lot of control over their learning and it’s an amazing tool for life that allows them to learn how to plan logical goals for themselves.

And yet, even at the pace, which they set for themselves, there are ups and downs. There are weeks when they set great goals but in reality they don’t feel like studying. Sometimes they get stuck with a very difficult subject in math or something at home bothers them or sometimes there is no reason at all and yet they don’t feel like studying. The beauty of Acton is to know to accept the fact that there are also such weeks. The great wisdom is to not stress out, keep believing in them and keep believing that when the motivation for learning is internal, it will come back to them. When the desire to learn comes from the heart, and not in order to please someone or to receive a high grade, then it exists, and after a week or two or three, they get back to it and resume their pace.

This is such a significant lesson, in my opinion, because we are so used, almost programmed, to have the pace dictated by someone else, especially in school. There’s a teacher, there’s a classroom, there’s learning materials to keep up with, and one cannot just suddenly decide, in mid-January, not to do anything for a week. This inner voice, which determines our pace, is a voice we learn to ignore. But that voice is very important! This is our real voice, and with it comes the inner motivation for learning out of interest, out of genuine curiosity and not because someone else forces us.

I will say that, like any significant lesson at Acton, it is a complex lesson for me. In reality, when it happens to the Eagles, I get immediately stressed out. I see their progress plummeting and not recovering, day after day, and I begin to panic. What if the Eagle decided that she does not want to study anymore? However, time and time again, I find that they do go back to studying and sometimes they even come back more determined and stronger than before, as if this break re-energized them and allowed them to regain the power they lacked.

So this is a lesson that I am learning again and also trying to apply at home: Every child has his own pace, and it’s very important to respect this pace