Our 1st Year, Session 1, Week 5
Many of our Eagles lost sleep this week, experienced a few tears, and a healthy amount of stress.
They set high goals and standards for themselves and each other with their upcoming performance!
That’s what the Exhibition is all about!
Early in the week we tailored our martial arts class to focus on developing the skills they would need to deliver speeches with:
1. Clear loud voice
2. Eye contact
3. Standing tall (Body language)
Students took turns leading small groups through a warmup and judged each other in these 3 areas.
Eventually they lead the entire class through the warmup.
Two of our Eagles earned their white belts by completing their homework —Showing discipline by cleaning their rooms at home and posting a picture in our parents Facebook group.
The Eagles practiced very hard all week to hone their skills.
World class speech examples were shown, and they discussed what were the most important systems at the studio to show to their parents- and how best to show them.
During Core skills work many of our Eagles are really starting to find their groove.
Using their choice of world class software programs such as Dreambox, Khan, and Lexia, etc.. are powerful tools for several reasons.
The learning programs we have chosen have the backing of hundreds of thousands of private, public, and homeschools across the world.
These are adaptive softwares – in other words they assess the Eagles understanding of the material and put them at the level they belong at based on their proficiency of material.
In order to move on to harder material they must first master the prerequisite material.
They also present the information many different ways in order learn from and adapt their methods to the individual’s learning style.
Parents have access to massive amounts of data and can keep tabs on Eagles’ progress easily.
These tools allow a learner to progress at their own pace and many of our Eagles are ahead of their “grade level” in various subjects.
Eagles will never be held back by the group.
We noticed the day before Exhibition that the Eagles were showing typical signs of self doubt, anxiety, and focusing a lot on “What if I mess up?”.
We decided to do a launch on meditation and visualization for success.
It started with Mr. Molley playing a few of the Eagles favorite songs on guitar and explaining the process of practicing and the effort and hard work it takes to really master something.
We then led a group discussion about their past successes/skills in other areas and what was their process to accomplish them.
Eagles shared their own personal struggles and successes with each other identifying the processes of improving and putting yourself out there in order to grow.
Eagle bucks were in short supply this week as the Eagle buck committee was overwhelmed with Eagle buck requests and arbitration of appeals.
Eagles quickly discovered that asking for Eagle bucks for petty reasons caused a lot of paperwork and free time wasted- not to mention the reputation damage.
They also figured out that committee members had to recuse themselves and abstain from the decisions and discussions involving requests of themselves for breaking the studio promises.
On exhibition day they finished all their business early in order setup and prepare for the big day.
Town meeting was brief, and Eagle bucks were paid out for the week’s hard work.
The Eagle buck store was a hit!
We ended the afternoon with an Eagle favorite- reading buddies.
Exhibition day came and our Eagles were ready!
Our Eagle created studio contracts were signed in our formal signing ceremony.
Breakthroughs were made, barriers broken, and lessons were learned!
Speaking from a guide point of view, it brought us great joy to watch the Eagles come into their own.
Now, if you are wondering why exhibitions aren’t more polished with crystal clear explanations of the information that has been taught this session: That’s because in the Exhibitions it is the responsibility of Eagles to deliver an excellent value for parents and guests, so our events are NOT stage managed by adults.
We always ask parents and visitors to offer frank criticism as well as praise and to direct it to their Eagle and his or her peers.
That being said, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and still offered the Eagles areas to improve for the next exhibition!
Today is staff development day and we will be having a pool party for our families to celebrate the end of our 1st session!
-Mr. Molley & Mrs. Ly
