Education is Transformation (Year 2, Week 8)

The week started with badge patrol by Paxton on Monday morning. During a more intentional morning of core skills Paxton was checking in with the heroes who have not yet earned a badge this year to see their progress. He’s motivated by unlocking the pitch-a-party quest once every hero has earned a badge. They are getting closer as the heroes continue to earn badges this session!

Detective Quest

The culprit has finally been revealed! After close analysis of all the evidence available to them the heroes have finally deduced who the thief of the missing files is!

After three suspects were presented to the heroes along with their fingerprints and height, the heroes reviewed their evidence and findings to determine who committed the crime — the secretary to the police chief, Wallace Jenkins (It turns out he also bears a striking resemblance to Kara’s husband, hmmmm).

The hero’s detective training continued this week as they begin challenges about bones, facial reconstruction and DNA.

Using clay, the heroes spent time using facial recognition strategies to recreate sculptures of their own skulls.

Specifically they recreated the forehead, eyes, cheekbones, and jaw.

They enjoyed seeing if their fellow travelers could identify the bone structure that most closely matched theirs.

Minute Mysteries

Another element of the quest has been minute mystery challenges where a story turns into a mystery that the heroes solve together. These come with lots of mystery, intrigue, curiosity, and require the heroes to solve an interesting mystery. See if you can solve the mystery of the Story-Telling Uncle! You’ll find it at the end of the blog…

Leaders Throughout History

At heroes we believe in empowering the heroes to be leaders in the studio and world. As part of the exploration of leadership in the studio this week, the heroes researched influential leaders throughout the history of the United States.

The question was posed: who is the most influential leader in American history and what was the most important thing they did? After discussing heroes such as Abraham Lincoln, Sacagawea, Martin Luther King Jr and Alexander Bell the heroes made their presentations on their chosen leaders. The last vote was between Lewis and Clark, George Washington and Thomas Edison, with Lewis and Clark being voted the most influential.

Writing Project

On Tuesday and Thursday the heroes continued writing their stories, with a focus on modeling the hero’s journey. Almost every hero was anxious to share their work with their fellow travelers.

After some focused writing and peer feedback, the heroes participated in a fun writing challenge. Each wrote a line of a story, folded the page so the next person couldn’t see, then continued the story on the next paper. The result was a series of funny, nonsensical stories that created some fun laughs.

It was great opportunity to experience joy in writing and have some fun along the way.

“Treat the studio with respect”

At Heroes Academy a core focus is on keeping promises. Over the last few weeks the studio promise of “treat the studio with respect” has been a struggle to keep. The atmosphere of the studio has suffered as a result of the disorder and uncleanliness.

On Friday, the heroes were presented with a choice: uphold the promise and get the studio back to a world class studio, or remove the promise and no longer have studio maintenance or accountability to cleanliness. Both real options, both with important lessons to learn.

After an interesting discussion the heroes decided the promise was important and worth keeping. So this morning they returned the studio back to a place ready for heroic work.

Freedom, Effort, and Keeping Promises

New experiments in the studio structure are unfolding this week and over weeks to come. One key change is a new layer to earning freedom. Rather than being solely focused on effort, freedom will now also be tied to each heroes commitment to the studio contract as rated by their fellow travelers. The heroes will receive 360 degree reviews at the end of the session that will indicate freedom next session.

Additionally, hero bucks are now online for both tracking and asking. Parents and heroes will now have more transparency on hero bucks earned and lost.

Other changes include streamlining points to better incentivize badge progress, improvements to badge plans, and more studio leadership opportunities.

Character Callouts

As always, this week ended with an opportunity to share character callouts. This is always a highlight of the week as heroes share times where they’ve noticed good character in their fellow travelers. Both those who give and those who receive are always uplifted.

High Level View and Wrap Up

As we work our way the end of session two, there is clear progress within the studio both as a group and individually. Yes, there are points being earned and badges earned, but more importantly, moments. Moments of kindness, moments of victory, moments of awareness, and moments of heroism. While the studio still lacks in many areas, it’s evident that the heroes love to be here, and they are discovering real world lessons as they transform on their journey.

— — — — — — — — — — —

Minute Mystery: The Case of the Story-Telling Uncle:

The family reunion was already well underway by the time Detective Nose arrived. He hadn’t intended to be late but these things happen when you work for the police force. His older sister’s house was near to bursting with all the relatives mulling around exchanging news and photos. He chatted with various relatives before seeking the quiet of his brother-in-law’s study.

He wasn’t all that surprised to discover that the study was already occupied by two of his nephews and his Uncle. His Uncle Albert was seated in the big armchair engaged in one of his favourite pastimes; telling stories about the good old days. His two nephews appeared totally engrossed in the story. They were so caught up that they failed to even notice the Detective enter. Not wanting to interrupt, the Detective quietly walked over to the big oak desk to look at the old family photos.

His sister had brought out numerous old photo albums for the reunion. He picked one up and began to leaf through it. The Detective chuckled quietly at a picture of his Aunt Martha and Uncle Albert. They must have been in their early teens. Aunt Martha was in a very small bikini and Uncle Albert looked like quite the bookworm, all skin and bones and wearing an extremely thick pair of horn rimmed glasses.

As the Detective stood there flipping through the photos he couldn’t help but over hear what his Uncle was saying.

“Boys, you wouldn’t believe how bright the sky is when you are soaring thousands of feet in the air. And the speed at which we flew. Believe me — our show was quite spectacular, full of really difficult precision moves. My favourite was when we’d fly in a star formation and then suddenly half of us would go into a sharp dive, and the other half would shoot straight up to over a thousand feet. Some days we were so close to one another that you could almost touch the other planes as they went by.” As he spoke Uncle Albert used his hands to show the boys exactly what each group of planes were doing. He moved so quickly that his glasses almost fell off his nose!

“Wow! Uncle, that must have been cool. Where did you guys fly?”

“Well, we did shows all over the world. One of our best shows was in Paris…..”

Just then the door to the study opened and Aunt Martha poked her head in, “Boys your mother is looking for you. She wants you to come and have something to eat.”

“Do we have to right now? Uncle was just about to tell us all about the cool air show in Paris.”

“Sorry boys, you can hear more later.”

After the boys had left the room Detective Nose grabbed a seat on the now empty couch and spoke to his Uncle.

“Well, Uncle Albert that was quite the interesting story you were telling the boys. You have a great imagination.”

Why didn’t Detective Nose believe his Uncle’s story?