Turning Learning Upside Down with Jeff Sandefer Transformative Principal 219

Jeff Sandefer started his first business at 16 and has run 5 successful companies since then. Now, most of his time is spent developing innovate educational curriculum for the Acton Academy and My Entrepreneurial Journey and teaching at the Acton School of Business.

• The Courage to Grow - By Laura Sandefer, about the journey of creating Acton Academy
• How Acton started, powerful story.
• Socratic teacher at the graduate level for 20 years.
• Confident that we could pull off pieces
• Sugata Mitra -
• Not in the school reform business, just trying to do our own little thing.
• Frankenstinian mashup of pieces.
• Montessori, socratic methods, game-based method.
• Pods of 36 students interacting with each other throughout the day.
• Multi-age campus.
• Age levels tend to disappear.
• Middle schoolers who may have finished calculus.
• Self-management and self-government.
• We are like game makers.
• We are not allowed to utter a declarative statement.
• There is an entropy among human beings to do nothing and waste time.
• Auto-didacts are fairly rare. Most people want to hang out with their friends and have fun.
• To stay in this fun place, you have to work hard.
• Competitive personally, but also
• Freedom and responsibility are tied together.
• Feedback loops: Would you recommend Acton to a friend?
• The harder you work and the kinder you are, the more freedom you get.
• 360 peer satisfaction surveys once per session - warm hearted and tough-minded.
• Entirely enforced by the peers. The council has the right to adopt something different.
• Parents retain ultimately responsible for students.
• Mission of the school: Each person will find a calling that will change the world. The Hero’s journey.
• It’s about transformation.
• The heroes are the ones that call against the entropy of mankind.
• Entire community can fall apart from time to time.
• Allow Lord of the Flies from time to time.
• Pure democracy, democratic republic or benevolent dictator.
• Creating challenges -
• Half come from the top, and half come from the bottom.
• They’ll be fine. I don’t want them to be fine. I want them to be better.
• Heroes don’t always win but they do always get up.
• Most difficult thing is the parents.
• Parents have to be on a heroes journey also.
• Parent badges as well as badges for students.
• How do you keep track of your badges?
• LMS to keep track of the badges.
• Laszlo Bock
• Give templates and the kids go do the work for
• How to be a transformative principal? Every young child deserves to find a calling to change the world. Every child is a genius.

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