Self-management and self-governance are celebrated daily by learners who use 21st Century skills to tackle real world projects, inspired by classic heroes in a tightly bound community with extremely high standards.

Learner-driven community.

  • LEARNING TO KNOW

    Our learners use hands-on and online learning tools to master core skills. Better than memorization, learners master skills before progressing to new levels of learning. Learners remain curious and have the time to explore areas of interest deeper.

  • LEARNING TO DO

    Hands-on project-based questers are used to master the skills to solve real-world problems. Heroes engaged in quests for science, entrepreneurship, arts, civics, and more. These complex projects focus on solving problems facing the world today. Professional tools for art, engineering, tech and storytelling in place of worksheets and busy work.

  • LEARN TO LEARN

    Socratic discussions is one area where learners hone critical thinking and speaking abilities. Among supportive and engaged peers, heroes own their learning experience through self-governance and embrace the idea that real growth is hard work. They understand the importance of challenging themselves, asking good questions, taking risks, and remaining curious about the world around them. Socratic discussion involves ethical dilemmas that challenge each student.

  • LEARNING TO BE

    Learn to value the power of a community centered on respect, integrity, and collaboration. We provide situations to build social, emotional, and executive skills to make a difference in the world. We guide learners to develop virtuous habits such as honesty, hard work, responsibility, kindness, and empathy. Our community is engaged in their passions and builds grit to withstand challenges. Each learner commits to written promises and covenants to form a tightly bound community of individuals learning to form authentic friendships and honestly resolve interpersonal problems.

What is Learner-Driven?

The learner driven approach inspires, equips, and connects young people who embrace a Hero’s Journey to make principled decisions towards a more satisfying and fulfilling life because:

  1. The energy behind learning – and especially transformational learning – comes from the curiosity and drive of an individual learner supported by the community. The freedom to choose, supercharged by archetypal stories, is the rocket fuel of learning.

  2. The time tested tale of human development that has shaped civilization through the ages is that of the Hero’s Journey. In it, the heroes who are on a quest and supported by their community, search for their version of a worthy grail, which ends up changing them in the process. Being aware of the parts of the Hero’s Journey helps the learners bring more intention and awareness to their path and choices. By nature, it also includes critical rites of passage celebrated ceremoniously within the community.

  3. The responsibility for setting the contracts that will form a community – along with choosing recipes, processes and examples to solve real world problems – develops complex problem solving skills and a sense of due process and justice in action.

  4. Socratic discussions develop listening skills, logic, perspective, and judgment that lead to powerful critical thinking.

  5. Multi-age studios mean learning can be shared peer to peer and within squads through critiques and joint projects in a way that shares and accelerates learning in an exponential way and includes high levels of fun and engagement.

  6. Offering self-paced work in an environment where many types of gifts are celebrated, and improvement is praised rather than held to artificial adult standards, leads to an appreciation of excellence from within. Using trial and error experimentation includes experiencing the joys and fallouts of the process of learning. 

  7. Over time, through self-management and self-governance, learners shift from “me and now” to setting goals for the day, week, session, and year. They lengthen time horizons in a way that expands and deepens relationships with the use of Running Partners, squads, studios, and their campuses.

  8. Character development comes from making courageous choices in the face of real ethical dilemmas. This etches habits into the soul. All of the learning above requires permission to fail early, cheaply, and often to learn from mistakes. Young heroes often have the experience in non-learner driven contexts of being ordered about by adults who may not be operating from the learner’s best interest.  This unconstrained power on the part of adults must be limited by agreements made between them and the learners or learning shuts down. This happens when young heroes lose the freedom and responsibility to choose, which is at the core of free will. Properly protected from the misuse of adult authority, young heroes in learner driven studios:

  • Learn to learn by internalizing recipes, processes and mental models as habits;

    1. Learn to do in a way that delivers real world skills; and

    2. Learn to be by etching moral habits and ancient archetypal lessons deep in the soul.

All of this leads to a next great adventure in life, that eventually blossoms into a calling that changes the world.

Written By: Laura Sandefer, Co-Founder of Acton Academy

Outcomes

  1. A love of learning. Your hero will look forward to coming to JSA each day, for years to come. They will build a community (tribe) based on supportive relationships and hard work. Your hero will be accountable and achieve goals for themselves.

  2. Excel in academics. We provide the right environment, tools and opportunities - and students flourish with freedom and learners progress with mastery.

    Joy + Rigor = Mastery

    Mastery = Proficiency

  3. Self-management, self-discovery, and leadership. When given the opportunity to be leaders, learners will rise, and keep each other accountable to excellence. They will learn what it means to develop contracts with others and learn why it’s important to uphold.

  4. Happier families. JSA is rooted in family and emphasizes a bond of unity and purpose. We make room for your hero to come home and dedicate their time to family - not homework.

Joyful Scholars Academy joins the Acton Academy network of over 300+ academies across 26 countries. This network of entrepreneurs, education change-makers provide learning under the same learning design and educational philosophy. We are constantly evolving to incorporate new skills that will provide our children with advanced learning that is applicable to the 21st century. We are disrupting the education system by reimagining education to benefit our children, families, and the community.

Accredited by IALDS

The International Association of Learner Driven Schools (IALDS) is an accreditation entity with a focus on schools with strong values, proven methodology and a commitment to continuous improvement. Supporting schools that serve the whole person, the IALDS is committed to finding a way for staff, parents, and students in its member schools to thrive in emotionally supportive and developmentally appropriate environments as they learn and grow. This accreditation is only awarded to schools that uphold a “gold-standard” for best practices.

Our STUDIOS

  • Ages 4 - 6 years. Montessori learning based.

  • Ages 7 - 12 years.

  • Ages 11 - 14 years

  • Ages 14 +