The founding of America is a story of courage, grit, unity, defying the odds, and emerging victorious against what at the time was the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
This version of the story is often passed around among Acton Academy owners every year around this time, because it puts it into a perspective that gives our community the opportunity to see how important their Hero’s Journey is.
It’s based on a launch given by Jeff Sandefer, the co-founder of Acton Academy:
Today is a day about making a choice. You’ve all signed up to be here, but now the deep, heartfelt decision must be made.
I’d like to share a story with you that my friend Oliver DeMille shared with me. The year is 1764. [Twenty years ago], a student named Thomas Jefferson is dumped by his girlfriend, who immediately marries his best friend.
This event is so devastating that twenty years later [in 1764], he is still writing about it in his journal. Jefferson decides to give up on romance and rededicate himself to his studies.
In that same year, 1764, John Adams is a teacher. He writes in his journal that he enjoys teaching because it allows him to escape the frustrating worlds of business and politics and gives him a chance to think and learn. Later that year, he will meet and marry another thinker and writer, Abigail.
That same year, James Madison is thirteen years old. He is a good student, but so quiet and shy that his parents wonder if he will ever amount to much.
In 1764, George Washington is a businessman. His journal shows that his top priority that year is to pay off his debts, to which he has foolishly given a personal guarantee.
A decade later, this same group of ordinary people will declare independence from the greatest power on the face of the earth and sign it with their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.
A decade after that, they will write and help ratify the United States Constitution. But in 1764, they are just ordinary people, like us.
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The parents were hanging on every word, but Jeff was clearly speaking more to the children. They had gathered and sat by his feet and he squatted down to be on eye level with them.
There comes a time when ordinary people like us have to choose. Acton Academy is a choice. It is a choice to begin a Hero’s Journey—an adventure that is fun and exciting but also includes falling down, making mistakes, failing.
People on such a journey are heroes not because they have superpowers but because they choose to get back up after falling down. And they help their fellow travelers do the same. At Acton, you will have mentors and guides. But each of you will be in charge of your own journey.
Look behind me. We have drawn a line on the floor. It symbolizes the choice we are all making. Where we are now symbolizes the ordinary world. Across that line is new territory. It is where your Hero’s Journey will begin.
We are going to ask each family to make sure you are ready to cross the line into your new life as the founding families of Acton Academy. Are you ready to make a choice?
Our learners answer a call similar to the one the Founding Fathers did. They sign their own sort of Declaration of Independence in the form of a contract, a covenant that binds them together and declares what they will hold each other accountable to. They work to build a tribe, a community that is diverse but united in shared purposes.
I myself am adamant about calling it Independence Day, in part to stress the purpose of the day, but also because I love the word Independence. It’s one of the key things we’re trying to foster at Acton — we want every child to become an INDEPENDENT, lifelong learner.
Independence isn’t achieved by being passive, perfectionists, or victims. It’s achieved through courageous choices, allowing for failure, and being creators — someone who takes ownership and action on what they can control.
