Jeff and Laura Sandefer are husband and wife who founded Acton Academy, a school whose learner-driven model is spreading like wildfire across the globe. Their children were the inspiration in founding Acton Academy.
Jeff and Laura talk about how challenges educating their own children led to a revolution in modern education, what teaching looks like in the 21st century, and Laura’s new book, Courage To Grow: How Acton Academy Turns Learning Upside Down.
About a year into the latest step in my corporate career in a specialized niche of aviation insurance, I was sitting in my cubicle in New York City on a dark night thinking, ‘I could wake up 10 years from now and still be sitting here in the dark doing this!’ My heart was not in it.
Acton revolution has been growing around the country with dozens of new schools opening every year.
If you have children, or plan to have them some day, don’t miss this life-changing interview with Jeff and Laura Sandefer.
n this episode, Laura talks about the school, which she calls a human growth machine, and why she believes that education should be more about human transformation than making good grades.
Filling our heads with facts and memorizing multiplication tables may not be a productive way of building skills that will lead to a lucrative job or be the basis for starting a profitable business.
Laura Sandefer and her husband co-founded The Acton Academy. This is the school that Jay Papasan sends his kids to, and they are transforming the way that kids learn. We discuss what Acton’s schooling looks like, and how you can show up at a higher level to develop your children into extraordinary people.
Laura appreciates that student motivation is, “Complicated and individual, for some it is peer motivation, for some it is earning a badge–we find the real hook for each student.” Acton uses Montessori and Socratic teaching methods to encourage critical thinking and self-mastery.