With Freedom Comes Responsibility
In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ascent’s learner-driven education model puts the learner in the front seat, with frameworks, systems, and Socratic guidance as support. Common academics, what we call Learning to Learn, are a piece of this, but our high standards for core academics are accomplished and surpassed in less than half a school day over the course of one’s journey at Ascent. The rest of their time is devoted to Learning to Do and Learning to Be.
Why wait until adulthood to set goals and strive to exceed them?
Why wait until adulthood to take care of oneself and see how choices ripple into one’s own future, into one’s community, and into one’s world?
Why wait until adulthood to walk a path of meaning when the journey can begin today?
This morning, Explore and Discovery learners debated freedoms and the responsibilities that come with them. We start simple: the freedom to choose seats, to snack anytime, to take breaks, to set and work towards one’s goals-of-choice. Learners quickly realized that freedoms only work when paired with responsibility- cleaning up after a snack, respecting focus, honoring each other’s space, working hard. Together, they drafted their own standards of excellence, which will go on the wall as the standards to uphold in order to maintain freedoms.
When standards slip, guardrails narrow. When upheld, freedoms expand. The sky is the limit within the bounds of learners walking their walk.
This is not a linear process, it’s a series of messy loops. Success and failure. Celebration and reflection. But through it all, learners discover that radical responsibility is a doorway to real freedom.
