1st half of of this quest: Team Building, Lip Dub, Contract Creation
The Eagles spent the first few weeks practicing team building exercises, including their lip dub music video, and creating their Student Contract and Rules of Engagement Contract, as well as setting themselves up for success for the school year through Journey Tracker and our core skills programs.
2nd half of this Quest: Negotiation
“Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you.”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
In this session, the High School Eagles will be participating in simulations from the Harvard Business School, Acton Business School and Chris Voss (former FBI negotiator) to learn the art of negotiation. They will learn to understand their counterpart’s perspective, how to mirror their counterpart to make them feel at ease, use their words and observations of feeling to neutralize negative emotion, and much more.
They will become familiar with terms such as Tactical Empathy, Mirroring, Anchoring, Labeling, Bargaining, Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA), and Worst Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (WATNA). They are going to read the Harvard Business Review’s Top 10 Articles: On Negotiation. They will use the topics covered in these articles and work through simulations and play games to practice negotiation tactics.
Then, to put these into a more real world scenario, the Eagles will all be a part of the Acton Auto Company. Some will be a part of the Management, and some will be a part of the Union. They will use their new tools and negotiate a strike that is currently going on at the Acton Auto Company. It is a full case, where the union is demanding higher wages, better benefits, better working conditions, etc.
The exhibition will have each team presenting to families how their side “won” and their lessons learned from the process. Families will get to vote on each side and eventually there will be a winner of the negotiation (not based on the side they would be on, but on which side was able to walk away with a better deal).
For Writer’s Workshop, our High Schoolers are learning and writing reflections on the Next Great Adventure, NGA, Process. The Eagles will go through exploring who they are through assessments, feedback from friends and family, and reflection on personal traits. They are using this information to narrow down their gifts/strengths, jobs/careers they are interested in, and where they would like to work (company/location). They will then pick between several badge options this year to help them navigate their next steps. The tools in these badges will be priceless in their journey through High School, and even more valuable after their high school experience. The badges include:
Stars & Stepping Stones Interviews
Mentorships
NGA Freelancing (Job)
Deliberate Practice
NGA Credential
Apprenticeships
Acton Academy West High School Guides - Joey & Tyler
