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Inspired Actions


“Acton Academy is on the vanguard of change in education...”

Seth Godin, Author of STOP STEALING DREAMS

“The "hero's journey" is Sandefer's term for pursuing a "life of meaning," another favorite phrase. To him, entrepreneurship is doing something you're good at, that you enjoy doing, and that the world needs (or at least that people will pay you for). Much at the Acton Academy is built to further that pursuit. As at a Montessori school, Acton teachers are guides--in fact, that's what they're called--who put kids to work on projects and then point them to resources to solve problems on their own. Those resources include online simulation games Sandefer paid to have developed, in which players learn to spot production bottlenecks in a factory, or compete to sell water without getting into a price war. (He developed the games for his MBA school but has found his younger pupils benefit from them too.)”

Inside the Schools That Want to Create the Next Mark Zuckerberg--Starting at Age 5

“Montessori meets Silicon Valley.”

Reason Magazine, January 26, 2018

“Acton Academy is one of the most important education developments in the world. ”

Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Getting Smart, a learning design firm and previously the first Executive Director of Education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“At the Acton Academy, kids teach themselves and each other, as they respond to a series of challenges offered by adult “guides.” The challenges are tough, which leaves no one a stranger to life’s best teacher—failure. Talking out of turn and challenging the status quo are commonplace, but laziness and shirking are not acceptable.

The kids are responsible for an astounding number of things, right down to the janitorial work. Students run their own governance and currency systems, immersing themselves in negotiation and conflict resolution... And yes, they learn reading, writing, and arithmetic using state-of-the-art, game-based teaching tools that have helped them progress at three times the rate of their public school peers.

Best of all, kids are free to be kids... Every act of learning is voluntary and self-directed.”

Acton Academy: Socrates' Antidote for Government School Hemlock

“Forget show and tell: These young entrepreneurs aim to show and sell.”

The Washington Post, May 30, 2017

“The learning process is structured in a manner that children are encouraged to discover their personal “hero’s journey.” Abilgail King, a parent of an Acton student who became a guide, thinks this is central to the exceptional achievements being witnessed.


“The idea of looking at your life as a narrative that you have control over,” King said. “I didn’t figure that out for myself until I was in my twenties. But these young kids, some of them are six years old when they come to Acton, are being given the idea that they are the protagonist in their life story. And that they are the heroes. It’s so empowering that I think it gives the context that how they spend today affects what their choices will be for tomorrow.”


The Education Movement You’ve Never Heard Of

“I was so impressed with [Acton Academy] that I persuaded my husband to move from Honolulu, Hawaii, to the heart of Central Texas so our five young children could enroll.”

Heather Staker, coauthor of Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools

Acton in Action


TedTalk by Jeff Sandefer

Acton In Action

Rethinking Schools, Genius and Heroes. Jeff Sandefer


Students talk about Acton Academy in “Disruptive Education,” an award-winning documentary short.


Our Inspiration

The Myth of Average. Todd Rose

How School Makes Kids Less Intelligent. 

Eddy Zhong

Do Schools Kill Creativity? Ken Robinson

Four Key Skills to Lead the Future. Michael Lai

Let's Teach for Mastery— Not Test Scores. Sal Khan

What If Students Controlled Their Own Learning? Peter Hutton

Developing a Growth Mindset. Carol Dweck

New Experiments in Self-teaching. Sugata Mitra

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