26-27 Learning Arc

what does it mean to be human?

Every year at Acton Academy Lincoln, our learners set out on a Hero's Journey - a year-long arc built around a single driving question that shapes everything from our Socratic discussions to our quests. This year, we're asking the question: What does it mean to be human?

It's a question every generation has asked in its own way, but it feels especially alive right now. Our heroes are growing up alongside AI tools that can write, paint, calculate, and even hold a conversation - and that just happens to make for a wonderfully interesting lens on an old question. We're not out to settle the AI debate, and it's not really what this year is about. It's simply a timely lens: when so much can now be automated or generated, it's a natural moment to slow down and ask what's actually, distinctly ours - not because a machine can't yet do it, but because it belongs to the experience of being human in the first place.

That's not a question we're going to answer for the heroes. It's one we're going to explore all year, through six sessions that each take on a different piece of humanity - community, building and creating, wonder, empathy, our bodies, and the legacies we leave behind. Here's how the year unfolds:

Session One | Community
Quest: Build the Tribe (all studios), with Escape Room challenges for our Adventure and Launchpad heroes

What makes us human starts with the people around us - family, tribe, community. Heroes don't journey alone, and this session asks what humans actually need from each other, and what we owe each other in return. For our younger heroes, that shows up as friendship and belonging: what does it feel like to have a really good friend, and what makes a group of people feel like a team? For our older heroes, the same question opens into culture, identity, and what we lose when we're isolated - is it even possible to be fully human without other people around you?

Across every studio, heroes take on Build the Tribe, with the quest built around connecting with one another and creating the culture of the studio itself. In Spark, that happens through collaborative games. In the ES studios, Discovery and Odyssey, heroes build their tribe around a clan theme. And in Adventure and Launchpad, heroes take Build the Tribe a step further, designing and opening an escape room of their own.

Session Two | Building & Creating
Quest: Handwork (Spark), Entrepreneurship - Lemonade Wars (Discovery & Odyssey), Plan a Trip (Adventure), Next Great Adventure Intro (Launchpad)

Humans are builders and creators - we take ideas and turn them into something real, and no other creature does this quite the way we do. This session asks why humans create at all, and what the things we build say about who we are. For the oldest heroes, the question sharpens as they step into the world of their Next Great Adventure: is there a difference between making something and making something meaningful, and what does it mean to put yourself into what you build?

In Spark, heroes step into the world of makers- thread becomes pattern, yarn becomes cloth, fabric becomes story, clay becomes form. With patience and practice, simple materials can become meaningful works of art all with your hands! Discovery and Odyssey heroes run their Entrepreneurship quest through Lemonade Wars, building real lemonade stands and opening them up as businesses for exhibition. Our Adventure heroes take on Plan a Trip, becoming a travel agent and creating a trip, with guests at Exhibition voting on the best plan. And Launchpad heroes are introduced to their Next Great Adventure, the start of the year-long personal project that will carry them through their time at Acton.

Session Three | Wonder
Quest: Literacy (Spark), Acton Athens (Discovery & Odyssey), Trial of Socrates (Adventure), Psychology (Launchpad)

Humans may be the only creatures who stop and wonder - about themselves, about the world, about what's right. This session asks what happens when we ask the hard questions, the ones nobody has clean answers to. Socrates believed the unexamined life isn't worth living, and that's a perfect anchor for a session all about wonder.

Our Spark heroes get their first taste of wonder through literacy, digging into different books and authors. Discovery and Odyssey heroes travel back to Ancient Greece with Acton Athens, learning about the culture that gave us Socrates in the first place, while our Adventure heroes take on the Trial of Socrates directly. For our oldest heroes, wonder turns inward: through the Psychology quest's Self-Authoring Suite, Launchpad heroes spend three weeks writing who they are, exploring how they got there, and authoring who they intend to become. It's wonder pointed at the self, and it gets personal enough that the quest closes with a private, reflective conversation among the studio rather than a public exhibition.

Session Four | Empathy
Quest: Inventors / Engineering (Spark), Mechanical Engineering - Arcade (Discovery & Odyssey), Biology 1 - Evolution (Adventure & Launchpad)

Empathy - the ability to feel with someone, not just for them - is one of the most distinctly human traits we have, and it's the heart of this session. For our younger heroes, that's about feelings and friendship: could a robot ever really be your friend? For our older heroes, it opens into a deeper version of the year's question: what makes humans different from even the smartest animals or machines, and is there something a machine could never do, no matter how advanced it gets?
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Our three youngest studios all take on engineering this session. Spark heroes explore it through Inventors, learning about inventors from history with engineer Emily Roebling as their guiding hero. Discovery and Odyssey heroes take on Mechanical Engineering with an arcade theme, learning about simple machines and using that knowledge to build an arcade game of their own, opening it up for exhibition. And our Adventure and Launchpad heroes begin their science rotation with Biology 1: Evolution, exploring how humans came to be the creatures we are today.

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Session Five | Living & Breathing
Quest: Biomes (Spark), Marine Science (Discovery & Odyssey), Biology 2 - Medical (Adventure & Launchpad)

Humans are living, breathing creatures - we get sick, we heal, we feel pain, we feel joy. This session brings the year's question back down into the body, asking what it means to take care of ourselves and each other.  What makes something alive - and what makes it human? What can we learn about ourselves by studying other living things?

Our Spark heroes explore Biomes, discovering what different ecosystems and the creatures in them need to survive. Discovery and Odyssey heroes head into Marine Science, studying ocean life up close. And our Adventure and Launchpad heroes take on their second round of biology with a medical focus, digging into the systems of the human body and how healing actually works.

Session Six | Legacy
​Quest: Detective (Spark, Discovery & Odyssey), Embracing Life and Facing Death (Adventure & Launchpad)

Every human life has a beginning and an end - but the things we do, the people we love, and the stories we leave behind keep going. Our final session asks the question all the others have been building toward: what do you want your life to mean? For our younger heroes, that's asking "What do you want people to remember about you?" For our older heroes, it's a direct confrontation with mortality and meaning: does knowing we will die change how we should live, and what will you have done that only a human could do?

Our Spark, Discovery, and Odyssey heroes put on their detective hats for the Detective quest, exploring forensic science as they solve a mystery of their own. And our Adventure and Launchpad heroes take on Embracing Life and Facing Death, sitting directly with questions of mortality as they close out their final session of the year.

Where This Leaves Us
​By the time our heroes close out Session Six, they'll have spent a full year circling one question from every direction - through the people we need, the things we make, the questions we think,, the way we feel for one another, the bodies we live in, and the mark we hope to leave. We don't expect any hero, young or old, to land on a answer to "what does it mean to be human?" What we do expect is that they'll come out the other side with a much richer, much more personal sense of what's theirs alone to carry. That's the whole point of the Hero's Journey: not a destination, but a heroes' worth of better questions. We can't wait to see where this year takes them.