This is the ninth in a series of posts explaining the Acton Academy Principles of Education.

Education Principle #9: Learning is a reward. Schooling is not.

Children love to learn. What they don't love is to be schooled.

As a child, I remember wanting to build a website. I remember my excitement over writing a piece of code that solved a problem. All of us, and especially children, are naturally curious.

That is the premise of Acton. Allow children to learn and grow. Provide them guidance and they will flourish because learning is really enjoyable.

What's not fun are tests and grades and homework. These are things that happen at schools to force learning. But really, you're not forcing learning - you're demotivating a child and ensuring that they will do what they need to do get good grades and to do well on tests. They may learn for the short term by memorizing a whole bunch of facts that they won't use later. That is not valuable learning.

In addition, research has continuously shown us that grades tend to reduce:

• Students' interest in the learning itself

• Students' preference for challenging tasks

• The quality of students' thinking

Instead of grades and tests, what if we gave a child a project such as asking them to create a lemonade stand or build an online store? Imagine the creativity that it will spur when they are required to learn, understand, and apply everything it takes to run a successful business. Or what if a child is interested in video games. Could they benefit from thinking about plots, story lines, characters, design, implementation, coding. The growth they could achieve would be mind boggling compared to forcing them to learn by taking tests.

That is why at Acton we will heavily emphasize learning through projects. The keyword will always be learning, not schooling.

Further Recommended Reading: Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era by Tony Wagner and Tony Dintersmith