[I invited the Acton Academy Eagles to be guest writers for my blog. The question I posed is: “What do you want parents to understand about your life and learning?” Today I share the first of such gifts – unedited – from our heroes.]

Hi. I’m Mason Dickerson, and I am a lover of art, music, paintball, boardsports, and film. Especially film. My dad is a director, so I think I got it from him. It’s sometimes all I can think about. I even founded the Acton Middle School Film Club where we meet once a month to watch and discuss a film I chose. I plan on being a cinematographer, if not a director or a film critic when I get older. So why am I going to a school for entrepreneurship when I love film? Why not Lamar or Mccallum, where my love of art could be more exercised? Because here, at Acton, I am learning life lessons. I don’t need to go to an art school. I can learn everything I want to know about film by myself, through my dad, or through one of the apprenticeships we do at Acton every year. That’s been going over great for me. Here, I am learning what it will be like in the real world. We are gaining skills or writing, collaboration, discussion skills, and more. The projects we have may not tie directly into my passion, but at Acton I try to find meaning in all of our projects, so that I can further understand how to approach my future career. Acton is all about finding your calling, whether in owning a big oil company or a NFL player, and I like that a lot.