To earn a badge in a given topic, a student or group of students must conduct a sustained investigation, where they both learn things and do things. A student pursuing a yoga badge, for example, must learn about different yoga disciplines and memorize a core sequence from one of the disciplines. The student must also develop a yoga practice of their own, creating and sticking to a schedule of when and how they will do yoga, and accomplishing certain goals or milestones like leading a twenty minute class of their own. The knowing enhances the doing, and the doing enhances the knowing. A student must do yoga in order to truly know it, and yet by researching different schools of yoga, a student can craft a yoga discipline that is right for them.

We are not expecting students to enter Rock Creek with fully developed skills to plan and manage their work, or even to be able to sustain focus while working on their badges for a very long time. Throughout our badging program, we explicitly teach our students skills for prioritizing, completing, and communicating about their work. At the beginning of badge time, students plan how they are going to use the time, and set goals for what they hope to accomplish. Throughout the time, they check in with teachers and collaborate with peers. At the end, students review how they used the time, reflect on what went well and what they want to experiment with or change, and define their next steps. By teaching students the skills needed to manage self-driven work, we are giving them the agency to accomplish anything they want to do in life.

Each year, students are required to complete a certain number of badges on elective topics that can range from astronomy and botany to entrepreneurship and financial literacy. This is where students have the true freedom to explore. The elective requirement ensures that students get exposure to multiple areas of study outside the scope of a typical middle or high school education. Elective badges help students find and develop their passions, which is attractive to colleges and also gives students a sense of purpose, as they figure out what they might want to do in life.

Arts and exercise are healthy components of a well-rounded and balanced life, and so we ensure that all Rock Creek students spend time pursuing creative and wellness disciplines. We also believe that badgework is a better framework for students to be working on arts and fitness than traditional art and gym classes. By giving students ownership over their journey in the arts and wellness in badging, they are more likely to sustain their practices after graduation. As a part of arts & crafts and personal fitness badges, students learn how to set personal goals and hold themselves accountable in these areas. Our hope is that these badges provide the structure for students to develop artistic and wellness practices that last a lifetime.

For example, all students complete a Navigating the City badge at the start of 5th grade, which ensures that our fieldwork runs smoothly, and in 6th grade, they complete a Library badge to gain familiarity with utilizing the resources of public libraries. Later in middle school, students complete a Difficult Conversations badge, in which they schedule a meeting with a family member or friend to maturely discuss something that has been on their minds.

At Rock Creek, the badging program prepares all our students for life post-graduation. Students learn how to find, hone, and develop their interests, without teachers choosing the topics, providing the steps to follow, or grading their work. As a result, when the structure of school is taken away after graduation, our students will already know how to do meaningful work. Badgework empowers students to do work that they find meaningful throughout their lives.