The following are two essays written by eleven-year-olds at our school. They were tasked with writing about what qualifications they feel a student from this program needs in order to be ready to go out into the world for an apprenticeship. This is what they had to say…

 

Apprenticeship Qualifications — by Taz

I think that the qualifications for an eagle to be able to do an apprenticeship are as follows: The eagle should be able to regulate themselves at all times and NOT interrupt people more than a few times a day. The eagle needs to have the knowledge necessary for their specific apprenticeship. If the eagle can keep themselves on task and working for a large piece of Core Skills without taking a Brain  Break or distracting anyone, they should be just fine. If the eagle does interrupt and/or take too many brain breaks for invalid reasons, they should not be permitted to go on an apprenticeship.

The skills eagles should be required to have are the skills most relevant to the business offering the apprenticeship. (At least a fair amount of the skill, not necessarily all of it). This eagle should be skilled enough that everything they hear should not be new or unfamiliar.

 

Apprenticeship Eligibility by Kashi

Not just anyone can be an Infinity School eagle and not just any eagle can go out into the community on an apprenticeship. Here is what I think it takes to get an apprenticeship. I think it takes a willingness to learn, self-control, and reliability to be eligible to go out into the community on an apprenticeship.

A willingness to learn is useful for an eagle who wants to go out in to the community because a willingness to learn encourages asking questions. For example, asking questions is one of the most important parts of the Socratic method which grows critical thinking. Asking questions is also one of the best ways to learn in this day and age where a lot of the world’s known questions remain unanswered just waiting for someone to find them. Asking questions is very useful in apprenticeships also because you can learn so much more if you ask how something works.

In addition, a willingness to learn will help an eagle try new things because an eagle who tries new things will have new chances to find their calling and change the world. Trying new things will give you a chance to discover something new. Trying new things will also help you in an apprenticeship because you can open your mind and find new things. A person who has a willingness to learn will learn from mistakes, which would be useful for an eagle because an eagle who learns from mistakes can grow and overcome problems and learn from failure rather than quitting because of it. Learning from mistakes is an essential part of learning because without it we would all be stuck in the same loop. Learning from mistakes will also help you in an apprenticeship because if you learn from mistakes rather than shun them you are more willing to learn.

Self-control is necessary for an eagle during an apprenticeship because self-control promotes grit and grit is really important for helping you work hard and do stuff that you don’t want to do. Grit also helps you push through tough things. Grit is essential for an eagle with an apprenticeship because it helps you work hard even though you do not want to.

An eagle who has self-control will also keep their emotions in check which would be useful because if you got really mad when not understanding a question, it would help you by not making a scene and make a bad impression of the community. It would also help you if your  supervisor told you you didn’t do something correctly keeping your emotions in check would stop you from getting mad and losing your apprenticeship.

Responsibility is important for an eagle going out into society because if you are responsible you can be trusted to fix mistakes. If you fix mistakes it will help later because if you have already been taught to learn from mistakes you can be depended on to fix them which is the next step. Fixing mistakes is important for an apprenticeship because you will be able to solve problems not just learn from them.

Being punctual is also very important to be depended on because if you are punctual you can be trusted to complete assignments at the time you said you would it would also be vital for being there on time when you promise to be there. Being punctual is vital for an apprenticeship because if you are punctual you can be depended on and be given deadlines and when you should come and can be trusted to meet their expectations.

In short, I think the skills necessary for an apprentice are having an eagerness to learn, being dependable and finally, controlling yourself.