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// week 02 · day 03 · wednesday · first learner-led town hall

Town Hall #2 - learner-led.

The first Town Hall the studio runs without the guide driving. Rules of Engagement get cut down and locked. And the Leadership Roles board opens - as an invitation nobody has to accept, not a set of assignments.

Learner-led Town Hall Rules of Engagement v1 Roles board opens Guide sits down ↓ Jump to Quest
01

The day's purpose

By 3:15 today the studio has a Rules of Engagement v1 they wrote themselves, on the wall, in their own handwriting - and a Roles board that nobody was pressured into.

// success criteria · 01

A learner ran it

Not the guide with a learner holding the agenda. If you spoke more than four times, it wasn't learner-led.

// success criteria · 02

Three to five rules, posted

In learner language, however clumsy. Hung on the wall by learners before the end of Quest.

// success criteria · 03

Nobody was recruited

Whatever's on the roles board was chosen freely. An empty board is an acceptable outcome today.

02

Supplies & setup

Posted / prepared before arrival

  • Town Hall agenda posted where the studio can read it on the way in
  • Week 1's Rules of Engagement draft list, written up large and ready to cut down
  • The Leadership Roles board - built, but covered or turned around until Quest
  • Sign-up cards, one per role, in a stack beside the board
  • Daily Thinking Puzzle up by the cubbies

Materials & people

  • Poster sheets - one per locked rule, plus two spare
  • Thick markers, color
  • Tape or tacks for hanging
  • Town Hall leader coached in advance (Monday or Tuesday, ten minutes, one-on-one)
  • Timekeeper named in advance with a visible timer in their hand
  • Topic box emptied and topics read before 8:30 - no surprises for the leader
03

Minute by minute

8:00 – 8:25 · 25 minarrival

Arrival & Free Time

Standard rhythm. Greet every learner by name. The Daily Thinking Puzzle is up by the cubbies.

8:25 – 8:30 · 5 mintransition

Settle

Bell, tidy, walk to the launch space. By Week 2 this should need no narration - if it does, narrate it once more.

8:30 – 8:50 · 20 minnon-negotiable launch

Morning Launch - your Town Hall, your job

Talking points, not a script. Hit these in your own words - the studio can tell the difference, and the ones that land are the ones you actually mean.

The opener (2 min):

"Last week I ran Town Hall and narrated everything I was doing. Today I'm not running it - [Learner] is. My job today is to be an active follower."

Then say what that actually means, because it's a phrase they haven't heard: "That means I'm going to be listening hard, taking notes on what you say, and doing my part to make this a good Town Hall. It doesn't mean I've disappeared. Following well is a real job and most people are bad at it."

The studio's job (10 min):

Be specific, because "participate well" means nothing. Name the four jobs and put them on the board:

  1. The leader runs the agenda and calls on people. Today: [learner].
  2. The timekeeper holds the clock and says so out loud. Today: [learner].
  3. Everyone else has two jobs: raise your hand instead of talking over, and build on what the last person said instead of starting over.
  4. The guide speaks only if asked a direct question, or if something unsafe happens.

Then: "The hardest one is number three. When you disagree with somebody, the move is 'I hear what you're saying, and…' not 'no, actually.' Try it today even if it feels weird."

The agenda preview (5 min):

Two items today, both real:

  • Rules of Engagement v1. Last week we drafted them. Today we cut them to three to five and lock them.
  • The Roles board. It opens this afternoon. Explain at Town Hall what it is - and what it isn't.

The close (3 min):

"One more thing about today. If Town Hall goes badly, that's not a disaster - that's the data we use to make the next one better. Nobody has to be perfect at this. We just have to actually try it."

// guide note

Coach the Town Hall leader on Monday or Tuesday, not this morning. Ten minutes, one-on-one: walk them through the agenda, give them a script for the two hardest moments (someone talking too long, and dead silence), and tell them you'll be sitting on your hands on purpose. A leader who's been coached will hold it. A leader who gets handed an agenda at 8:45 will drown.

8:50 – 9:00 · 10 mindaily rhythm

Habit & Character Goals

Standard rhythm.

9:00 – 9:40 · 40 minmath time

Math Time

Standard rhythm.

9:40 – 9:50 · 10 minexit ticket

Rocket Math

Standard rhythm.

9:50 – 10:20 · 30 minsnack

Snack

Standard rhythm. Last chance for learners to drop a topic in the Town Hall box - announce that at the start of snack.

10:20 – 11:20 · 60 minela block

ELA Block - D.E.A.R. + Town Hall prep

  • 10:20–10:50 · D.E.A.R. (30 min): Silent reading.
  • 10:50–11:20 · Prep (30 min): Anyone who submitted a Town Hall topic writes two sentences on it - what the issue is, and what they'd like to happen. Speaking from a written note is a real skill and it keeps Town Hall tight. Everyone else continues writing.
11:20 – 12:00 · 40 mintown hall #2

Town Hall #2 - learner-led

Agenda (posted before the studio walks in):

  1. 11:20–11:25 - Open. Leader welcomes, reads the agenda, names the timekeeper.
  2. 11:25–11:45 - Rules of Engagement v1. The draft list from Week 1 goes up. The studio's job is to cut it to three to five rules. Not add. Cut. Anything that doesn't survive isn't lost - it goes to the Studio Manual.
  3. 11:45–11:55 - The Roles board. Guide gets ninety seconds here, and only ninety. See the script below.
  4. 11:55–12:00 - Open floor. Anything from the topic box.

The guide's ninety seconds on roles - the gist of it - your words, this shape:

"This afternoon a board goes up with a list of roles - jobs that help the studio run. Here's the important part. Nobody is getting assigned one. I'm not going to hand these out, and I'm not going to ask you to volunteer in front of everyone. The board just exists. If you want one, take one. If you want none, take none. If you take one and hate it, hand it back at next Town Hall. If a role sits empty all week, we'll notice and we'll talk about it here - that's a studio problem to solve, not a you problem."

What the guide does during Town Hall: models followership, visibly. See the callout below - this is the part learners will actually copy.

// what the guide is actually doing

Active followership is a job, not an absence

Not speaking is easy and it teaches nothing. Being a visibly excellent follower is hard, and it is the thing the studio will copy. Sit at learner height, inside the circle, and be conspicuously engaged:

  • Take notes. Visibly, on paper, throughout. It signals that what learners say is worth writing down - and gives you an accurate record to post afterwards.
  • Make eye contact with whoever is speaking. All the way through their turn, not just at the start.
  • Nod. React. Laugh when something's funny. A stone-faced adult in the circle reads as disapproval, and the room will start performing for you instead of talking to each other.
  • Raise your hand like everybody else if you want to say something, and accept not being called on.
  • Track who hasn't spoken in your notes and hand that to the leader afterwards - not during.

Half the studio is learning to lead today. The other half is learning to follow well, and there is exactly one model of that in the room.

// hold this line

Three to five rules. The studio will want eleven. Everything past five stops being a rule and starts being a wish list, and a wish list doesn't get followed. If they push, the answer is: "Anything we cut goes in the Studio Manual, and the Manual is real - it just isn't the five things we hold each other to every single day."

12:00 – 1:00 · 60 minlunch

Lunch

Standard rhythm.

1:00 – 1:50 · 50 minread-along

Read-Along

Wednesday is the unplugged read-along slot. Physical books where possible. Class-voted title.

1:50 – 2:40 · 50 minquest · btt

Quest - Rules on the wall + the Roles board opens

// purpose

Two jobs. Turn the words the studio agreed at Town Hall into physical objects they made themselves - a rule you painted is a rule you own. And open the Roles board with genuinely zero pressure, so that whatever ends up on it is a real choice rather than a set of chores handed out by an adult.

Part 1 - the poster crew (25 min):

  1. Split into as many small teams as there are locked rules. One rule per team, one poster sheet each.
  2. The brief: "Make this rule impossible to ignore." Big letters, illustration, whatever they want.
  3. One hard constraint: the words must match exactly what Town Hall agreed. No improving it, no shortening it, no adding a joke. If the wording is clumsy, it stays clumsy until the studio changes it at a Town Hall. That's what it means for the studio to own its own rules.
  4. Hang them before the block ends. Learners hang them, not the guide.

Part 2 - the Roles board open house (18 min):

  1. The board goes up with every role listed and a sign-up card beside each one.
  2. Walk the board once. Read each role out loud with one sentence about what it actually involves on a normal Tuesday - not the job title, the daily reality. "Tech Helper means when someone's Chromebook won't log in, they come to you first instead of me."
  3. Then land the point: "The board's open. Take one, take none, or take one and give it back next week."
  4. Then move to the edge of the room and stay there. Not next to the board - learners won't sign up honestly with an adult at their shoulder - but not out of the room either. You're the guardrail; you're just not driving.

Part 3 - the close (7 min):

Don't read out who signed up for what. Don't comment on empty roles. One line: "Whatever's on that board at the end of the week is what the studio chose. That's real, and we'll see how it goes."

// the move that makes this work

Answer questions with the board, not with your opinion

Learners will come and ask you what a role means. That's the moment the whole thing either works or collapses into you assigning roles conversationally.

The answer is never the answer. It's a question, every time:

"What does the description say?"

If they read it and still don't understand, then: "What do you think it'd look like on a Tuesday?" Let them construct it. If the description is genuinely unclear, that's a fault in the board and you fix the board - out loud, in front of them - rather than patching it with a conversation only one learner heard.

The reason this matters: the second you explain a role, you've made it yours. The learner is now signing up for a thing the guide described to them personally, which is about four inches from being asked. Pointing at the board keeps the role belonging to the studio.

// the whole point · read this twice

Do not talk anyone into a role. Not one persuasive sentence. You may say "you'd be good at that" to at most one learner today, quietly, and only if it's true and they're already looking at the board. A role someone was talked into is a chore they'll resent by October. A role someone chose is an identity they'll defend. Continuing learners here have had a lot of freedom and will smell an assignment dressed up as an invitation from across the room.

Carry forward: Empty roles are useful information, not a failure. If half the board is bare on Friday, the question for next week's Town Hall isn't "who'll step up?" - it's "are these roles anyone actually wants, or are they just jobs I wanted done?" Be willing to hear the second answer.

2:40 – 3:00 · 20 min20 min during btt

Studio Maintenance

Standard rhythm, 20 minutes. If anyone signed up for a maintenance-adjacent role today, let them try running their piece - badly is fine.

3:00 – 3:10 · 10 mindaily ritual

Character Callouts

Callouts likely to be available today: whoever led Town Hall, whoever gave up a rule they'd argued for, whoever built on someone else's idea instead of starting over. Name the trait, not just the act.

3:10 – 3:15 · 5 minclosing

Reflection

One question: "What was different about Town Hall when a learner ran it?" Take three answers, including a critical one if it comes.

3:15 – 3:30 · 15 minpickup

Pickup

Send-off at the door, by name, with eye contact. Every learner, every day.

04

Go deeper · stretch · empower

For learners ready to lead

  • Town Hall leader is the obvious one - but rotate it. If the same confident learner leads #2 and #3, the studio learns that leading is for certain people.
  • Offer the timekeeper role to a quieter learner. It's real authority with a small speaking load, and it's the best on-ramp there is.
  • A returner who signs up for a role immediately: ask them to not take the most visible one. "There are four people who could do Tribe Photographer. There's maybe one who could do DEAR Defender well. Think about it."

For learners who need more scaffolding

  • Speaking at Town Hall is genuinely hard. The written two sentences from ELA prep exist for exactly this - a learner can read rather than improvise.
  • Offer the option of handing a note to the leader to read out. Anonymous contribution still counts as contribution.
  • At the Roles board, some learners won't approach while others are crowded around. Leave the board up and the cards out overnight - signing up at 8:10 tomorrow morning with nobody watching is a legitimate way to do it.

For specific learner needs

  • Forty minutes of sitting in a circle is a long time for some learners. Establish before Town Hall that standing at the back is fine and needs no permission - make it a general norm today, not a one-off allowance.
  • A learner who struggles to read the board should hear every role read aloud, which is why the guide reads all of them out rather than saying "go have a look."
  • If a learner is anxious about the roles board being a popularity contest, name the alternative early and privately: some of the best roles are invisible ones.

For the guide

  • You will want to save Town Hall when it stalls. Let it stall. Ten seconds of silence feels like a minute to you and like nothing to them.
  • Write down verbatim what the studio agrees. If you post a "tidied up" version tomorrow, they'll notice, and the ownership evaporates.
  • Count your own contributions on your notepad. If you're past four, stop.
  • Tonight: look at the roles board honestly. Which roles are genuinely appealing and which are chores you'd like off your plate? Be ready to hear that answer at next week's Town Hall.
05

Parent communication today

Talking points for this week's email. Drop these into an AI assistant along with two or three live notes from your actual week - a name, a moment, something that surprised you - and it'll give you a draft in your own voice. The specifics are what make it land; the structure below is just the scaffolding.

The draft underneath is an example of the shape and the tone, not a template to send as-is. A parent who gets the same email as every other parent can tell.

// example draft · a shape, not a template

Subject: They ran it themselves today

Hi families,

Today was the first Town Hall run by a learner instead of by me. I sat down, took notes, and spoke about four times. It was slightly chaotic and completely worth it.

Two things came out of it. The studio cut their draft list of studio rules down to a short set they can actually hold each other to - the cutting was harder than the writing, which is usually the case. They spent the afternoon making posters of those rules, in their own words and their own handwriting, and hung them on the wall themselves.

We also opened the Leadership Roles board. I want to be clear about how that works, because it's deliberate: nobody is assigned a role. The board is simply there. Learners can take one, take none, or take one and hand it back. If your learner comes home without a role, that's a legitimate choice and not something to nudge them about. If they come home with one, ask what it actually involves - they'll know.

- [your name]

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