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On Friday, March 31st, our students travelled to the National Archives Atlanta branch to conduct research in their extensive collection of manuscripts, primary source documents, and other historical objects. Avery, one of our students on that learning expedition, wrote the following reflection on her experiences that day.

Meet Payton: Payton enjoys drawing, playing basketball, and building and designing structures as an architect would. He is the president of his past school’s robotic club and aspires to be an architect or a general designer. Payton is on a journey at Lab Atlanta. He doesn't enjoy school, but looks at Lab Atlanta to find what he is passionate about. 

Meet Sarah:Sarah is one of the inaugural students at LAB Atlanta. She just turned 16 this month, and is enjoying the new freedom. She has been a resident of Atlanta most of her life. Sarah was born at Northside Hospital, and lived in Buckhead for a few years before relocating to LaGrange Georgia. She moved back to Atlanta after three years, and has resided here since then. She loves to read, bake, clean and organize, make collages, and decorate. Her passion in life is to learn, not simply memorize, but truly learn. By attending LAB Atlanta, she hopes to finally live out her passion.

Last week was the first day of work with The Founding Class of Lab Atlanta. Students and Faculty discussed and practiced acute observation with a walk in Midtown and a visit at MODA. Haleigh Jones wrote this short piece to reflect on her day...

Early this Monday morning our associate director, three full-time faculty, and I opened the doors for the first time at Lab Atlanta's new home here at 40 Inwood Circle. Tucked behind The Temple, Invesco and Steelcase (and across the street from SCAD's Digital Media Center and the long-time home of WSB-TV) the Iconologic Building is such a welcoming spot. We occupy 3 floors of this 4 story building with uber-creative friends downstairs, loads of spectacular natural light, and 7,000 square feet of community rooms, galleries, student studios, partner spaces, and faculty offices...

My favorite topic of conversation with people who relocate to Atlanta is to find out how they make sense of it. This is not an easy task in a city that pretty much moves around the clock and offers a cornucopia of things to do to keep you entertained and informed. With time though, newcomers gradually build their own experience of Atlanta through the places in the city where they live, work, and play...

Thinking things. One of the key concerns I have as an educator and a parent is how little we ask our students and children to do this thing called "thinking." We have conditioned them to react, respond and fill in the blank—to jump through the next hoop- but we have done little to prepare them to "figure it out." In our rush to get to the next thing on the filled-to-the-brim daily calendar or the next content area in a mile-wide and inch-deep curriculum, we adults do all the heavy lifting. And, yet we wonder why we are all so tired and why students/our kids keep looking at us and asking what to do next.

I detest Atlanta traffic. If you have lived in this city long enough, you too might feel a sense of dread when it comes to tackling the morning, afternoon or weekend rush hours. Despite the long commute times, stressful drives, and occasional feelings of social isolation, we drive. We view driving as a necessity, not an option...but the only sound choice. Yet, in making this choice, we miss out on fully experiencing the world. We miss out on community. We miss out on “seeing.”  After all, who has time to contemplate the architecture, people or cultural landmarks at a stop light? We have places to be and people to see. We no longer live in the moment. The geography has become a distraction.