In the Self-Directed Education world, Learners get to make of the day what they want to. If a Learner at Abrome says they want to sleep all day, so be it. There is probably a reason they need to sleep. Maybe they were up all night, maybe they are just exhausted by the world around them, maybe they just want to escape, or maybe they are going through a growth spurt. We honor their needs and support them in the ways that we can. On the other hand, if a Learner at Abrome says their intention for the day is ‘freetopia,’ meaning they want to just allow the day to unfold, without much intention or direction, then they are free to do so. Sometimes this leaves the Learners bored. Sometimes it leaves the Learners frustrated by what they did not or could not do. Sometimes it results in conflict that we get to work out. Each of these possibilities is fabulous because it allows the Learner to learn about themselves, their relations, and it helps prepare them for future growth. Not every day in a Self-Directed Education environment is going to impress someone who wants to see that the kids are constantly learning (by which they mean being taught academic content). But learning is always happening, whether educators and skeptics want to admit it or not. We welcome it however it comes.
On Thursday one seven-year-old Learner had a particularly great day. We started off the day with a gentle, alternative path to the lake where all the Learners wanted to spend their day, again. Along the way one of the young Learners noticed a long branch with a hook at the end so he grabbed it and dragged it 300 meters to the lake. The walk to the lake turned out to be a nice little workout for him.
At the lake he played with the other Learners but kept the branch near the entire time. The branch was used to probe at trees, in puddles, and in the lake. At one point he went to the end of the dock and dipped it into the lake to determine how deep the water was where we often jump in. Trying to get the branch all the way to the bottom was a bit challenging, as the branch floats, and it was pretty big relative to his body size, and the currents of the lake kept pushing the branch around. But he finally got it to touch the sand as he probed to make sure that what he was touching was actually the bottom of the lake. When he pulled the branch out he told me that the lake was about 11 feet deep off the dock.
After he pulled it out of the water we noticed that several zebra mussels had attached themselves to the branch while he was probing the bottom of the lake. Zebra mussels are an invasive species that have become quite a problem up and down the Colorado River.
From trash to treasure, we retrieved the scissors
The Learner then used the branch to try to retrieve some scissors that the Learners recently spied at the bottom of the lake, just off the other side of the dock. Like measuring the depth of the lake off the deep end of the dock, snatching the scissors was difficult because of the currents and waves of the water that pushed around the branch, as well as the waves made by the branch on the surface of the water that distorted the view of where the branch was coming up against the scissors. The Learner tried his best, but I think muscle fatigue started to set in and he asked me to finish the job for him. He was more than pleased when the scissors were out of the lake and on the dock. It’s interesting how the Learner grabbing that one branch led to so much learning and fun.
Next the Learner jumped in the water, a did three other Learners. In the water they played a variety of games with each other until the Learner’s sister stumbled upon the discovery that cypress tree seeds when broken open release a colorful film on the water, sometimes in beautiful circular rainbows. While everyone seemed impressed by this discovery, the seven-year-old Learner was transfixed with amazement.
Next the Learners chose to play around in some of the clay-like mud at the edge of the lake. The mud is particularly good for forming into mud balls to see how far they can be thrown. During this process the Learner feared that he saw a snake and that it might be a venomous snake. Of course that brought others in to investigate for themselves. But for the life of us, we could not see this snake that he said was staring us in the face. It was a matter of magnitude, as we assumed a snake would be sufficiently large, and he wanted us to think smaller. Eventually, when we zoomed in, we saw what he was talking about. It was the hammerhead flatworm, an invasive species that unfortunately feeds on earthworms. Like many venomous snakes, though, it did not have a rounded head. It instead, as the name suggests, had a hammerhead. Once we agreed that it was not a snake, the Learners got back to playing.
Throwing mud balls is helped by good form
Eventually the seven-year-old Learner reentered the water, as did the others Learners, but he decided to do so with a splash. He decided to climb up onto the railing of the dock where he and another young Learner sometimes sit for afternoon roundups that are held on the dock. Then he faced his fears, and jumped in. That effort later convinced his six-year-old friend to do the same.
The Learner was invigorated by the jump, and the adrenaline encouraged him to go even higher. So he climbed up onto the roof of the dock and prepared to jump in from there. But looking down from above it looked far scarier than the previous height. We assured him that it had been done many times before by members of the Abrome community, to include me and the two sixteen-year-old Learners present. I then broke out my phone and showed him video of one of those Learners jumping off the boathouse, which is even higher than the roof of the dock. He wanted to jump, but he could not find the courage to take the final step off the roof.
At that point one of the sixteen-year-old Learners asked him if he would feel better seeing one of us jump in from there. The seven-year-old Learner said it would, so the sixteen-year-old Learner said that he’d do it. Thing is, he had done it twice, but each time he did it was kind of terrifying for him. The second time he did it he did not land smoothly, either, which looked painful. Nonetheless, he prepared himself to climb up and make the jump to lend courage to the younger Learner. But he didn’t have to do so, his mere willingness to climb up and jump gave the younger Learner the will to take the leap.
Yes, the Learner had a particularly great day on Thursday. And the great was made possible because he was given the freedom to have such a day in a psychologically safe community, but it was also made possible because he had the freedom to not have such a day.
It was a great day for the Learner standing on the dock