On Tuesday I woke up at 3:30 a.m., too early for sure. I have been shooting to go to sleep at 9:00 p.m. and wake up at 5:00 a.m. each day, but my bed time has been getting pushed back and my wake up time has been moving forward. It left me a bit sleepy but I felt that if I could right the ship later in the week I would not suffer too much. However, waking up early allowed me to take the dogs on a 5:30 a.m. hike in the hopes of seeing the meteor shower. Unfortunately the morning sky was brighter than expected and if there were any meteors I missed it. Another reason I took the dogs on an early morning hike was that I was not going to be taking them with me to Abrome this week. Cuddle Buddy Ingrid has been scratching at her skin so much that I had to put a cone on her. Ingrid, who was most likely abused before I rescued her, had been having a really difficult time with the cone, and was extremely nervous and jumpy not being able to see on either side or behind her. It did not make sense to take her to hang out with us in nature today, and it did not make sense to take Ivan and leave her behind.
After taking care of all my morning duties, I went to the drop-off point and waited for the Abrome Learners to show up. As they came in they wrote out their intentions: crochet, read, eat, eat lunch, work on comic, listen to music, be on my phone, hang out with [two Learners], freetopia, freetopia, and freetopia. Other than freetopia, our intentions tend to look more like goals than intentions. But that’s okay. One of the sixteen-year-old Learners noted that the other sixteen-year-old was not present so he would likely go home early. I spoke to him about finding value in the opportunity to be outdoors away from home, in nature, around others that he can engage with, or just to be alone without the distractions of home. He considered it, and decided that he would stay the entire day.
The day was an easy going one for the most part. The two sixteen-year-old Learners tend to bring a lot of energy and novelty of experience to each day, but with one out the other one found moments to be with himself. Meanwhile, the two youngest Learners paired off together, while the two tween-aged Learners also paired off. The younger ones did their usual of digging in the sand and playing on the edge of the lake. I try to keep my distance from Learners who are engaged with each other so that they don’t feel as though I am watching over them, so I don’t often hear the content of their conversation. But on this day I could hear them talking through very large numbers. An interesting critique of unschooling and Self-Directed Education is that if kids are not forced to learn how to read or write, or if they are not forced to sit through mathematic classes, that they will never learn basic literacy or numeracy. It is a critique without basis because virtually everyone who wants to be a part of broader society wants to learn what broader society values, to include literacy and numeracy. Although Abrome is a very young community, we have seen multiple young people come into our community unable to read or write or work with numbers. And in each case, given the freedom to not engage with any of it, each Learner has, when they chose to, voluntarily and quickly learned what schools stretch out and painfully impose on children.
The two tweens spent a lot of time hanging out together in the sun, telling stories to one another. The oldest Learner who had spent much of the morning with herself came over to the area I was sitting in and struck up a conversation with me, and then with the sixteen-year-old Learner. I stepped away and noticed that at that time that the Learners had broken off into three pairs of conversation. The folks who question whether kids can learn reading, writing, and arithmetic without formal schooling are also the same folks who ask, “but what about socialization?” The schooled mindset does a fabulous job of convincing much of society that children would waste away if not for adults shaping their time.
Three pairs of conversation
The sixteen-year-old who had considered going home was walking near the edge of the lake and noticed a large, mostly submerged branch that had somehow found its way next to the retaining wall. As he focused on it it drew the attention of the other Learners. We noticed that there were a bunch of zebra mussels on it, and he grabbed a twig to see if they were still alive. Eventually he decided to pull it out of the water. He could not, so he enlisted my help and we eventually got it up on the wall. There must have been a hundred zebra mussels all over it, as well as plenty of algae and a fishing line. The sixteen-year-old unworked the fishing line and debated fishing with it, much like they did last week. The younger Learners spent their time focused on the zebra mussels. We eventually put the large branch back in the water so that no one would get sliced by the shells of the mussels, again.
With the Learners all engaged with each other or doing their thing I got to sit down and play with my Rubik’s cube. I had made it an intention to learn how to solve the Rubik’s cube no later than Friday, and after the previous week I was only getting tripped up with two steps of the solution. The Rubik’s cube fever had spread (we are good with certain things spreading, just not Covid) and the two youngest Learners had brought Rubik’s cubes with them that day, as well. And just like that, everything clicked, and I solved it! And then I did it a few more times to make sure it was no fluke. The two younger Learners then reengaged with their Rubik’s cubes. We joked about having everyone at Abrome learn how to solve it so that when someone came along and said, “do they even know how to do basic algebra?” we could respond, “do you know what algorithms are? Watch this! What did you even go to school for?”
As the day wore on the sixteen-year-old who was going to go home decided to ask me for a knife so that he could carve some wood. The younger Learners ran around and played all day. The tweens continued talking to each other. And then we had our afternoon roundup at the dock, and then worked our way back to the pickup spot. It was a good day, even without having told the Learners what their learning objectives for the day would be.
Unlimited free play should be a requirement in every school