On Tuesday I started off the morning meeting with the question, what’s better, cold pizza, hot pizza, or an apple. Two people said an apple, three said hot pizza, and none said cold pizza. I asked them for their justification and it all came down to personal preference. I’m glad no one said cold pizza, as that might have made question this whole project. We had two Learners during the morning meeting so I followed up with messages to them to check to see if they were alright.
Connecting with nature
It was cold that morning for the in-person cell, so the conversation about clothing continued on from previous days. One of the Learners reported that she dressed perfectly for the day, but later needed to borrow a wool blanket from Facilitator Lauren to get through the morning. We have been fortunate to learn these lessons the hard way in less than extreme weather conditions. Also, extreme winter weather in Texas is not that extreme.
The Learners told Facilitators Ariel and Lauren that they wanted to explore, but they did not want to feel super tired at the end of the day. They decided to start the day at the Rock Wall and allow the day to unfold from there.
Surveying her playground
The remote cell has not exactly been teeming with interactions between Learners and Facilitators, so I made sure to try to make the most of my time between meetings and my Free Write offering that one Learner showed up for. With that time I checked in one last time to verify that two prospective Learners would begin shadowing with the in-person cell, the next day. The one family needed to quarantine after Thanksgiving so we were holding our breath that they would be able to shadow before we were forced to go entirely remote. The second family came to our attention this weekend, and I needed to go through a very quick process of interviewing them, having them watch a required webinar, having them fill out paperwork, and dropping off two books for them to review in advance of a shadow. They were determined to make the shadow happen before the end of the cycle. We had room for both to shadow only because one of the in-person Learners needed to quarantine after a family member flew in from California after the death of a loved one.
I also scheduled a nice Check-in & Chat with a parent of the first Learner to enroll at Abrome. The meetings are meant to give guardians and Abrome a formal opportunity to share concerns, observations, and advice with each other. Some families need a lot of support, and others are fully bought in and trust what we are doing. This guardian does not need support so we ended up talking about issues of racial justice, the impact of the pandemic on society, and what it is going to take to get parents to let go of their fears in a way that would allow them to trust their children to enroll at Abrome.
At the in-person cell they discussed ways they could be welcoming to the shadowers who were joining on Wednesday. The cell did a great job welcoming a prospective Learner earlier in the cycle, so there was not much to talk about. But they did talk about the impact that body language could have on someone who was trying to navigate a new space.
Playing Trekking the National Parks
As they stayed in one place they took outTrekking The National Parks, a game that has been a favorite at Abrome that we have taken outdoors with us as of late. It’s a game with the exact number of pieces needed to play, so we were concerned about having it outdoors and inadvertently losing a piece, as we have lost more than our share of pieces even when we were inside the Abrome facility in pre-pandemic times. So Facilitator Lauren pulled out a tarp to lay under the game to make sure that no pieces were lost. Two Learners joined Facilitators Lauren and Ariel in the game. The younger Learner who was new to the game was invited by the adolescent Learner to be on her team so he could learn the rules.
Nearby two other young Learners were recording a movie using one of the Facilitator’s iPads. After the Trekking game was finished, the younger Learner joined in on the fun. Later in the day a younger Learner climbed to an elevated spot on the rock wall and could not get down. He was scared, sad, and embarrassed, and decided that he wanted to go home. He also said that he hurt his thigh during the climb. After a conversation he said that he was no longer in pain and did not need to leave. He then spent the rest of day he kept testing the strength of his leg by running and jumping. While the Learners in the cell expressed a desire to explore, the day ended with them still at the Rock Wall. But even though they did not travel far, they were still able to explore.