Thursday was day 75 of our pandacademic year. We are only about 3/7ths of the way through the year as our year ends in mid-July. I was leading the morning meeting and I immediately started with announcements. Building off of yesterday’s announcement that it was a palindrome day, and a discussion of when the next palindrome day would be (we said November), I argued that actually day 75 was a palindrome day, depending how you choose to order the date. If we go dd/mm/yy or yy/mm/dd and lop off the zero at the beginning of the month then 21/1/21 is indeed a palindrome.
We tried pass the ball for game shifting on Wednesday, but as it was the first time for some Learners, and the first time not doing it in person, it did not go very well. But I figured it was a more engaging way of participating so I tried it again, and this time it went over much better. For the prompt I asked, when do you feel least free, or unfree, and do you believe you can change the conditions that make you feel unfree? The answers were interesting: when stuck in a conversation I don’t want to be in, paying rent, trapped indoors waiting for something to happen (e.g., DMV, phone store), in public school, put to work for chores or cooped up in public school, when I kill something in Minecraft and another one spawns, when I have a price tag on me, morning and afternoon meetings at Abrome, when I am in an argument with someone who thinks they have power over me and every time I talk or defend myself they won’t let me speak, when I have to do something I don’t want to do, and when playing Zelda. Minus the people who responded jokingly to the initial prompt, the overwhelming majority who identified when they felt unfree said they could change their conditions entirely or to some degree. I made a note to have a conversation later in the week with the Learner who said that he felt the least free during morning and afternoon meetings.
Coffee and read
After the morning meeting I had a one-to-one check-in with an adolescent Learner and then I joined the 7-minute workout with the regular crew. I then quickly moved into Facilitator Ariel’s coffee and read offering. Once again it was just the Facilitators, but we made the most of it. I finished the book Curious, which I think is one of the worst books I’ve read in quite some time, and Facilitators Ariel and Lauren finished Raising Free People in advance of our discussion planned for 3:00 p.m. that afternoon.
Among Us
The next offering of the day was an unscheduled Among Us offering. When we went over the schedule that morning a Learner asked why the offering was not on the schedule. I reminded him that he left the Set-the-Week meeting early, at the beginning of the week, and so he was not around to schedule an offering that day. He said that he wanted to host the offering and invited anyone to join him at noon. When the time came, only one other Learner and Facilitator Ariel showed up. One thing we’ve learned about Among Us is that it’s really not that great if you don’t have at least five people playing. Uninspired, they ended the offering early. Hopefully the Learner who organized the offering will choose to stick around for the entirety of the next Set-the-Week meeting, next cycle.
Facilitators playing an intense game of Jeopardy
At 1:00 p.m. Facilitator Lauren hosted a trivia offering on Zoom. Trivia has played well with the Learners at Abrome in the past, so we were hopeful to get some turnout for the offering, but again only the Facilitators showed up. Facilitator Lauren chose an online Jeopardy website for us to play off of, and we set the difficulty to easy enough for everyone to have fun without letting our competitive nature taking over. It didn’t work for me, as I always take trivia games way too seriously. But we did have a good time.
At 2:00 p.m. I hosted my daily free write offering and I was thrilled to see a Learner join me as she does most days. It’s been challenging for us Facilitators to not have Learners showing up regularly for our offerings, as we want to find ways to connect with them, and we feel limited in our ability to build relationship with them. But we continue to make ourselves available, inviting them to offerings, and having one-to-one check-ins with them in an attempt to stay connected as we bridge the gap between now and when the risk stage level drops to four (when most will choose to come back to in-person), and later to stage level three (when the rest will come back to in-person).
Speaking of one-to-one check-ins, Facilitator Ariel had a really nice one with an adolescent Learner who does not share much. Not all Learners are eager to share their feelings or their interests in group meetings, so the one-to-one allows the more introverted or shy Learners a chance to open up more with an audience of one. They ended up talking about comic books, comic book history, movies they like, books and struggles with reading. It was a great opportunity for Facilitator Ariel to get to know the Learner better, and it spurred him to set a comic book offering for the coming week.
Raising Free People
At 3:00 p.m. the Facilitators finished discussing Raising Free People by Akilah S. Richards. This entire year; first in-person, outdoors, in small cells; and then remote; has made the ongoing daily conversations about facilitation much more difficult to have given that we are almost always physically separated. We took advantage of the unfortunate situation of being entirely remote this cycle to work through this book slowly and discuss for a half hour twice per week. Unfortunately, that was not enough time as there are so many gems within the book, and so much reflection and processing to be had.
Afternoon roundup
Facilitator Lauren facilitated the afternoon roundup where we started by reviewing our practices and identifying what we each were doing well and what needs work. Then we each answered what is something we need to feel safe: humanity, people actively working to make space safer for all, connection with people I trust, having a roof over my head, stuffed animals and mom and dad, family, people I trust, trust, friends and family, people I trust and dog in bed at night, a “fire arm” (written into chat), and for people to trust me and I need to trust them. Once again someone’s attempt to be funny fell flat. Facilitator Ariel overrode the joke with talk of how having an arm on fire isn’t going to make anyone feel safe. If we were in-person it would have been much easier to pull the Learner to the side and talk about that after the meeting, but we are stuck being remote. Being remote is clearly starting to wear on folks. Thank goodness that once we drop back down to stage level four that we can be together in-person again. Too bad too many people continue to go to shops, restaurants, bars, salons, gyms, and schools. We are going to stay home for now to help protect others.