Day 67 of AY20-21: remote, but grateful

Day 67 was our last day of our first week of 2021, and it was the first entirely remote week of our pandemic year. With the numbers continuing to rise in the Austin area, and without a combined effort by the businesses and institutions of Central Texas to shut down to stop the spread of Covid-19, we expect multiple more weeks of being remote to come. Nonetheless, I tried to go into Friday with as much energy as possible.

Facilitator Ariel was leading the morning meeting and his charge was to make it short so that we would have enough time for the Check-in and Change-up without taking up too much of the day. When Facilitator Ariel started the meeting a young Learner said he wanted to lead the meeting. Facilitator Ariel suggested they split the prompt to accommodate the wishes of the Learner but also move through the meeting as quickly as possible. The young Learner asked what everyone’s favorite instrument was: piano, standup bass, ukulele, “one of these” (steel tongue drum), piano, drums, none, acoustic guitar, guitar, mayonnaise, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, none, and kazoo. Ariel asked what everyone had for breakfast: nothing, n/a (intermittent fasting), waffles and syrup, eggs and toast, leftover shrimp and feta over rice, bagel with eggs and bacon, banana, yogurt, air, blackberries with sun-butter, n/a, corn nuts, and air.

We then moved into the Check-in and Change-up which I was leading. The Check-in, where we raise awarenesses that we can work on to improve our culture, is an expectation of all members of the community. They community came up with four awarenesses for this first Check-in of our first fully remote week of the year: sometimes people talk over others during meetings, some people are distracted during meetings, sometimes not enough people show up for offerings, and we need to keep an eye out for weird creatures. You may note that none of the awarenesses call out a specific individual whose actions may have been the impetus for the awareness because we are focused on what works for the community, and because we want to prevent Learners from feeling like they have to defend their past actions. The goal is to come up with ways to improve the culture going forward, not to dwell on the past.

I really dug into the awareness of not enough people showing up for offerings because it was framed as two potential problems: people saying they would show up and then not showing up, and not having a critical mass of people showing up to make the offerings meaningful or fun. The Learner who raised the awareness was in his first full week at Abrome and was frustrated by my efforts to clearly define the awareness. Facilitator Lauren, seeing his frustration, jumped in to help the Learner understand why specific language for the awareness was important. This helped him get past his frustration and more clearly articulate what he felt needed to be addressed.

Next we moved into the Change-up portion of the meeting. During the Change-up we identify what our community needs are related to each of the raised awarenesses, and then we come up with practices that we will try out for a week or two to see if they address the needs of the community. If the practices do not work, that’s okay, and we implement new practices in the future. The goal being that we make the practices part of our community norms so that the awareness is addressed and our communal needs are met. The thing about practices is that we all agree to implement them into the way that we move throughout the Abrome space, even when remote, even if one did not participate in the Change-up, but that practices are not rules that people get punished for if they do not quickly adopt them. They are called practices because we are practicing them, and we can let each other know when we are not upholding the practices, but no one is going to get written up for coming up short.

Identifying needs is particularly helpful because it focuses us on what our values are as a community, instead of just problem solving. For example, for the awareness of sometimes people talk over others during meetings we identified our needs as take care of others, take care of myself (self-advocacy), and everyone is heard.

The practices we came up with for that awareness were commit to actively listening to others, game shifting (e.g., popcorn, pass the ball), and muting ourselves when we are not speaking. We did the same for some people being distracted during meetings. We put aside the awareness for sometimes not enough people show up for offerings because the Learner who raised the awareness did not stick around for the meeting. Anyone can raise an awareness, but we have a practice that we will table it if the person who raised it does not want to stick around for the Change-up.

Finally, we addressed the awareness raised by a young learner of keeping an eye out for weird creatures. The needs we came up with were take care of myself (so I don't get eaten), and take care of others (so they don't get eaten). Seems logical. Then we came up with practices. The first was to keep your head on a swivel. If you don’t see the weird creatures coming at you from the side or the rear you will be in serious trouble. Then we added to only have one earphone in so that you can hear them coming at you. We the modified the awareness to keep an eye and an ear out for weird creatures.

I then moved right into a 7-minute workout with two adult members of the community (still hoping some young people will join us soon), and then I moved right into the free write offering where one Learner was waiting for me. Unfortunately, while I was on Discord, I was not in the proper voice channel for the free write, so just as I joined the Learner who was waiting for me logged out. I reached out to her guardian for help to let her know that despite the delay I was available. The Learner jumped back on and we wrote together for 40 minutes, although I was a bit distracted and did not get much writing done during that time.

After the free write I joined the Among Us offering that was being hosted by one of the new Learners. He expressed his frustration that people were not joining the offering. I remarked that we would have worked on the awareness he raised that morning had he not left for the Change-up portion of the meeting, and then we briefly brainstormed ideas for how he could make the offering more appealing to the other Learners. We ended up playing in public mode meaning that he only knew three of the people who were playing. After Among Us, the Learner I had a one-on-one check-in with called me on Discord and we had a short call, and then I responded to some emails and ate lunch.

Meanwhile, Facilitator Lauren was leading a natural dyes offering where folks could make tie dye fabrics using kitchen products. Only one Learner and his guardian showed up for the offering, but they had a blast doing so. The biggest complaint was not enough white t-shirts available for dyeing, so it is probable that Facilitator Lauren will do another natural dyes offering in the future.

Facilitator Ariel was hosting the next offering, online games. Only one Learner showed up for that game but Facilitator Ariel reached out to one of the two Learners who has not been showing up for offerings to invite him to join him. If you’ve been reading my past blog posts you would know that remote learning is an insufficient replacement for in-person community in a Self-Directed Education environment, but it is what is necessary for us to hold space for Learners during a period when we need to be remote to protect our community and the Central Texas community from Covid-19. Facilitator Ariel will continue to invite the Learner to participate, as he has also done for the other Learner who had not yet joined us online this week. During the online games offering they ended up playing a game called Ewok Hunt in Battle Front II on PS4.

After the online games offering and before the afternoon roundup there was a thirty minute break. All of a sudden the other Learner who had not been showing up for meetings or offerings logged in! She immediately began joking around, interacting with the other young Learner who joined the call, and talking to Facilitator Ariel. It was great to have her back, and it did not escape the notice of the other Learners and Facilitators who began to log on for the afternoon roundup.

I lead the afternoon roundup by saying, “everyone has favorite things. Like Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things. What is one of your favorite things?” Some of the favorite things from the Learners and Facilitators at Abrome include cooking outdoors, sitting in front of a fireplace on a cold day, walking barefoot outside, twisting up a swing and swinging from it, oxygen, my art, nordic and greek mythology, bike rides, my chickens, Facilitator Lauren reading to me, and games. Most also shared their highlight of week: working on bike, participating in our processing groups, the natural dye project, playing Among Us, talking to all the peeps, staying at home, joining the free write offering, one-on-ones with Facilitators Ariel and Lauren, and calling Ariel on Discord.

After the meeting two of the adolescent Learners stuck around to share gratitudes with the Facilitators. At the end of the week we sometimes share gratitudes as a way to recognize how fortunate we are (even if we are living through a period of pandemic, fascist violence, and racial injustice). One of the Learners said, “Abrome has gotten me out of a really dark place.” And the other said, “Im thankful for Abrome, for helping me when public school messed up my personality.”