Friday was our last day before our spring break, and the last day of cycle seven of our pandacademic year. And cycle seven will be our last cycle without a specialty cell. Speaking of which, Friday was the last day that Learners had to commit to participate in the Flying Squad specialty cell. Friday was bound to be a lazy day, as Thursday was, as everyone was pretty worn out from two weeks of high energy activity.
Having gotten my second Covid-19 vaccination shot (Moderna) on Thursday, I was not feeling great and stayed home on Friday. I volunteered to take over the check-ins for what was hopefully going to be our last remote cell meetings of the year (when we drop below stage level four we do not have a dedicated remote cell). In the morning meeting we talked about some of the things that we wanted to get done today to include cleaning up our room, spending less time on screens, reading a book, letting chickens out, working on financials, finish reading a book, writing a blog post, relaxing, and finding a new show to binge on.
At the cell that Facilitator Lauren is in the Learners showed up super excited for the day. A young Learner who has struggled at times to keep his mask on said that his new mask was really comfortable and smelled good, and anticipated that he would pull it down far less that day. Because it was Friday they held their weekly Check-in and Change-up meetings after the morning check-in, which went great. One of the Learners raised another awareness, and then they collectively identified what needs were relevant to the awareness, and practices that they would commit to working on to address the awareness.
Connecting and caring
Cairn time
During the meetings one of the Learners was playing with a stick and it was very distracting to Facilitator Lauren, so she asked him if he could please stop playing with the stick and focus on the meeting. The 8-year-old Learner kindly said that he could not actually simultaneously sit still and focus on the meeting. Facilitator Lauren acknowledged the need for this Learner to engage physically with his environment in order to be present. While it was distracting, it was not so distracting that they could not move on, and it was not intended to interrupt the meetings, so they continued with the meeting. In a conventional school setting this Learner would have been punished and possibly pushed out because of his inability to sit still. While this can be uncomfortable for adults who want to control a room (or in this case an open field) for efficiency sake, it is unfair to Learners who don’t fit into the mold of the good, silent, compliant student. There is always going to be a balance between meeting the needs of individual Learners and meeting the needs of the community, but there are usually many ways to meet the needs of everyone, at once, and the needs of the community are often not the wants of the adults.
Ironclad beetle
The Learners didn’t get the memo that it was going to be a slower day, as there was a lot of pretend play in some downed trees by a rock wall during the morning, where the Learners defended their wrecked ship from zombies and dinosaurs! One of the Learners who was deeply engaged in the play told Facilitator Lauren earlier in the week that he did not like pretend play, so perhaps the play he did not like did not include zombies and dinosaurs.
A stone axe!
In the afternoon there was some cairn building, a favorite of some of the Learners, and then one of the Learners found an Ironclad Beetle which played dead when it was picked up. The Learners and Facilitator Lauren looked up the species online and learned that in the Yucatan Peninsula they are sometimes bejeweled, chained to pins, and worn as living brooches! We thought that was cool but worried that it was bad for the beetles, doubting that they were fed or taken good care of. Later in the day one of the Learners decided to make a stone axe with some help from Facilitator Lauren who fashioned the cordage necessary to attach the axe head to the wooden handle. It was a very fun and playful day for the small cell near the riverbed.
Home base for the turtles
At the other cell it was a chill, low energy day. The Learners and Facilitator Ariel stopped to admire a bunch of turtles coming together at the base of a tree on their trek to the spot that they planned to spend the day. Sometimes as many as twenty turtles can be spotted sitting on the roots of the tree at the edge of an inlet off of the river. Our favorite turtle was nowhere to be found, but surely many of his friends and relations were hanging out under the tree.
The Check-in and Change-up meetings were fully attended by the Learners. At the meetings everyone reflected that they could have done a better job with the practices, and said that they would do a better (more mindful) job of it moving forward.
On this day there was more fishing, as fishing has become a thing for some of the Learners ever since a couple of them came to the aid of a novice fisherman earlier in the week. One of the Learners was practicing his casting skills at the edge of the lake when Facilitator Ariel engaged him in conversation about memories surrounding prior fishing experiences.
Later in the day some local high school students came to the park for a party so the Learners began to pack up and said they were ready to go to a different section of the park. The Learners and Facilitators have previously had conversations about the fact that this is a public space, and that when no one is around there is no problem with us monopolizing a space, but that when others show up it is appropriate for us to make space so that others can use it. Especially when those people are unmasked. As they were packing up and as the high school kids were moving in, Facilitator Ariel noticed that one of them had something in their eye and other students were around him trying to help. Facilitator Ariel offered some eye drops and then helped the student out. The local high school students courteously apologized for unintentionally causing the Learners to leave the dock area. Facilitator Ariel then told them not to worry about it because they were moving to open up the space that Abrome Learners had occupied much of that week.
Everyone moved to an area near a bench where they finished the day with a few grappling lessons and conversations about Call of Duty. Closing the cycle out in the afternoon, everyone reflected on what practices they could continue into the break that would help us be prepared for the new cycle. The consensus was DRINK WATER, our evergreen practice.
I finished up the final day with a final meeting with the remote cell. In that meeting we reflected on our week via rose-bud-thorn. Some of the thorns were physical pain, missing meetings, and getting dumped by their romantic partner. Some of the buds were new art projects, reading books, checking off some goals. And some of the buds were posting videos on their blog each day, being at Abrome, getting Vaxxed!, and working on art projects. Then we shared how we hoped to spend our spring break before we came back together again next cycle: write, accomplish goals, read, write, crochet, watch movies, hang with friends online, and work on art. It was a nice, hopefully final entirely remote cell meeting for the year. I cannot wait for us to all come back together again after the break, in-person.