On Wednesday, March 31st, I started my day off by dropping by the cell that I was not in to drop off some items with Facilitator Lauren. While I was there one of the parents of one of the Learners showed up, which gave me an opportunity to have a conversation with them about frustration over some of our Covid-19 protocols. We recognize that we are one of the few exceptions to the rule when it comes to education communities and Covid-19. The rule seems to be to pretend it is not a threat once inside of the walls of a school, or on school buses, and pretend that students can’t take the disease home and into their neighborhoods. Our commitment to protecting each other and those outside our community have meant that we are entirely outdoors all year, even when it is cold or hot, and we are vigilant about quarantining, and we are vigilant about masking when around others. We had a good conversation about how to reconcile priorities within households that do not fully align with the priorities of the Abrome community, and the necessity for candor and open communication. It was a good conversation, but it made me late for the link up with the Flying Squad.
When I showed up to the Flying Squad, I was thrilled to see a Learner who had been quarantining had finally returned. Unfortunately, two Learners stayed home for separate reasons, but I figured the smaller crew would allow for more connection between me and the Learner who had just returned. For the morning meeting I volunteered to set the gameshifting board (sans the board), and I said folks could position themselves however they wanted as long as they stayed out of the roadway, and that we would speak in the order of the day of our birthday: 4, 8, 10, 11, 13, 20.
Facilitator Ariel then asked everyone what their intentions for the day and the week were, and then he asked, “what’s one way you can share space today?” He asked that question because it had become a concern how we are so into ourselves and each other that we do not realize how much space we are taking up that might take away space from others. For example, sometimes when the Learners are walking down a sidewalk they bunch up so they can all be together, leading them to unknowingly push others off the sidewalk. Of the responses, some seemed more effective than others. I’ll let you decide which ones might work best: give trees 6 feet; if someone is being left out, ask if they want to join; if we’re somewhere where someone comes over, don’t intimidate them; stay right, no more than two wide on trails; make myself smaller; use welcoming language.
When we started to walk off I noticed Ariel walking with a stiff leg. I asked if he was okay and he said he should be fine when it warms up with further walking. As I watched him struggle to walk, I raised the awareness to all, and asked to talk about it with Facilitator Ariel and the Learners. He admitted that he was in pain but that in the past the knee loosens up when it gets warm, and he said he wanted to push forward. Shortly thereafter, he hit toe while walking and he needed to stop. It was clear that he needed to go home, so I asked him to please go home and rest. The Learners agreed.
We then moved further down Barton Springs Road toward the food trucks where a Learner wanted to grab some lunch for later. I imagined we might be there a while, and that turned out to be the case. I was pleased to see how the older Learners went out of their way to pull an 8-year-old Learner into their circle at the food court. We were there long enough that I was able to break my 16 hour fast and eat my lunch at 12:00 p.m., with time to spare to help the younger Learner go over the menus of each of the food trucks. I also found time to drop my phone and crack the screen. That was an expensive lunch break. At some point I asked the Learners if we could move on, as I did not want to spend the entire day at the food trucks.
We did not make it far before we came upon a small convenience store that some of the Learners like to get snacks at. On this day, I forgot my battery pack so one of the Learners let me borrow theirs, but I needed to buy a cord at the corner store. The cord cost about the same as the organic candy that the Learner purchased. We decided that we would keep walking down Barton Springs Road until we got to the Long Center where we could potentially set up near the small pond.
When we got to the Long Center we found the fence around the playground that we had eyed up before had been taken down. And oh my, it was amazing! The layout of the playground was fabulous, with numerous places for young people to get lost in play without feeling like they were surrounded by a bunch of others. There were structures that challenged Learners of all ages to take risks and to come up with their own games.
The Abrome Learners launched themselves into the various swings, tunnels, climbing contraptions, and slides. One of the climbing structures was pretty daunting, and really stands out in terms of allowing kids to take on risk in a society that has insisted that children’s zones are engineered to eliminate risk. Kudos to the City of Austin for being an exception, in this case. The Learners made their way up the climbing structure, some slowly, some quickly. But at the top they all posed for a picture, proud of their ascent, and thrilled to have done it with others.
With all that fun came some struggle. It was difficult for one excited Learner to keep his mask on around others, and reminding him repeatedly wasn’t feeling good for me and it wasn’t working for him. So I asked him to sit down with me to slow down a bit until he could remember to honor our safety boundaries (one of our practices). He was not wanting to stop, but the break allowed him to gain control over himself and when he went back to play with others he had no problem keeping his mask on. He made great friends with a young learner who showed up with his sibling and his mother. I asked the mom about his schooling situation, and it seemed like they were just trying to find ways to get by. I wanted to tell them to look at Abrome but it was clear that finding alternatives to school was not high on their priority list, so I smiled, and let it pass.
At the afternoon roundup I asked the Learners for their highlight of the day, and requested that none of them repeat what someone else said. The Learners’ highlights were the slide, the park, scaling the climbing structure and hanging out at the top, and soccer. My stated highlight was when a Learner allowed me to borrow his battery pack. But then I looked at the Abrome Slack and noticed that Facilitator Ariel thanked me for “advocating for my needs and safety.” That was the highlight of my day.
The other cell had a pretty fabulous day, as well:
Walking Hunter
Chilling on the dock
Chilling in the wikiup
Gathering flowers
Dinosaur tracks?