Set-the-Week — Blog

We headed into Tuesday hoping to build on the positive first day of our pandemic-induced, fully remote experience for cycle five (assuming Central Texas doesn’t miraculously begin to take the pandemic seriously in the next couple of days). Facilitator Ariel led the morning meeting. Because we had a larger group he needed to balance the need to make space for people to share while protecting people’s time by not having the meeting stretch into the day too much. He started by asking everyone in the meeting to share an offering they were looking forward to over the course of the week. Half of the responses were diverse, and half were not. The diverse responses included free write, Roblox, nature journaling, yoga, bike project, bike project, a check-in with a Facilitator, and Minecraft. And six people said they were looking forward to playing Among Us, again. Facilitator Ariel then asked if anyone learned anything new yesterday. While there were some interesting responses such as there are 1 quadrillion ants roaming the earth (disputed) and dynamic IP isn’t good for whitelists, most of the learnings revolved around Among Us: Abrome Learners are too ‘big-brained’ to lose, being honest can help you win the game, Marlowe bullies me (said in jest), [Learner] is sneaky. While the goal was to keep the meeting short it started to stretch out as a couple of Learners kept jumping in to ask each other questions, set up meetings with Facilitators, or to try to organize gatherings on Discord. Before things got too out of control Facilitator Ariel adjourned the meeting and encouraged folks to communicate with each other on Discord.

After the morning meeting I had offered to tinker around with the Rubik’s cube with Learners who found it fun while we were in person, but with us being remote it just did not move anyone to want to participate. So after waiting around for five minutes I decided to do some easy administrative tasks and prepared for the 7-minute workout. I was pleased to see three folks show up for the workout, and it looks like we will have the same folks showing up each day, with hopefully some Learners dropping in from time to time. We are just holding space for the Learners and inviting them in if they choose.

Facilitator Ariel followed up the 7-minute workout with a coffee and read offering, where we all grabbed some coffee and sat down to read. Much like my free write offerings the turnout for these offerings are not expected to be very large, and the only people who joined were me and Abrome’s oldest Learner. After getting a tour of all the bikes that Facilitator Ariel has in his apartment (among three people) while we brewed our coffee, we settled down to read. I was reading Curious by Ian Leslie for my Education Conversations book group conversation later in the week, the 18-year-old Abrome Learner was reading These Truths by Jill Lapore, and Facilitator Ariel was reading the Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature. The hour flew by but each of us came away quite pleased with the offering. Even though we were not directly interacting during the offering it was nice to feel as though we were in the same room, drinking our coffee, reading good books.

At noon I decided to join the Among Us offering that was so popular the day before. I joined the Learner who was hosting the offering as well as two other adolescent learners. They had to wait for me to figure out how to download the app on my tablet which had previously only been used to fly the drone, and they waited quite some time before I realized the tablet was so old that it was not able to download the app without a system update. Frustrated they asked if I could just put it on my phone, which I did. We then got to playing. While the Learners all find Among Us to be a fun game I was quite confused. I did not get the point of the game and ended up just running around trying to avoid getting killed. I realized that I could call a meeting so that we could vote to decide who the imposter was and that that was my best hope of winning any rounds. Yet I did not. I’ll give it another go in the future.

Facilitator Lauren held a nature journaling offering at 1:00 p.m., and an older Learner decided to join her for it. Facilitator Lauren went on a hike just before the offering and saw an American woodcock among some prickly pear cacti, and decided to sketch the bird and share her observations in her journal.

Facilitator Lauren also had two one-on-one check-ins with Learners on Tuesday. Because we are entirely remote one of the Facilitators requests at least one check-in with each Learner each week just to touch base. Some Learners are often around and communicate, while some are only around for the morning and afternoon roundups. We also have two Learners who simply do not like being remote and do not regularly show up for meetings, either. So these one-on-one check-ins are really valuable for many of the Learners, and most certainly for the community, as we try to bridge this remote period during the uncontrolled community spread of Covid-19 in Central Texas.

At 2:00 p.m. I hosted a free write offering and was thrilled that two Learners showed up. The 13-year-old Learner who often shows up for free write during remote periods attended, as did the 18-year-old who was making the most of the offerings that day. The 13-year-old Learner chose to work on a new book that she had hoped to get published, the 18-year-old Learner did some stream of consciousness writing in her journal, and I worked on a blog post about how the problem is not so much remote schooling as it is the pandemic. After the free write was over I looked at the clock and saw that I had just enough time to rush off to a nearby park for my monthly jump in the water as part of my polar bear plunge commitment to the 13-year-old Learner. It was 70 degrees and based on weather forecasts this was as good as it was going to get. It was a cold dip in the water, but I am quite grateful to be in Austin during the winter as opposed to most other parts of the country. February is going to be rough though. I then rushed back to Abrome for the afternoon roundup.

Facilitator Lauren was leading the afternoon roundup and with one fewer attendee than the morning she decided to offer up three prompts. She asked the Learners what offerings they participated in, what the best thing they ate was, and what the best part of their day was. Because many of the Learners did not show up for any offerings they did not have an answer for the first question. But for those who did, the favorite was Among Us, with coffee and read coming in second. Nature journaling, free write, and the 7-minute workout all got a single vote, as well. As for food it ran from the healthy to the unhealthy: leek soup, bananas, dates, eggs, broth, chicken with rice, grilled cheese with turkey, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chocolate chips, ice cream, apple cinnamon Cheerios, Dino Nuggets, and Monster. The favorite part of the everyone’s day unsurprisingly included gaming for many: playing Rogue Lineage, playing Minecraft, playing Fall Guys, hanging with friends online, and playing with friends online. But there was also non-gaming favorites, as well: nature journaling, shaving all the hair off of their head, writing the first part of their new book, journaling, one-on-one with Facilitator Lauren, breathing, doing art, and visiting the greenbelt with a guardian.

Monday was our first day of the week, our first day of the fifth cycle of the pandacademic year, and it was the first day of 2021. It was also our first day being entirely remote as the county moved to risk stage level five on December 23rd. So we came together excited to be together again, but disappointed that we do not get to come together in person given the state of the pandemic.

With 15 total participants (although some joined late and some dropped off early) it was going to be a challenge to keep the morning meeting short, so I reminded folks to please stay muted if they were not speaking and to hold off on side conversations. Of course when folks haven’t seen each other for two weeks (or months if they were in different cells) sometimes the urge to just speak to others can take over. So I tried to gently remind them to use chat or Discord or wait until the end of the meeting for those conversations. As a last resort I would make use of the mute option.

Also, with so many participants we could not spend as much time checking in with each person, so they each briefly mentioned how they were feeling or how their holiday break went: good, good, fine, good, okay, breathed, rough, pretty alright, kinda interesting, good, doing well. One Learner just fell to the side and off screen which I took as either being exhausted or not wanting to share.

We quickly moved into the Set-the-Week meeting. Set-the-Week is how we collectively decide how we are going to structure the week, but it is something that we have not been doing this year as we’ve been outside and offerings outside tend to be much more spontaneous than they are when we are indoors (non-pandemic times) or fully remote. The Set-the-Week during this remote period allows us to schedule offerings and one-on-one check-ins around the meetings everyone in the community is expected to participate in (morning meeting, afternoon roundup, Set-the-Week, and the weekly Check-in and Change-up).

Offerings are simply invites for others to participate. No one is required to attend an offering and sometimes no one shows up to an offering. That is feedback that can help the host to decide to keep it open for people to drop in on in the future, to change up the schedule to make it easier for people to come, or to remove the offering altogether. Each Facilitator put up a variety of offerings throughout the week that would allow for the Learners to drop in and participate in something the Facilitator was interested in doing. My offerings for the week include a daily 7-minute workout, a daily free write, and a 2021 visioning / resolution workshop on Monday.

Two Learners proposed offerings for Monday, with one of them requesting that his offering be listed daily for the entire week. One wanted to have a Roblox offerings start at 10:30 a.m., right after the Set-the-Week, and another wanted to start an Among Us offering at 11:00 a.m. Each offering would require Learners to drop into different Discord channels.

The Roblox offering was led by an 8-year-old Learner, with two older Learners dropping in to play. There was some confusion as to whether or not they would play together, or if they were just going to play their own Roblox games while sitting on the same Discord channel, with the latter being the intention of the Learner who was leading the offering. Both of the Learners who dropped in eventually found their way over to the Among Us offering which was led by a 14-year-old Learner who was in his first day at Abrome.

Some of the Learners who dropped in for Among Us

Among Us is a multiplayer game and over the span of two hours a total of seven people joined the game. A much better turnout than I have ever had for one of my offerings. I was told that the game was really engaging and that it was made even more fun by a 16-year-old Learner constantly trying to throw people off by asking questions that made them question their assumptions. For example, he would deceive other players by saying, “it’s not about the past, it’s about the future!” as he led them away from the logical path they were going down. A 14-year-old Learner kept working out his logic out loud, which made the deceiver’s work all that much harder. Apparently it was a blast of a game, and I’m expected to join in on Tuesday.

I had my 7-minute workout scheduled for 10:45 a.m., during the time that the Roblox offering was being held. It was a more challenging workout than I remember, and I tweaked my knee, but at least I was not doing it alone. It’s a daily offering so we will give it another go on Tuesday.

I had our oldest Learner show up for my 2021 visioning / resolution workshop, and we decided the best way to spend our time was to come up with goals in different categories: academic/intellectual, professional, health, relationship, and financial. We had also considered other categories such as spiritual and environmental. We discussed what makes goals helpful, and then we listed out three goals for each category. We then went back and pulled out the one goal from each category we were most intent on accomplishing, and highlighting other goals that we wanted to focus on during the year. Then we worked on making the clears more specific and putting dates on when we would like to accomplish the goals by. We circled back around to the daily tracker that the Learner and I worked on in December. The challenge will be following through on accomplishing the goals now given that New Year’s Resolutions rarely tend to stick.

Next I had my free write offering which no one showed up to, so I wrote by myself. At the same time Facilitator Lauren had a dance party offering. Facilitator Ariel and a Learner showed up for that party, and they spent it listening and dancing to some of the Learner’s favorite music. There was dancing, but it was seated dancing. We are hoping that an 8-year-old Learner who loves to dance will show up at the next one so that she can get people out of their seats.

Later in the afternoon Facilitator Ariel had an offering for Learners to grab their dogs and join him on a walk while chatting over Discord. No one showed up to that offering either. Then, at 3 p.m., all three Facilitators came together to discuss Akilah S. Richard’s Raising Free People. It is a book that we’ve handed out to all of the Abrome families (and families who have had Learners shadow), and that the book group that I lead at the local library has recently read. While all three of us have read the book, we are doing a slower read through the book and discussing it twice a week for the three weeks of this cycle. We only gave ourselves a thirty minute block to discuss the book, but it was a lively discussion and we all felt good about the amount of time that we will allocate to it this cycle.

At the end of the day the Learners and Facilitators came back together again for the afternoon roundup. Each of them told the group what the best part of their day was: Among Us, Minecraft, getting new nail polish, playing two rounds of Among Us, petting her pet dog, selling something on Rogue Lineage, watching the livestream of Among Us, the goal setting workshop, not feeling gross (relative to their feeling that morning), Among Us, Among Us, and no one showing up for Roblox. That last one was not exactly the best part of the day, so I asked the Learner about it. That’s when two other Learners said they did show up for it, and they explained that it was unclear how they would all be together without playing the same game. It allowed the Learner to more clearly articulate his vision for how he would like the offering to play out next time, and he was encouraged to give it another shot sometime. We then covered the offerings that were scheduled for Tuesday, and told the Learners that we looked forward to coming back together again tomorrow.

Day 64 of AY20-21: being remote together and separate, online and off

Day 63 of AY20-21: our first day of 2021