Day 125 of AY20-21: saying goodbye to a friend

April 21st was day 125 of the pandacademic year and it was also our last day with a Learner who was moving to Los Angeles. We expected the day to be a sad one but we were determined to make it a special one nonetheless. Before the Learner who was leaving showed up, the Learner’s mom texted that he did not want a big deal made out of his final day, so we were planning to honor that. But I did tell him, I’m really going to miss you” just before I had planned to hand him a box of organic jelly beans that he often ruminated on when we were in our Flying Squad the prior cycle. But he cut me off with, “don’t say anything about that.” I said, “oh, well, I just wanted to give you something …” as I pulled the jelly beans out. He grabbed them, held them to his chest, and said, “oh my God, I love you!” I said, “you love me?!?”, and he said, “no, I’m talking to the jelly beans.” It was perfect.

Facilitator Lauren and I recognized that moving away from the lake for part of the day has had a really positive impact on that Learner’s daily experience, as well as others, so we were planning to ask if we could take a hike early in the day away from the lake and then we would consider returning to it, later. As the other five Learners began to trickle in, Facilitator Lauren noted that some of them seemed underdressed for the colder than usual morning weather, and offered them sweatshirts to wear and hand warmers, and multiple Learners accepted the offer. Instead of launching into the meeting when the final Learner showed, I floated the possibility of taking the hike before the morning meeting and then settling in for a meeting. Everyone agree, and we decided that we would take a walk to the second waterfall. When we took off I decided to pull out my speaker and play some songs for the Learner on the hike.

By the time we got to the first waterfall everyone was in a great mood thanks to the music, and one of the Learners asked if we could hold our meeting there instead of moving to the second waterfall. Everyone agreed, and we settled in, but first we decided to enjoy the scenery and jam out to some more music. There were multiple requests, and there was dancing.

When it was time for the meeting an adolescent Learner offered to be the game master, and then I facilitated the meeting. I stated with announcements, and then everyone shared their intentions for the day. Next, I began to tell them a story that was an adaptation of the allegory of the long spoons where in hell someone finds that everyone is stuck at a table with elbows that cannot bend, so they cannot eat the delicious food that is laid out before them. I was about to explain how the scene in heaven was similar in layout, but how everyone was able to eat. But before I could get there another adolescent Learner asked, “why don’t they just feed each other?” I was so thrilled that he figured out the solution, as in the heaven in the story people were just feeding each other. His question was so sincere that it was apparent that he had not heard the story before. Finally, each of us shared what gift we hope to be able to give the world.

After the morning meeting folks gravitated toward a long gentle flowing portion of the creek to skip rocks, with some ‘experts’ helping to show the others the best techniques to get multiple skips. They had a blast and I slipped away to record the daily update video on Instagram.

One of the younger Learners who has been quite apprehensive about charting his own path through high grasses and shrubs soon found himself drawn into exploration. It was nice to see him playing in the woods for a change.

After all the singing, dancing, rock skipping, and navigating through areas with no paths, the crew was ready to swing back by the drop off spot, fill up with water, and head back down to the lake for the rest of the day. We went back at different speeds, with me going back with some of the slower folks. Along the way I stumbled across two of the youngest Learners acting as human statues, and they did a pretty nice job of keeping their bodies and faces stiff.

As I passed the Learners they very quickly ran past me and found the mulberry tree and immediately began to evaluate the ripeness of the berries. Soon three of them were harvesting and eating them, and then they decided to climb the tree, as well.

What a yummy harvest!

At the dock, some of the Learners set up in their usual spots. One of the Learners decided to have a conversation with me about Usual Cruelty, a book she was still working through that I had recently finished. We talked about some of the individual stories in the book that she found upsetting, and I tried to highlight how the stories were intended to give a human face to what happens to countless people because of how the “criminal bureaucracy” works. The conversation was shorter than I had hoped, but it was great to see her take the initiative to chat about a book that we agreed to read.

Harder than it looks

Meanwhile, two of the other Learners were busy collecting fallen branches so they could carve them with their knives. After fashioning them into spears, and then breaking them so that no dogs would injure themselves, one of them invited the rest of us to a workout. I agreed to the workout, but said that I would have to modify some of the exercises because of my wrists. The Learner who was leading the workout emphasized that everyone should do what they felt comfortable with, but he warned us that it would be a bear of a workout. It was way more than a bear. It was a killer workout. By the time I barely finished I knew I would be feeling it for days. For me, the best part of the workout was listening to a variety of old school workout jams and some intentionally horrible music (recorded off beat, or off tune on purpose).

After the workout was finished we were spent. We each settled in and just tried to recover, while drinking water, of course. But everyone in the crew was kinda spent from the excitement of the day. Some of the younger Learners played along the ..edge of the lake while one of them focused his attention on the ducks. Another young Learner broke out her fuzzy notebook and used it to write.

We then came back together for the afternoon roundup, which one of the adolescent Learners volunteered to lead. She started with announcements and then shared two prompts focused on accomplishments and feelings of pride. But the ducks, John and Lisa McQuarkerson, ambled into the middle of a circle and stole the show. The adolescent Learner then took charge of the meeting again, and we each responded to the prompts.

Saying goodbye

We then made our way back to the pickup point where each Learner said their goodbyes to the departing Learner, and then went home. At the very end of the day I pulled out a card that the Facilitators had signed for the departing Learner, and another box of jelly beans. He did not even notice the jelly beans at first. The last thing he said to me and Facilitator Lauren was “ciao!” We are really going to miss him.

Meanwhile, at the other cell, they went chasing waterfalls, spent time pondering the meaning of life (or appreciating the beauty in nature), found some cool looking rocks, and took some naps.

Not sticking to the rivers and lakes

It is beautiful out here

Don’t worry, he’s not a giant about to drop a rock on another Learner

Catching up on sleep

Day 124 of AY20-21: a tale of two cells

Tuesday, April 20th was the second day of cycle nine and my first remote day. With both Facilitators Ariel and Lauren thriving as Facilitators I am taking a step back twice a week to focus on supporting prospective families and on tying up some loose ends administratively. Even though I am not going to be physically present twice a week, I planned to be in touch with Facilitator Lauren and available if she needed my support.

Day two was a beautiful, gorgeous day and the Learners showed up in really good moods. There positive moods helped lead into effortless and fun activities and discovery to include picking mulberries that are not quite ripe yet. Also, one of the Learners decided to showcase his beatbox skills while the other showed us some pretty classic dance moves. If they were born thirty years earlier they might have been child stars!

Mulberries!

The day was a great one for moving around, and two of the adolescent Learners came to Abrome with intentions to workout. One of the Learners went on a job, and another Learner led a workout that Facilitator Lauren participated in. It was a pretty intense workout, and the Learner said he plans to do the workout four times per week! One of the younger Learners watched the workout, but insisted that he was uninterested in participating in it. After the workout was over, the Learner walked away from the group to be by himself further down the shoreline. He was later seen doing his own pushups!

In addition to working out, there was also plenty of water drinking. Facilitator Lauren helped facilitate the drinking with a game of ‘never have I ever,’ and she also handed out some electrolyte packets for the Learners to put in their water bottles. The drinking game went so well that a younger Learner who has never been comfortable going to the bathroom at Abrome decided to nature pee twice. A pretty monumental step forward.

Although no one really got in water deeper than their ankles, there was a lot of time spent next to the water. One of the coolest observations of the day was seeing a water snake just floating on the surface of the lake. The Learners have largely moved on from being afraid of snakes to being aware of them, which is wonderful all around.

Two of the Learners stayed on the dock of the lake while three younger Learners walked to a waterfall where there was much more shade as they found it getting hot at the lake. And although few people found their way into the water on this day, all of them committed to getting into the water on Wednesday.

The snake was not the only animal that we appreciated on this day. There was a fuzzy caterpillar that we came across that looked like it could be menacing. One of the Learners offered Facilitator Lauren ten dollars to touch it, but she passed on the offer. But thanks, anyway!

Exhausted

The day was exhilarating but exhausting, and the Learners left quite content with the ways in which they chose to spend their day.

It was a slow day for the other cell, and a good one for reading. An adolescent read 200 pages of her book, and Facilitator Ariel finished the second of three long essays in Usual Cruelty. Another Learner who said he was not into reading books had a nice conversation with Facilitator Ariel, and it turns out there are some books that he likes. Facilitator Ariel then let the learner borrow his copy of The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. When the Learner was finished with the book he took a nap. The other Learner took out a knife and carved out some eating utensils for lunch.

The other cell is also a small one, but on this day they got word that a Learner who has been out since the winter Covid-19 wave may be coming back this week, as he got his second vaccination shot! As of day 124 of the pandacademic year we have four Facilitators fully vaccinated, and four Learners at least partially vaccinated!

Day 102 of AY20-21: a tough day for some

Tuesday was day 102 of the pandacademic year, and that morning I woke up and worked on the blog post for day 100 of this pandacademic year. I got distracted a bit and tinkered with the website. For those who do not know, Abrome is a Self-Directed Education community. We are members of the Agile Learning Center community, Flying Squads, and the Alliance for Self-Directed Education. I updated the website so that each of these were represented on the front page. I’ve only been meaning to do that for over a year now.

When I arrived at Abrome later that morning I got to hand out copies of Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System by Alec Karakatsanis to everyone who committed to reading and discussing it. The author’s publisher, The New Press, was offering to give free copies to educators and we jumped on it. We will begin to read it this week and we have our first discussion planned for Friday.

When it was time for the morning meeting one of the Learners opted to be the gameshifter and had us sit or stand, and use popcorn to participate in the meeting. Building off the conversation for the day prior, we each shared something about Self-Directed Education that we appreciate or value: freedom to be a little human, being able to wander, Learners not spending energy focused on pleasing adults, instead of someone teaching you you get to freely learn, freedom of speech, safe space, freedom to do anything you please (except murder or things that get you in trouble [later rephrased to except anything that hurts others]), and I don’t have to make lesson plans. That last one was Facilitator Ariel’s contribution.

The meeting went really well and it seemed we were going to have a really good day. Everyone had shown up and the weather was great and people seemed energized. I asked anyone if they wanted to join me in the morning hike and they all passed, so I went up by myself and jumped on a call with the remote Learners. Then I came back down and joined the rest of the crew at the lake, where they most often choose to spend their day.

Reading Usual Cruelty

It was a busy day at the lake as the Learners were engaged in a wide variety of activities. Some of the activities included a couple of Learners riding the bikes that they brought that day, one of the Learners reading their copy of Usual Cruelty, and multiple Learners discussing water births. As for reading outdoors, it is something that all Facilitators and several Learners do at times. While I thoroughly enjoy reading indoors, I am also a big fan of reading outdoors. There’s just something wonderful about being able to dive into a great book when the sun is not too bright and there is a very gentle breeze. I highly recommend it.

Learners checking out video edits

Facilitator Ariel was working on some video edits of the GoPro footage that was taken earlier in the week. He showed some of the Learners the progress he had made on editing the videos, and one of the Learners asked to go deeper in the conversation so that she could also edit some video. They edited some video together, and then Facilitator Ariel gave her some of his footage that she wanted to work on. We will probably upload the product of that initial conversation on our YouTube channel.

Over at the other cell Facilitator Lauren and the younger Learners were having a less easygoing day. For one, the Learners were getting pretty tired of the tick situation. Facilitator Lauren has tried to educate the Learners (and Facilitators) on the presence of ticks, how to protect against them, and how to check for them.

Climbing rocks within safety limits

Also, it was a rough day in terms of safety boundaries. As you know if you have been following us for a while, we want Learners to exist autonomously while at Abrome, but we must also keep them safe. For example, Learners are free to roam, but we are not going to let them play in the middle of a highly trafficked road, or allow them to play on the top of a moss covered dam with water flowing over it. Facilitator Lauren set some safety boundaries on climbing up on higher altitude rocks on this day and the Learners went past it, and this resulted in a difficult situation with Facilitator Lauren asking the Learner to please come down while the Learner protested. It led to difficult conversations afterward about why safety boundaries exist even if we are not a schoolish community. Testing our limits is a good thing, but there are limits to what counts as reasonable limits.

Additionally, the wind that day was a challenge, and a big gust of wind kicked up a lot of dirt and blew it into one of the Learner’s eyes. This is the same Learner who got a really nice cut on his foot thanks to a zebra mussel several months ago, and short of a really tough incident he rarely chooses to go home. But on this day, he chose to go home. That’s just the type of day it was at the other cell.

Furry blue journals are great for math

But it wasn’t all difficult. There was still plenty of play in between the more challenging moments. There was imaginative nature play, and one of the Learners broke out her brand new, furry blue journal where she played with math.

And no, she wasn’t encouraged to do so. At Abrome we don’t try to nudge the Learners to read, write, or do math, much less engage in more advanced academics. We want them to pursue their interests no matter the domain and no matter if it is academically valued in a schooled society. When they want to learn to read or do math then we are happy to be supportive, and we try to cultivate a culture of literacy and numeracy through modeling and psychological safety. But the thing is, all the Learners learn to read, write, and do arithmetic. It is just the way humans are—because it is socially valued they want to learn it. And they do, on their terms, on their timeline.

Back at Abrome I ventured out to the dock where several of the Learners were in conversation and one of the Learners asked me about what it would take for us to be allowed to meet at the Abrome facility, again. He had never even been there because he joined at the beginning of the pandacademic year. I reminded him that we would not be able to do so until we hit pandemic risk stage level 1 in the local region, and that would not likely happen until the summer at the earliest. Further, I added, it may only be an option for those who have been fully vaccinated, and that I would be reviewing the policies over spring break. The conversation allowed us to talk about the effectiveness of the vaccines and the likelihood that it would become available to the Learners by the end of the year.

Later, a group of fisherman showed up to fish on the dock so the Learners cleared out. While we were hanging out nearby, two of the fisherman left for some reason and the remaining fisherman cried out for help. Turns out he was an inexperienced fisherman and he caught a fish. Two Learners approached him, asked him if he needed help, and he said he did. One then assisted in reeling it in, while the other walked him through the steps of how to grab a fish. It was a fun experience for all involved. After that the Learners talked about doing some fishing of their own, in the future.

Captivating conversations

Toward the end of the day one of the Learners asked me if the term “super straight” was transphobic. Turns out that it is a term that is used to self-identify as someone who is straight, and could never possibly be attracted to or date a trans person. It was an interesting question that led us down the path of the implications of using such a term, the different contexts that it might be used in, and whether or not it was even possible to be “straight” to such a degree that it was impossible to be attracted to a trans person. After considering the issue I came to the opinion that it was a transphobic term, regardless of the intentions of the person who uses it, and regardless of the intention behind the creation of the term. I appreciated the opportunity to think about it in an open way, looking at all sides of the possible argument, even if some may be repugnant, and doing so in a way that centered the humanity of trans people. And yeah, “super straight” is most certainly a transphobic term.

After the afternoon roundup and after the Learners all went home the Facilitators had a long after action review where we talked about the events of the day, and some of the real struggles of the day. Self-Directed Education is not always pretty, and sometimes it is downright messy. Sometimes feelings get hurt, and sometimes people get frustrated and frazzled. But that is the cost of freedom. And at the end of the day, we will take a messier freedom than a more orderly form of control.

Day 101 of AY20-21: talking about being good neighbors

At 9:30 a.m. the three Facilitators got on a call with each other to talk about the week ahead. Facilitator Lauren had been concerned by all the ticks she has seen at the spot that her cell is in, so she shared some information with us about how to protect Learners from ticks. Facilitator Ariel then offered to share that information on our Linktree, an Instagram post, an Instagram story, and to share it in on our internal facebook group.

I also shared an Instagram post to let our newer followers know that the Abrome community prioritized community care, safety, and being together since the earliest days of the pandemic, and that I have been posting about every day of this pandacademic year (although often a couple days behind, like today).

Also, since the new year I have been doing a lot of reading. Currently I am most interested in reading books about supporting young people and everything education (with or without schooling), abolition, Black liberation, the criminal injustice system, business and entrepreneurship, and I am trying to pepper in a lot more fiction, as well.

Over the weekend I finished my 24th book of 2021, A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler. The key word is finished, because in addition to reading entire books I am also finishing off books that I had partly read and put down for weeks, months, and even years. The reason I bring this up is because I found A Good Neighborhood to be such a fabulous read that it gave me an idea for the morning prompts on Monday.

I started with, “what does it mean to be a good neighbor?” I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll just say that in the novel being a good neighbor could mean not going into a new neighborhood and destroying what was already there, welcoming others in, allowing people to get away with harm to reduce conflict, or simply not going out of one’s way to destroy someone else’s life. For the Learners at Abrome they believed that being a good neighbor meant doing nothing that would interfere with others enjoying life, being there for them, respecting their personal space and property, sharing, being mindful of noise levels, be friendly, and loaning them something when they need it.

I then followed up with, “what makes a good neighborhood?” The novel touched on factors such as connection, community, gentrification, and race. The Learners said that a good neighborhood is where people check in on each other, where people meet each others’ needs without expecting something in return, where neighbors are friends, were everyone shares and is nice, where nobody is a jerk and everyone is nice, low crime, and where everyone shares. We briefly discussed what “low crime” means and given that the Learner who brought it up has committed to reading Usual Cruelty with us (more on that tomorrow) I think that we will get to dive deeper into that notion more in the near future.

After the morning meeting I asked if any of the Learners wanted to join me for the daily hike up the hill. They all said no, with some offering up excuses for not coming. Facilitator Ariel said he would like to go, and we asked only that all the Learners stay together until we got back. They agreed, and Facilitator Ariel and I climbed up the hill and then settled in for the morning meeting with the two Learners who showed up. Those two happened to be the two who said they were going to write a letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott to let him know that they disagreed with his decision to prematurely end the mask mandate and end capacity constraints on businesses. One of the Learners had already sent in his letter via email, and the other Learner told me that she had written it out and was ready to mail it. I was later sent a picture of the letter by her mom and I’ll just say that it was a far more generous letter than I could have written, and as her mom said, it is better than he deserves.

At the other cell ten miles away the cloud cover seemed to calm the Learners down from their higher energy first week of the cell. Facilitator Lauren spoke with the Learners about the Flying Squad specialty cell that was scheduled for the coming cycle, although the Learner most likely to want to participate in it was too busy engaging with all the nature around him that he seemed to have missed much of the conversation.

Recognizing that the conversation was not helping the Learners they decided to explore. They went to a new place where they got to see a skink and a squirrel, and attempted to move in on each one of them. Both easily evaded the humans.

Facilitator Lauren helped identify a bunch of edible plants that were safe to eat in the area, and everyone gave the plants a try. While the Learners didn’t take to the plants like they take to hot chocolate and marshmallows they gave it a thumbs up. Or at least a thumbs sideways.

They also made the most of sticky weed as an accessory. In addition to making crows with the sticky weeds they also used it to provide camouflage, and even tried to cover Facilitator Lauren completely in it.

The pictures and videos that Facilitator Lauren took were great. One thing we really focused on this year was making sure that we captured great images of what was happening at Abrome, with the Learners’ consent, of course. At one point I did have to step in and kindly asked them to avoid vertical video syndrome, which I learned about in my copwatching days. Vertical videos can make an amazing video just ok, and a good video junk. I bring this up because Facilitator Ariel told me that he was making a vertical video, realized it and stopped, flipped the phone, and took a horizontal video! I love moments like that.

Back at the cell that Facilitator Ariel and I were in, the Learners took an empty plastic bottle that someone had left on the dock and filled it with pecan shells. Then they turned it into a game. The game was not complicated, it was just a form of playing catch on the dock on the lake. But there were some twists. If the bottle were to fall in the water because you dropped it you had to get the bottle out of the water. The exception to this was that if the person who threw it was careless in the throw then they had to get the bottle out of the water. If the bottle was near enough to the dock it would be easy enough to fish it out with a light saber (inactive). However, if the current pulled it away or the throw was bad, then it would require a Learner to jump in. And the water was cold. Lucky for all involved no one had to jump in.

While they were playing I reviewed an Edutopia video on 7 Tips for Moving Learning Outside for schools. What a disappointment. This pandemic has really highlighted the lack of creativity and innovation from conventional schools, and exposed their absolute inability to reform themselves in a way that would best serve their students and the general public. Thank goodness Self-Directed Education is an option for most young people.

And Facilitator Ariel and I had a planned discussion on Self-Directed Education and Flying Squads planned that afternoon, and we had invited the Learners to participate in it with us. We asked the Learners if they were ready for the planned 2:00 p.m. discussion, but they were in the process of transitioning from the game they were playing with the pecan filled bottle on the dock to a game of monkey in the middle with the same pecan filled bottle in the middle of the large field adjacent to the lake. They said they wanted to do both but really wanted to play monkey in the middle, and they wanted us to play, as well. I offered that we could play with them for a half hour and then they could join us in the conversation, to which one Learner said that he was not interested in the conversation, but the others all said yes.

We then played some pretty intense rounds of monkey in the middle. There was a lot of diving on the ground, some wrestling, and some sore hands as one of the Learners though the best strategy was to rifle the bottle to the other people in the circle. One of the Learners even managed to end up with a garbage can on his back after he dove into it going after the bottle. Fortunately no one was injured, and doubly fortunately I think we got some really great GoPro footage of it. Although such footage is not available quite yet and could not make it into this blog post.

Self-Directed Education and Flying Squad conversation

After the game the Learners all moved back to the dock for the meeting, and the Learner who said he was uninterested in joining in on the meeting joined nonetheless because that was what all of the other Learners chose to do.

The conversation was really great, as we had some Learners who had been with us before the pandemic hit, some who joined at the beginning of the pandacademic year, and Facilitator Ariel and a Learner who joined midyear. We talked about why Self-Directed Education was meaningful for each of them, what they were getting out of Abrome, what surprised them, and the shortcomings of SDE. Then we discussed Flying Squads in particular because of the Flying Squad day that was scheduled for Wednesday.

At 3:00 p.m. I hosted the afternoon roundup for the remote Learners, during which we discussed what job we would want to have if we were forced to take a job. I said that I would be doing exactly this, and fortunate me, this is what I am doing. I then joined the in-person cell again and we held our 3:30 p.m. afternoon roundup. One of the Learner’s asked us to jump in for game shifting and then Facilitator Ariel asked three prompts, of which I found the follow up to the morning prompts of “why is it important to be a good neighbor?” to be the most interesting. The Learners replied, when you need something from them they’ll be there to help you, it feels good when I’m nice to others, we are all better off when we support each other, it makes others and ourselves feel happy and to not be known as a douchebag, it’s nice to have friends and makes you feel better and live longer, and we need to take care of the people around us because the government sucks. Then we walked back to the pick-up spot to call it a day. We stopped briefly to appreciate the carpenter ants back at work.