Day 38 of AY20-21: managing energy

In February, as news of the coronavirus was beginning to escalate, I committed to a time survey where I tracked what I was doing every 10 minutes for four weeks in order to have a better understanding of how I was spending my time. This was part of a larger effort to better take care of myself and the Abrome community. I had already tried to commit to sleeping more, eating less, working out more, reading and writing more, and spending less time browsing or on social media. But the time survey was eye opening in the ways I was not spending my time in a way that would allow meet to meet my commitments. That experience, plus the realization that we were going to have to take Abrome outdoors during the pandemic, which would stress me in terms of energy and time, forced me to realize I needed to set up practices that would allow me to meet my commitments. The changes I rolled out over the coming months included a dedicated 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. sleep schedule, writing or reading in the morning, regular workouts, limits on screen time and more specific limits on various sites, and intermittent fasting. As the wild ride of 2020 took us away from direct interaction with others, to online meet ups for Abrome, to planning and training for a pandemic year(s) outdoors, to being outdoors now as we try to balance supporting the Learners and families we have with the needs of the community, and the need to grow our community to a critical mass of Learners and Facilitators (~80 ideally) so it can thrive for years to come, the changes I made allowed me to take care of myself so that I could better take care of others. And I’ve been pretty consistent with it. Until the past two weeks, really, as the culmination of election drama coupled with many other forms of stressors boiling over for me and so many others cut a hole in the way that I’ve been trying to make the most of my days. A tweaked knee has prevented me from running, I’ve doomscrolled way too much, and my days have gotten longer as I’ve had to respond to various emergencies from others the past two weeks, meaning my required eight hours of sleep had given way to seven and then six hours of sleep per night. And after only one Learner showed up to Abrome on Tuesday I headed into Wednesday pretty exhausted. But I headed into the day with the intention of making it an enjoyable day, as well as getting some of my commitments back on track.

An 11-year-old and 13-year-old join the younger Learners on the beach

Fortunately the day started out great with word that every Learner was going to show up again! My morning was not as rushed as I was afraid it might be, as I woke up and enjoyed a good variety of reading, writing, and administrative work before heading to the pick-up spot for Learners. The first Learner who showed up, our youngest, helped out by coming to Abrome with a happy, silly attitude. As we waited for other Learners to show up he hiked his shorts as high as he possibly could, walking around with a funny gait while making goofy faces. As the other Learners showed up they began to write out their intentions: freetopia, read, watch youtube, finish inking comic, eat, eat, drink, drink a lot of water, swim, sing, dig, no intentions and dig, don’t die, and don’t die. Then we went into our morning meeting where we had a discussion on what reflections were, how they were tied to our intentions, and how we may be able to use both to help us make more of our days. As the meeting ended we discussed where we would spend our day, and no surprise, everyone wanted to head to the lake. I asked if anyone was willing to take a different, longer hike to the lake and most rejected it, but the two older adolescent boys in the group agreed to take that hike with me. Lucky for us, an older Learner who quickly rejected the possibility of a somewhat longer hike agreed to take responsibility for getting the younger Learners to the lake so I could take the longer route.

Working the Rubik’s cube

The hike to the lake was a pleasant one that took us slightly uphill, through a wooded area, along a large field, and then skirted along the lake through a larger wooded area until we circled the inlet where the rest of the Learners were. The slow and gentle walk allowed for some easy conversation between the three of us, and when we finally got to the lake to meet up with the the rest of the cell, the adolescent Learners set up near where I decided to sit down and we continued the conversation for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. The other older Learner dropped in and out of the conversation as suited her needs.

Digging the same hole just to fill it again has turned into a great workout

Elsewhere, Learners were hanging out on the dock or playing on the beach. As usual there was lots of turning over the sand, and on this day there was a sand castle being built, as well. A preteen Learner left the dock and joined in on the play on the beach. When they tired of the play on the beach they decided to jump in the lake for a swim where they splashed around and made the most of what could be one of the last warm days of the fall. With the shovel abandoned, two older Learners asked if they could use it, and they began to dig a large hole which they would fill back in at the end of the day.

The older Learner who had been dropping in and out of some of the earlier conversations I was having dropped back in to discuss what it meant to graduate from Abrome. This Learner joined us this year, at age eighteen. To join Abrome at this age is much more challenging than doing so at even sixteen, as she needs to deschool (let go of schoolish conceptions and limitations), get to know and understand herself, and plan for the future. I had reached out to other Self-Directed Education communities (ALCs and democratic schools) to see how they had approached graduation and diplomas, and came up with what I thought was a fair approach for Abrome. I discussed these requirements which would surely stretch the Learner, and told her that the execution of the graduation process would be left to her. There is no need to have a diploma or formally graduate from an SDE community (or high school for that matter) but we recognize that it is considered a rite of passage for many.

Excellent knife practices: cutting away from self and outside of each other’s blood bubble

When the two Learners who were digging a hole finished they asked if they could borrow my wood carving knives and they spent a good amount of time whittling fallen sticks. One of the Learners set up a spot in the sun with her yoga mat, and another Learner eventually ventured over to chat with her, even though that Learner was having a difficult week herself. Meanwhile the youngest Learners continued to run around playing. As the Learners socialized and played, the clock quickly ran down and all of a sudden it was time for the afternoon roundup.

We gathered on the dock and a sixteen-year-old Learner volunteered to facilitate the meeting. And it was one of the best Learner led meetings we have had yet. He started with a fabulous prompt of “is water a portal to another dimension,” which led to some great conversations. And just like that the day (at Abrome) was over. We packed up and walked back to the pickup spot where families slowly picked up their Learners. The day energized me, and helped me overcome some of my exhaustion from the week. The evening was not so kind to me, as I had work to do to take care of the Cuddle Buddies, I had a difficult conversation with an Abrome family member, I met up with Facilitator Jennifer, and I read and responded to a conversation for a Stanford working group focused on criminal justice reform that I volunteered to help with. By the evening I was spent again, but I went to sleep hopeful that Thursday at Abrome would once again energize me.

Day 37 of AY20-21: one-on-one time with a Learner

I don’t know if it was a super active Monday, coming down off of the emotions of election week, or all of 2020 hitting people at the same time, but on Tuesday I started getting messages fairly early that Learners were not going to be at Abrome that day. Two decided to spend the day with their mom. One had a headache. One was up very late and was too tired to come in. One was not feeling well because of medication changes. One found out that other same aged Learners were not coming in so they stayed home. For a group of seven Learners who had been absent collectively for only two days, all of a sudden six Learners were going to be absent on day 37. The Abrome day was going to consist of just me and one other Learner.

Colorful and curious

I showed up at the drop-off location to meet a prospective Facilitator at 8 a.m., and that conversation lasted until close to 9:30 a.m. I then had some time to write some thoughts down in my journal until about 9:50 a.m. when the lone Learner for the day joined me. We did intentions, and then we talked about what we wanted to do that day. With only two of us the morning meeting took about a minute to complete, and then we spent about 20 minutes throwing rocks at larger rocks. He then showed me a leaf that he found with a bunch of colorful spheres on it. We questioned if they were seeds or some sort of eggs. We then sat on the largest rocks at the drop-off location, and he seemed to be okay with being there without other Learners. He ate from his lunch as I collected some softball sized rocks, and we debated where we wanted to spend the day, and then we walked toward the lake.

Half of the large branch, broken in pieces after falling to the ground

On the way to the lake I asked him to stop where there was a large branch hanging over the trail. I had tried to knock down the branch with two of the older Learners on Friday, but we could not get it done. With him standing back I launched the first of the large rocks toward the branch and hit it, breaking it in half. The half that broke loose was pretty sizable and it would have been pretty terrible if it had fallen on someone walking down the path. Unfortunately, the next four rocks all missed their mark, and we will need to come back to the task another day.

At the lake the Learner and I were near each other, but on most days he likes to maybe engage with me jokingly only a couple of times a day, and spends the rest of his day playing with others. But today it was just me and him. He chose to spend his time spinning in circles to see how dizzy he could make himself. I encouraged him to do it longer to see if he would fall, and then I challenged him to a race across the field. While it would not be a fair race even without him spinning, with the spinning it was laughably unfair. We both laughed at how the race played out with him doing his best just to run in a straight line.

The Learner then spent a good amount of time testing his balance around the edge of the lake, or over the lake, on retaining walls and trees, respectively. We then moved to the dock and set up and enjoyed the peculiar weather of the day. It was warm enough to feel comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt, but there was heavy cloud cover and gusts of winds that made it seem like a storm was going to break out any minute. The winds were bringing down the leaves that had changed colors on the trees all around us, and were blanketing portions of the lake. It was a pleasure just to sit and take it all in.

With no other Learners for him to play with, the lone Learner stuck around me and we talked about varying topics and observations about what was going on around us. Eventually a woman and her dog walked toward the dock and engaged us in a conversation about Austin, the part of Austin we were enjoying at that moment, and about what we were doing there in the middle of a school day. At some point in the conversation, the Learner indicated that he would be okay with going home earlier. I asked him if that meant he was asking to go home early, or if he would just be okay if his mom decided to come pick him up. He said that he would like it if I sent her a message to see if she could pick him up. We discussed the possibility that she might not be able to, and that he would need to be okay with that. He said he was. I then reached out to his mom and she agreed to pick him up at 1:45 p.m.

Suddenly finding myself with no Learners at 1:46 p.m., I returned to Abrome and contacted Facilitator Lauren and told her that now that I was no longer at the park I could take over the roundup for remote Learners that afternoon. At 3 p.m. I logged onto the meeting and proceeded to have an hour long conversation with a Learner who is not in my cell this cycle. We discussed a wide variety of topics from our dogs to the election to the likelihood that he would be well suited for several career paths.

The two of us got to enjoy this view during our one-on-one day

At 4 p.m. I wrapped up the roundup with the remote Learner and jumped on the afternoon call with Facilitator Lauren, where we talked through the happenings of the days. Then I jumped on a call with another prospective Facilitator, and then I jumped on the Agile Learning Centers book group call. By the time I got off the ALC book group call I was ready to call it a night. While I was happy to have spent some one-on-one time with just one Learner, I was hopeful that Wednesday would mark a return to lots of Learners showing up, along with all the benefits that practicing Self-Directed Education in a community of Learners brings.

Day 22 of AY20-21: fighting complacency about Covid-19

We did not meet on Monday as were honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day, so we came back together on Tuesday for the second week of our second cycle of the year.

The day did not start out great as a Learner showed up without having gone through the daily at-home screening checklist before arriving. I asked him as soon as he arrived if he had completed it, since I did not get a text prior to his arrival that he had, and he said he had not. So I took out the checklist and went through it with him, and checked his temperature, while his guardian waited to make sure that he was good to go. I then had a conversation with him about the importance of always completing the checklist before arriving.

The cell seemed small when it was time to start the meeting as Katie was no longer shadowing with us, one Learner was out because of food poisoning, and another Learner was late. One of the Learners volunteered to be the game master, and set the conditions for our meeting, and then followed that up with facilitating the morning meeting. The prompt for the meeting was ‘what did you do this weekend?’ Some of us seemed to have had busy weekends and some had fairly lazy ones. One of the highlights of one Learner’s weekend was stopping by a candy store where he bought some jelly beans that were various levels of spicy, and he said he would like folks to give it a try at some time during the day. After the meeting was over, the Learner who was running late joined us, and the group talked about where we would like to spend our day. It looked like it was going to be another sunny, warm day, and four of us included going to the lake or swimming in our intentions. I proposed that we consider taking a hike before going to the lake and everyone agreed. Finally, I was going to get my hike!

We took a detour so that we stopped by the bathroom before scaling the hill on a fairly steep route. I offered to walk at the rear of the group with anyone who wanted to walk slowly up the hill, and I said that we could take as many breaks as needed. One of the Learners in the group took advantage of that, taking many breaks on the hike up as it was really challenging for her. But she made it, and although she said it was really difficult she seemed pleased to have made it to the top.

Relaxing a the top of the hill: a Learner is working on her comic, a Learner is using the walkie-talkie to speak to another Learner that’s on a hike, a Learner is adding his two cents to be relayed over the walkie-talkie, and a Learner is trying to pull thorns from a prickly pear out of his finger

At the top we all relaxed on some large rocks. One Learner took out her lunch and then worked on a comic, while other Learners went looking for prickly pear fruit to harvest. Some of the Learners who found prickly pear fruit came back and cut into the fruit to eat it, while also spending time removing the prickles (called glochids) from their fingers. The Learner who brought the spicy jelly beans pulled it out and offered to share them with the group. We developed a protocol for doing so safely by having him be the only one who spun the wheel that determined what bean a person would eat, and I used hand pliers to grab the beans so that we were not all dipping our hands into the same box. The flavors of the beans were Sriracha, jalapeño, cayenne, habanero, and Carolina Reaper. We found that most of the beans were not actually that spicy (compared to actual habanero peppers, for example), but they tasted awful. We did fairly well with the social distancing practices during the jelly bean eating experiment except I had to kindly remind the Learners that if they were disgusted by a bean that they had to walk really far away from the group to spit it out, just as they would if they needed to sneeze.

At noon I began to eat my lunch, as did a Learner who was also doing intermittent fasting. Shortly thereafter the Learners said they were ready to go to the lake, but as I was still eating I told them to go without me. I said anyone who wanted to stick back with me could, but every Learner decided it was time to go. One of the Learners in the group does not move as quickly on hikes as the others, and has some spatial processing differences, so I checked in with her to make sure that she did not want to wait for me, and with the other Learners to make sure that they were going to accommodate her needs. They all said they were good, and they took off, each of them seemingly quite happy to leave me behind. I finished my lunch and had a call with the veterinarian about Cuddle Buddy Ivan and eventually made my way back toward the group.

When I arrived at the lake I asked one Learner when she wanted to have the one-on-one check-in that we did not get in on Friday, and then I checked in on some of the Learners who had positioned themselves on the dock. One Learner was eating a banana, and another Learner, although masked, was about four feet away from the Learner who was eating. I reminded them of the awareness we raised on Friday about not getting too close to each other without masks. I later observed Learners laying down on the dock, while still masked, but with their heads only two to four feet apart.

I reengaged the Learners and asked them if they were doing the full checklist each morning, and all of them said yes, definitely, except for one who said, “checklist?” This led to some expressed shock from some of the others, and I pulled the Learner aside and walked them through the checklist. I explained how vitally important it would be for them to complete the checklist each day before arriving, and how they should not come if they do not complete the checklist. I then made a note to also check in with the Learner’s guardian so that there was no confusion on their end, either.

I do not want to spend my time policing Abrome Learners or their families about safer Covid-19 practices, but at the same time I do not want to allow complacency to set in whereby folks become lax and put others in the community at risk. Instead of bringing Learners together indoors for 6 hours a day where they could breathe recycled air, we took everything outdoors in small operating cells of only four to seven Learner each, this year, in order to make coming together as safe as possible during the pandemic. But our approach to the pandemic works best when everyone is abiding by the practices we agreed to, such as social distancing and daily screenings. Fortunately we are in a community where most people take the pandemic seriously, and none dismiss it as a hoax or “no worse than the flu,” so my focus can be on vigilance instead of having to educate them in order to get them to recognize the risk they can poise to others. Nonetheless, I believe that for Day 23’s morning meeting I will reserve some time to discuss Covid-19 and the latest research on how it spreads.

A super cute baby snapping turtle

Afterward I checked in with the Learner for the one-on-one check-in and then watched the Learners jumping into the lake. There was a lot of conversation between the Learners about who was going to jump off of where. It was good to see the different Learners setting boundaries for themselves on what they were willing to do without allowing peer pressure to force them to take risks they did not feel comfortable with. Because they were jumping in the water they took off their masks before doing so (it is not a good idea to try to breathe through a wet mask), and I had to remind them to keep their distance from each other when they had their masks off. I had not had to talk about distancing this much since the first week of the year. But they were receptive to the feedback and stepped away from each other, although they also simultaneously told me that they could not physically do so from where they were trying to jump from.

I eventually joined in on the jumping, as I’ve found that jumping from the top of the boat house is quite the thrill. Three of us in total made the leap, while another jumped off of the roof of the deck. Injuries were minimal; I got a splinter and another Learner got a small cut on his foot from jumping off the edge of the roof. The jumping took a short break when one of the Learners found a baby snapping turtle, which was bigger than the prior baby turtles we’ve found. After taking pictures and video of the turtle, and releasing it back into the lake, we got back to jumping into the lake. Then a Learner, who spent much of her day working on a comic that would be her birthday gift to her younger sister, facilitated our afternoon meeting. My take on the day was that it was really fun, there was lots of bonding, some great exercise, and we really need to fight complacency about Covid-19.