Day 75 of AY20-21: being remote is starting to wear on folks

Thursday was day 75 of our pandacademic year. We are only about 3/7ths of the way through the year as our year ends in mid-July. I was leading the morning meeting and I immediately started with announcements. Building off of yesterday’s announcement that it was a palindrome day, and a discussion of when the next palindrome day would be (we said November), I argued that actually day 75 was a palindrome day, depending how you choose to order the date. If we go dd/mm/yy or yy/mm/dd and lop off the zero at the beginning of the month then 21/1/21 is indeed a palindrome.

We tried pass the ball for game shifting on Wednesday, but as it was the first time for some Learners, and the first time not doing it in person, it did not go very well. But I figured it was a more engaging way of participating so I tried it again, and this time it went over much better. For the prompt I asked, when do you feel least free, or unfree, and do you believe you can change the conditions that make you feel unfree? The answers were interesting: when stuck in a conversation I don’t want to be in, paying rent, trapped indoors waiting for something to happen (e.g., DMV, phone store), in public school, put to work for chores or cooped up in public school, when I kill something in Minecraft and another one spawns, when I have a price tag on me, morning and afternoon meetings at Abrome, when I am in an argument with someone who thinks they have power over me and every time I talk or defend myself they won’t let me speak, when I have to do something I don’t want to do, and when playing Zelda. Minus the people who responded jokingly to the initial prompt, the overwhelming majority who identified when they felt unfree said they could change their conditions entirely or to some degree. I made a note to have a conversation later in the week with the Learner who said that he felt the least free during morning and afternoon meetings.

Coffee and read

After the morning meeting I had a one-to-one check-in with an adolescent Learner and then I joined the 7-minute workout with the regular crew. I then quickly moved into Facilitator Ariel’s coffee and read offering. Once again it was just the Facilitators, but we made the most of it. I finished the book Curious, which I think is one of the worst books I’ve read in quite some time, and Facilitators Ariel and Lauren finished Raising Free People in advance of our discussion planned for 3:00 p.m. that afternoon.

Among Us

The next offering of the day was an unscheduled Among Us offering. When we went over the schedule that morning a Learner asked why the offering was not on the schedule. I reminded him that he left the Set-the-Week meeting early, at the beginning of the week, and so he was not around to schedule an offering that day. He said that he wanted to host the offering and invited anyone to join him at noon. When the time came, only one other Learner and Facilitator Ariel showed up. One thing we’ve learned about Among Us is that it’s really not that great if you don’t have at least five people playing. Uninspired, they ended the offering early. Hopefully the Learner who organized the offering will choose to stick around for the entirety of the next Set-the-Week meeting, next cycle.

Facilitators playing an intense game of Jeopardy

At 1:00 p.m. Facilitator Lauren hosted a trivia offering on Zoom. Trivia has played well with the Learners at Abrome in the past, so we were hopeful to get some turnout for the offering, but again only the Facilitators showed up. Facilitator Lauren chose an online Jeopardy website for us to play off of, and we set the difficulty to easy enough for everyone to have fun without letting our competitive nature taking over. It didn’t work for me, as I always take trivia games way too seriously. But we did have a good time.

At 2:00 p.m. I hosted my daily free write offering and I was thrilled to see a Learner join me as she does most days. It’s been challenging for us Facilitators to not have Learners showing up regularly for our offerings, as we want to find ways to connect with them, and we feel limited in our ability to build relationship with them. But we continue to make ourselves available, inviting them to offerings, and having one-to-one check-ins with them in an attempt to stay connected as we bridge the gap between now and when the risk stage level drops to four (when most will choose to come back to in-person), and later to stage level three (when the rest will come back to in-person).

Speaking of one-to-one check-ins, Facilitator Ariel had a really nice one with an adolescent Learner who does not share much. Not all Learners are eager to share their feelings or their interests in group meetings, so the one-to-one allows the more introverted or shy Learners a chance to open up more with an audience of one. They ended up talking about comic books, comic book history, movies they like, books and struggles with reading. It was a great opportunity for Facilitator Ariel to get to know the Learner better, and it spurred him to set a comic book offering for the coming week.

Raising Free People

At 3:00 p.m. the Facilitators finished discussing Raising Free People by Akilah S. Richards. This entire year; first in-person, outdoors, in small cells; and then remote; has made the ongoing daily conversations about facilitation much more difficult to have given that we are almost always physically separated. We took advantage of the unfortunate situation of being entirely remote this cycle to work through this book slowly and discuss for a half hour twice per week. Unfortunately, that was not enough time as there are so many gems within the book, and so much reflection and processing to be had.

Afternoon roundup

Facilitator Lauren facilitated the afternoon roundup where we started by reviewing our practices and identifying what we each were doing well and what needs work. Then we each answered what is something we need to feel safe: humanity, people actively working to make space safer for all, connection with people I trust, having a roof over my head, stuffed animals and mom and dad, family, people I trust, trust, friends and family, people I trust and dog in bed at night, a “fire arm” (written into chat), and for people to trust me and I need to trust them. Once again someone’s attempt to be funny fell flat. Facilitator Ariel overrode the joke with talk of how having an arm on fire isn’t going to make anyone feel safe. If we were in-person it would have been much easier to pull the Learner to the side and talk about that after the meeting, but we are stuck being remote. Being remote is clearly starting to wear on folks. Thank goodness that once we drop back down to stage level four that we can be together in-person again. Too bad too many people continue to go to shops, restaurants, bars, salons, gyms, and schools. We are going to stay home for now to help protect others.

Day 74 of AY20-21: palindrome day

Wednesday morning we had low turnout for the morning meeting with only eight Learners showing up. Facilitator Lauren started the meeting by asking if anyone had any announcements. We decided to give the announcements at the beginning of the meeting a try because one of the younger Learners had been frustrated recently as he would join the meeting excited to share some news but then would have to wait until the end of the meeting for announcements. Sometimes he would start talking over others, and sometimes he would begin asking if the meeting could just be finished already. It was frustrating for him, other Learners, and the Facilitators. The Facilitators felt by allowing him to share immediately when we started the meeting that the struggles might end. During announcements I shared that it was a palindrome day, meaning that the date forward and backward were the same if using the mm/dd/yyyy format: 1/20/2021. I then asked when the next palindrome date might be, and the best answer I could come up with on the spot was in November or December, depending on if you used dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy: 12/11/21.

Reviewing offerings at the morning meeting

Next Facilitator Lauren used game shifting to help everyone understand how we would approach the meeting. When we are in person in the Abrome facility we use game shifting boards that allow us to set roles for the meetings, the group intention, how we are going to use our bodies, and how we are going to talk or share with each other. Being outdoors this year we have used it only occasionally when we were really struggling with meetings, but being remote we felt we needed to use it more because Learners were often not present in meetings (e.g., distracted by Discord chats or gaming) and some would too often speak over others. One manner of sharing is to “pass the ball,” wherein one Learner at a time has an imaginary ball while they speak, and then they pass it to someone else. That’s what Facilitator Lauren offered up, and then we stumbled our way through the meeting as each Learner answered what they would do if they were the outgoing President as their final act, or if they were the incoming President as their initial act. Some Learners answered the prompt with sincerity (e.g., commute sentences of low level drug offenders, provide a friendly reminder to treat everyone fairly), and some made a joke of it and provided some pretty cringey responses (e.g., rally supporters to break into the Capitol, nuke the world). It was not a terrible meeting, but it certainly did not help us start the day as we would hope.

After the morning meeting I had a one-on-one check-in with a new Learner that it has been difficult for me to connect with outside of gaming. I asked him how things were going as a new Learner who was stuck at home during this remote period thanks the the state of the pandemic. He said that he and his family have had some conversations about the decisions he’s been making around gaming, and that they believe he has been making some bad decisions. I asked him what that meant and if he agreed with them. He said that they felt he was gaming too much and that he did agree with them. At that point the conversation evolved into what good decisions would be, the process of deschooling, and why gaming can seem so enticing. We talked specifically about how gaming companies engineer the games to provides hits of dopamine, and motivation theory. We then moved onto ways that he might be able to better understand how he responds to the urge to game, and I suggested maybe having a journal that he could track the time that he spends playing, how it affects his emotions and his body, and if he finds himself neglecting certain needs (e.g., bathroom, eating, sleeping). He said he would think about it.

High fives after the 7-minute workout

After the meeting I did a quick 7-minute workout with the other Facilitators and the guardian of a Learner. After the workout we gave each other a virtual high five. I then spent much of the rest of my day thinking and writing a blog post I’ve been tinkering with for the past several days. I did not finish it, but I made great progress on it.

Facilitator Lauren meanwhile had a check-in with an adolescent Learner and then hosted an art and fart offering wherein folks could join her as they did some sort of art project or anything else of their choosing. It was more just an opportunity to hang out, and with the name of the offering there were high hopes that some Learners would drop in. But none did.

A Learner’s Minecraft offering

Later in the day an adolescent Learner hosted her Minecraft offering where each person could show up to play Minecraft while hanging out with each other on Zoom. The goal was to be together but not actually play together on a shared server. One younger Learner and Facilitator Ariel showed up to play along.

Facilitator Ariel then hosted the online gaming offering which is essentially the same thing as the Minecraft offering but for any game, and it was on Discord instead of Zoom. The same three who had participated in the Minecraft offering ended up participating in the online gaming offering.

We then came back together again at the afternoon roundup where we had a much better turnout than we did in the morning. Facilitator Ariel led the meeting with announcements, and then said that we would share using the popcorn method of communicating (“kernel,” answer, “pop”). He then asked a wonderful question: when do you feel the most free? The answers were pretty varied: when I have a day that everything I do is planned and liked by me without obligation, when I get to play my favorite position in soccer, in book group discussions, when I’m with family, when I am just being myself, in a creative video game or in nature, when I am wearing a sticker that says ‘free’ for price, when walking through beach and woods like island forests, when doing art, when having fun, and when making music.

The afternoon meeting really helped make the day feel special, even if much of the rest of the day seemed underwhelming in terms of Abrome days. When we adjourned the meeting some of the Learners stuck around to chat. Slowly they started to drop off but three of them really wanted to hang out, which was a bit awkward because the Facilitators always follow up the afternoon meeting with a Facilitator meeting. When we told the Learners we were going to have the meeting they effectively said, ‘great, we will watch it play out.’ So we all gave our rundowns of the day without talking about specific Learners, and without being able to really dive into some of the issues and concerns that arose during the day. We decided that while we appreciated the Learners hanging out, that in the future we would need to ask them to leave before we begin the meeting.