Another one of the beautiful things about Self-Directed Education is the novelty that comes with living our lives in the world, and having the opportunity to enjoy and explore the opportunities that come our way, or that we create. At Abrome we…
read moreWeek two of our entirely outdoor, pandemic, not-schooling experience is in the books at Abrome! This week the Cell 1 did some exploring. I- and J- found a looooooooong tunnel that opened to a giant reed forest, which I- used to build a house…
read moreAnother rainout thanks to thunderstorms On Wednesday night I sent Abrome families the following message by email: “Currently the forecast tomorrow is all day thunderstorms. I’ll wait until tomorrow morning to make the call but if the forecast then is similar to…
read moreMy cell was without three Learners on Wednesday. One is still out of state helping his grandparents move, and two were at home resting after being out in the sun all day (with one also going on a fairly strenuous hike) at…
read moreSlightly over one week into the new year, it seems that the two physically separated Abrome operating cells are having quite different experiences. Some of the more recent highlights from the operating cell I am not a part of includes continual investigation…
read moreDay five of the academic year was also day one of the second week of the academic year. The first week was all about introducing or reintroducing ourselves to each other, reaffirming our principles and agreements, identifying challenges we had not fully…
read moreOn Friday we wrapped up our first week outdoors. We are now one week into the first of eleven cycles that will run through mid-July. The week was fun, and had lots of learning experiences embedded in it. Some of the fun:…
read more“Hey can we do somewhere inside today because I don’t wanna sit on wet grass.” That’s the question I saw from a Learner when I checked the Abrome Discord channel in the morning. The first day of the academic year was a…
read moreOne of the reasons we decided to go outside this academic year was so that we could safely be together during this pandemic. We found that connecting over Discord and Zoom was insufficient to meeting our needs as individuals and as a…
read moreWhen we departed for spring break on March 6th, I certainly did not expect that the next time that I’d see the Abrome Learners in-person was going to be on September 8th. But after six months of responding to the unknown, of…
read moreWhen we shut down for the rest of the 2019-2020 academic year last April 1st, choosing to continue with remote meet-ups only, we knew that we had to begin preparations for coming back together in very different ways in the 2020-2021 academic…
read moreBringing students, teachers, and staff together inside classrooms and schoolhouses during a pandemic is tyranny. School was already tyranny for children for all the non-pandemic reasons: forced attendance, age segregation, lack of autonomy, sit down and shut up, forced curriculum, testing, homework,…
read moreToday I finished reading Education and the Significance of Life by Jiddu Krishnamurti and I was shocked by the bluntness of two paragraphs directed toward parents. He also had some tough questions for teachers. But for the benefit of those who do…
read moreI stumbled upon an excellent twitter thread written by Melissa Hillman and it is so damn spot on that I am sharing it here in place of my daily blog post. About 30% of teachers (public and private) were over the age…
read moreIt is not easy to grow a Self-Directed Education (SDE) community. Society does not trust children, and Self-Directed Education is rooted in trust. Most adults believe that children must be told what to learn and when to learn it. Many adults find…
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