Day 47 of AY20-21: goodbyes on the final day of cycle three

Last Tuesday was day 47, the last day of the third cycle of this academic year. It was also our second scheduled remote day of the cycle. Hoping to make the meeting a bit more fun and engaging I invited a 16-year-old Learner to facilitate the morning meeting. I did so because he had done a fabulous job facilitating a morning meeting two weeks ago and I felt we needed to get more energy out of the morning meeting. The Learner launched in with a great prompt: if you were any other animal what would you be? For those who showed up to the meeting on time the responses were pig, tiger, elephant, fox, human, crocodile, fish, sloth, lion, and bird. He then asked what practice each person was going to focus on and everyone but three people said they were going to drink water. Two said they were not going to use ableist language. The final Learner said play Roblox. Well, that’s not a practice we are working on but he joined the meeting late.

The Learner chose expert

As the meeting ended I invited Learners to stick around and play a game of sudoku with me. The day before I had shared a screenshot on Discord of me solving the easy level in record time. One Learner pointed out that it was the easy level, and another Learner then posted a screenshot of him beating my time by a good margin. He later admitted that he cheated to get the score, but he stuck around to play the game with me. I was thinking we might play a medium or hard sudoku but he said that we should go straight for the expert level. That’s a risky proposition as an expert game can run close to an hour, and that’s if we don’t make any mistakes. Also, it is really hard to play the game over zoom because one person has to tell the person operating the game where to place numbers. Nonetheless, we were both super focused and we got it done in under a half an hour. I was impressed, and we were both pretty tired after the exercise.

I was super thrilled that Learner stuck around for the sudoku game because no one came to the two offerings I had planned for the day: planning and organizing, and free write. Granted, my offerings were not exactly fun games. But I found out no one attended Facilitator Lauren’s offerings either. Her offerings were definitely more fun: jam session, and gratitude scavenger hunt. It seems the Learners are quite content just hanging out with each other or their other friends online. As I think about next cycle I am thinking about offerings that I would enjoy hosting that they might find interesting, and about encouraging them to host see of their own offerings. I am also talking to some other Self-Directed Education communities to see if we can join efforts like we did last spring.

Black screens and cute animals are how the Abrome Learners tend to show up for remote meetings

At the afternoon roundup only five Learners showed up. Have I said that I am not a fan of remote Learning? We checked in to see how the day went for each of us, and it was universally positive: good, good, good, pretty good, great, and great. I asked for feedback on why no one came to any of our offerings and the overarching themes were they were not interested or they did not like the offerings. We then asked them what their goals were for the week break and they had a wide variety of plans, but the best part about their plans is that they did not include large Thanksgiving day gatherings. Then we said goodbye to two Learners who are leaving the community. It is always sad having to say goodbye, and it is doubly sad when it has to be done remotely. I long for the days when we can all be together, again.

Day 46 of AY20-21: a technology centered remote day

Day 46 was the first day back from the weekend after our third week of meeting in-person, and the first of our two scheduled remote days for this cycle. We have fourteen remote days scheduled this year so that we can hold space for Learners while we cannot be together due to our three weeks together, one week apart cycles. As I’ve spoken about before, remote sucks. Self-Directed Education communities thrive best in-person, where Learners can be near each other as they engage with the world in ways that feel right to them. Having offerings on Discord and Zoom do not allow for that spontaneous mixing, and the distractions of home (e.g., video games, bed) make it too easy to drift away from the computer—and we cannot blame them for drifting away. But nonetheless, we try to build and provide community for the Learners who want it. So here we were, back on Zoom at 10:00 a.m.

We had fewer than half of the Learners show up in the morning, although several Learners let us know that they were not going to be able to drop in because of a variety of appointments. When Learners typically show up they write their intentions down on post it notes but as we are remote I just wrote them down in the notebook that I write down observations in each Abrome day. Facilitator Lauren offered to facilitate the morning meeting and she asked everyone to share a gratitude and something the were excited for that week, in addition to an intention. Some of the gratitudes included a Learner’s dog, a Learner’s cat, all of a Learner’s pets, a Learner’s mom, a local health food shop, and the Abrome community. It was a nice start to the day.

We encouraged the Learners to drop into a variety of the offerings we had lined up for the day: book sharing, yoga flow, truth or dare, and free write. We also had a scheduled call with one of the Learners who just joined this year and would like to graduate. Unfortunately, no one came to our scheduled offerings. That’s okay, because they are merely invitations for Learners to join us in an activity. We value Self-Directed Education and their ability to say yes or no. But it was disappointing not to be able to spend time with them. We had better luck with the Learner that we scheduled a meeting with. Although it was a challenging call for the Learner she stuck with it and saw the meeting through the end. It was a good step forward for her graduation goals.

Checking in with each other on our scheduled remote day

At the end of the day we came back together for the afternoon roundup with six Learners. Because we did not get to spend time with many of the Learners that day we were excited to hear how their day went. The prompt for the afternoon meeting was how did they do with their intentions, and what happened during the day that they were grateful for. The gratitudes included parents, Hulu and Netflix, cats and dogs, family, YouTube and Abrome, seeing a specific Learner on Zoom after not being in their cell this cycle, Roblox and Kindle games, and their VR headset. I made the observation that between intentions and gratitudes that there was a lot of technology that played into the Learner’s day. In addition to those included in the gratitudes above were intentions to play Minecraft and code. It makes sense that when we can’t be together in person that technology as a way to relax, challenge oneself, connect with each other, and get lost in is something that should take center stage in their pandemic-imposed, physically distanced day.

Are They Learning if They're on a Screen? Self-Directed Learning is Active Learning

This morning I received a call from a parent whose teenage son attends a nearby traditional private school that is not working for him, and she wanted to know if Abrome could work for her family. She had two primary concerns: (1) could he get into a top college if he left "mainstream" schooling, and (2) would he spend all day on screens if he came to Abrome. 

It was pretty easy to address the college admissions question, as we have done so time and again in our public presentations and blog posts (e.g., here, here, here, and here). However, she was not reassured by my answer to the screen time question. My answer was maybe.

At Abrome, we trust young people to take control of their learning experiences, and we see their choosing how to spend their time as critical to enabling and preparing them to lead remarkable lives. For some Learners, particularly older students who are transitioning from hierarchical, age-segregated, curriculum-based school settings, they may initially spend what seems like an inordinate amount of their time on screens. This is in part because computers (and iPads, phones, etc.) are common tools of society, and most young people want to play with the tools of society; and in part because they need the time and space to shed the bad habits and mindsets that develop from traditional schooling. 

The belief that school children on screens is a bad thing is misplaced. First, short of certain addictive disorders, limiting or prohibiting students from accessing technology during school sets them back in preparation for a future where technology will be intertwined with daily life and most careers. Second, there is a belief among many adults that screen time is for zoning out, and that being on screens means that students are not actively learning. This belief is likely colored by our generation's experiences plopped down in front of a television watching whatever came across the tube. 

The reality is that when young people are able to engage in self-directed learning, even if they choose to spend that time on technology, they are much more likely to engage in active learning than their peers who are in class in traditional schools. Today, young people have control over their interactions with technology. When they play games they are much more likely to play games that allow them to manipulate the conditions in which they play (e.g., Minecraft, Roblox). When they get bored they are much more likely to move onto something that captures their attention. And for many young people, technology provides the one outlet in their lives where they have the opportunity to experience autonomy, mastery, and purpose (experiences they are not getting in traditional schools).

At the end of the day we would prefer that Learners not spend all day on their computers, but we will not prevent them from doing so. And the reality is that they do not spend all day on their computers. Our Learners, like the overwhelming majority of humans, want to interact with others. At Abrome they have the opportunity to spend all day in front of screens, but they choose to also read books, play board games, take the dogs for walks, and run around in the back yard. They find time to test the pH, ammonia, and nitrate levels in the fish tank. They make themselves lunch, work on puzzles, and create works of art. They sit around and talk, and laugh. And they even find time to do more academically oriented tasks such as working through multiplication tables or debating topics in articles that they have read. Instead of saying maybe, I considered that I should have said maybe, but unlikely. But what I really should have said is that self-directed learning is active learning, and the medium for that learning is sometimes a screen.