Day 76 of AY20-21: Check-in and Change-up day

Day 76 was the last day of our last full week of cycle five, and it would have been the last in-person day of the cycle had we not been in Covid-19 risk stage level five in Central Texas. The following Monday and Tuesday were scheduled online days, which would allow Learners to have a full nine days of being at home and away from other Learners to observe for symptoms before coming together again. It’s a brilliant practice that allows us to find ways to more safely be together in small groups during a pandemic … if there is not uncontrolled spread of the disease. But unfortunately, too much of Central Texas has given up the fight. So instead of Friday being the last in-person day of the cycle, it is the third to last remote day of the cycle.

We had a decent turnout for the morning meeting. Those who were missing included a Learner who has not been participating in meetings, a Learner who has recently started a job and is therefore unavailable for a lot of meetings, a Learner who often stays up much of the night and has a difficulty making the morning meetings, and a Learner who needs help from his family to log onto the meeting which does not always happen. We recognize that remote is a poor substitute for in-person Emancipated Learning, and instead of demanding attendance we continue to make ourselves available for Learners when they want to connect. No school should be demanding presence during online learning given the stressors of the pandemic.

The meeting started with announcements. Announcements are typically reserved for things that are relevant to the community, such as talk about upcoming offerings, requests for support from the community, or asking for commitments from others. But during the remote phase of the pandacademic year, it has morphed into people sharing whatever they want to share. When the announcements were over Facilitator Ariel shared a comic about how challenging experiences make the pleasurable ones all the better. It was a nice way to start the meeting. He then asked, how do you feel right now? After everyone shared the follow-up prompt asked everyone to identify what is something they can do to make others feel safe. The question was challenging for some, and some were not able to answer or they did not feel comfortable answering. Some repeated a practice that one of the cells implemented earlier this year. Wouldn’t it be great if all spaces did at least what the Learners came up with? Listen to people (actively listening); not using ableist language; not using ableist language, not using hateful words; being non-judgmental, showing compassion, and being present; “I don’t know because it is different for each person”; not using ableist language; give company to others; by being very protective.

Check-in and Change-up

After the morning meeting we moved into the weekly Check-in and Change-up meetings. Learners are expected to participate in the Check-in meeting when we meet in person, but in remote we just highly encourage it. One Learner dropped off early but everyone else stuck around. During the Check-in, Learners and Facilitators have the opportunity to raise awarenesses that they think may be able to be addressed in the Change-up meeting. An awareness is typically an observation of something that is happening in the community that has a negative impact on the culture that the person would like to see changed, although it can also be a suggestion that can improve the community, or it can be an attempt to clarify some of our norms. A young Learner and Facilitator Lauren both raised awarenesses. Facilitator Ariel then adjourned the meeting and immediately moved into the Change-up meeting.

Three left after the Check-in, leaving us with eight people for the Change-up meeting. As we began to discuss the new awarenesses that were raised I suggested that they were both topical to a prior awareness, and that instead of creating new awarenesses we could modify the current one. Everyone agreed. After we finished working out the wording of the awareness and reworking the practices to fully address the two raised awarenesses, we went to work on the other awarenesses that were already on the Community Awareness Board. During the review of the awarenesses one Learner spoke over everyone and aggressively said, “stop making pointless awarenesses.” It was a jarring statement that took the air out of the Zoom room, but Facilitator Ariel responded with patience to try to keep the Learner who stuck around for the Change-up involved in the meeting, to address his concerns, and to also protect the other Learners from feeling unsafe. Facilitator Ariel asked him to clarify his concern. The Learner said that some awarenesses were pointless and were a waste of time. Facilitator Ariel then asked him to please explain what he meant by pointless, and to highlight a pointless awareness. The Learner couldn’t identify one that was currently on the Community Awareness Board but he identified a prior awareness of “keep an eye and an ear out for weird creatures he meant.” I then pointed out that the reason the awareness was added was because a younger Learner came up with the awareness at a prior Check-in and then stuck around for the Change-up when most left, and so the Facilitators had the time to support the Learner through the process of identifying needs and practices relevant to his concern. We then removed the awareness after one week because we felt good about the practices. At that point the Learner acknowledged that adding that to the board was more helpful than not, but that what he really wanted was for the meeting to not last long. Of course the conversation made the meeting longer, but we felt that it was worth the time to work through the issue with him. During the entire process only one other Learner dropped off the call, and we still finished the meeting with plenty of time before the next offering.

Post-7-minute workout high fives

The next offering was our daily 7-minute workout that has been regularly attended by all three Facilitators and one of the guardians. It’s become a fun gathering for us as we all continue to increase our strength and endurance in a pretty low commitment way each day. At the end of each workout we usually ask each other how we are feeling and then do a high five into the camera. But on this day I queued up a music video of Queen’s “We Are the Champions” and each of us either belted out the lyrics or laughed along with the song.

“We Are the Champions”

I then moved into the free write where an adolescent Learner often joins me. But on this day no Learners joined me, but Facilitator Ariel did. He needed to work on some writing for the anti-racist Black collective he is involved with, while I worked on a blog post that I had been trying to finish up all week. It was a good session for each of us, as we both met our goals. I later jumped on a call for an Alliance for Self-Directed Education work group that I’ve been meaning to drop into for quite some time. It was nice to be able to plug into the efforts of people I have largely not worked with before, although I am being mindful not to sign myself up for more responsibilities when I already feel quite overstretched.

Working on some clay

Facilitator Lauren then hosted a clay creations offering that was open to all but particularly targeted toward one Learner who has held a deep interest in clay making since she helped him collect mud, form it, and heat it up in a fire during the first cycle of the pandacademic year. In the time since he has had support from his parents making clay creations at home, but he has not had the opportunity to work with clay at Abrome.

Clay creations

During the offering Facilitator Ariel dropped in to observe what was being created. Facilitator Lauren and the Learner both had a lot of fun with their creations while Facilitator Ariel just enjoyed being able to watch the joy in their faces.

Facilitator Ariel then jumped off for his own online gaming offering that was created as a way to connect with some Learners who are not doing as well with the remote experience this cycle. Unfortunately, none of them joined, but he stuck around and waited to be sure that he was available if they wanted to drop in late.

The Facilitators also had four one-to-one check-ins scheduled with Learners on Friday. The check-ins mean different things to different Learners. In one of my two Discord check-ins I asked the Learner how we could better support him because he had made a statement the day prior that the times that he felt least free were during Abrome meetings. He said that it was just a joke, and I asked him if there was any truth to it. He then said it sorta joke was but also that it was sorta true. I then asked what we could do to make it better for him and he said that he did not want to talk about it. I said that if he really felt unfree during meetings at Abrome I wanted to understand better, and then he threatened to hang up if I wanted to talk about it, and then he hung up. He sent me a message saying that I ruined his mood, and when I asked him how we could have a meaningful discussion about the issue he blocked me. It was an upsetting interaction for both of us. I was disappointed that I was unable to address his needs, and saddened by the manner in which he cut off communication with me. Had we been in person we most likely would have been able to let it sit for a while and then we could have come together later in the day to process what happened, but being remote I felt incapable of following up with him. And I figured that reaching out to his guardian to force the conversation would do more harm than good, so I just sat with my feelings.

Collaborating on naming Minecraft worlds

Fortunately not all one-to-one check-ins were as difficult as that one. Facilitator Ariel had a check-in with a Learner who started off the cycle completely absent from all meetings and offerings, and but more recently has been a regular fixture in our online gatherings as well as on the Discord channel. On this day she spent a half hour with Facilitator Ariel talking about all of the stuffed animals in her room and creating a world in Minecraft.

Afternoon roundup

Still feeling frustrated I moved into the afternoon roundup that I was responsible for that day. My mood immediately brightened when a Learner brought her young brother to the meeting. We all made space for him to say hi and share his thoughts, and then we formally started the meeting. With the Learner I had a difficult one-to-one check-in with missing the meeting, I decided to change up my prompt to help everyone consider what they can do in situations in which they may have hurt someone in some way. It was nice to see that many of the answers went beyond just an apology: apologize and commit to fix it; ask if i can make amends and actively work to not do it again; have a conversation about what happened and include them in the conversation if it was a response to them; apologize and make sure they know I know what I did wrong, explain how i should have done things differently, and give them space if needed; say sorry and try to make things better. Multiple Learners did not know how to respond to the prompt, but I think they benefited from hearing others share their ideas. I then adjourned the final afternoon meeting of the week.

Because it was Friday we then had a gratitude offering where anyone could stick around to share gratitudes. This is a fabulous exercise when it is not forced on young people. All the Facilitators and two Learners stuck around for it. One Learner who did not stick around for the gratitude offering primed it in the afternoon roundup that she was grateful for the Abrome community. In the gratitude meeting we shared multiple gratitudes. One Learner specifically expressed gratitude for Facilitator Lauren repeatedly reaching out to her with invitations to upcoming offerings. And Facilitator Ariel shared his gratitude for Abrome because “I get paid to wake up and live.”

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.

Day 72 of AY20-21: Check-in and Change-up day

The pandemic blues continue

Friday morning came and I checked the pandemic numbers and they are getting no better, but at least they seem to have plateaued, even if temporarily. It’s pretty apparent that we are not going to have any hope of meeting in-person as a community in January and I seriously question whether or not we will be able to meet in-person in February. I am thankful that we are in a community of people who take the pandemic seriously, but I am so disappointed that so few other communities are doing the same, leaving us doing the right thing be being entirely remote, while all the local schools continue to bring students, teachers, and staff indoors.

A lightly attended morning meeting

The morning meeting on the last day of our second week of the fifth cycle of the pandacadmic year had light attendance. It seems as the remote experience is drawn out that some of the Learners are less eager to get out of bed and log in, even though we have a most reasonable 10 a.m. meeting time. At the morning meeting we pointed out that in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, that we would not be in session on Monday. So we discussed ways that we might be able to focus on supporting our communities, serving others, or engaging in racial justice.

Next, Facilitator Lauren led her first remote Check-in and Change-up. The awarenesses raised during the Check-in were that sometimes people were not showing up for all the meetings, and people sometimes complain about the length of the meetings. While all Learners agree to stick around with the Check-in to propose awarenesses, sticking around for the Change-up is optional. The Change-up is where we decide whether or not an awareness should be added to our Community Awareness Board, and then we identify the relevant needs for the awareness, and come up with practices that we will use to co-create the culture together. Three of the Learners stuck around for the entirety of the Change-up, which felt good. The six of us decided to add both new awarenesses to the board, with two new practices for each awareness. We also decided that we felt good about the awareness of keeping an eye and an ear for weird creatures.

Post 7-minute workout conversation

The Check-in and Change-up is the longest meeting of the week, so we jumped right into the 7-minute workout as soon as we adjourned the meeting. The usual crew showed up for the workout, and afterward we had a short discussion about how the workouts have been treating us. We are all doing well.

Getting ready for kitchen fun

After the 7-minute workout I jumped right into the daily free write where an adolescent Learner once again joined me. I said I would use the block of time to work on a blog post and she said she was going to continue writing her book. 50 minutes later we checked in with each other to see how we were doing. I told her how I was just trying to keep putting out recaps of the days at Abrome during this pandacademic, and that the daily free write would help me do that. I then asked her how her writing was coming along. She told me that her writing was going really well, and that if she keeps writing regularly that she believes she can meet her goal of finishing the book by June!

In progress …

Next up Facilitator Lauren was hosting an exciting offering called kitchen fun. Facilitator Ariel and an older Learner decided to join in on the offering, although they showed up mostly as spectators. Facilitator Lauren was in the process of making two types of biscuits—vegan cheesy garlic biscuits and cinnamon walnut raisin biscuits. Facilitator Lauren said that the former turned out disgusting, but the latter were pretty good, especially when they were slathered in almond butter. And although the Learner who showed up planned to be a spectator, she did eventually leave her room and head to the kitchen.

A culinary delight!

Facilitator Ariel hosted an online gaming offering which has not drawn in as many Learners as expected. When Facilitator Ariel was on he did see that the newly enrolled Learner who has not been showing up for any meetings was online playing a game, so Facilitator Ariel sent him a message. Unfortunately the Learned did not respond. We will continue to hold space for the Learner in the hopes that he will drop in at some point while we are remote, so that when we come back together in-person he will feel right at home.

There was a much better turnout from the Learners for the afternoon roundup. Most of our time in the afternoon roundup was spent in reflection via rose-bud-thorn, except it was for the week and not the day, and the bud was forward looking focused on the coming weekend. The roses for the week included reading and writing, working on my bike, natural dyes, I got a job!, played Tradelands, breathing, playing Minecraft, got a couple new projects to work on, getting my phone fixed, playing Among Us, getting a lot of work done on my book, finally completed Jurassic World Evolution, playing a creatures game on Roblox, and I got a lot of music work done.

Afternoon roundup

The thorns for the week included not enough outdoor time, not enough players for Among Us, the final products in natural dyes were not great, not having much to do today, dungeons bot doesn’t work, not breathing enough, playing (too much) Minecraft, didn’t go out enough, not being able to talk to an important person in their life, we cannot be in person because of Covid-19, I’m getting sick, I drank a big smoothie and feel bloated, having to stop playing video games, and not going outside much.

Looking forward to the weekend the buds were the info session and open house scheduled for Saturday, playing soccer, spending as much time outside as possible, getting dungeon bot to work, breathing, playing Minecraft, working on the new projects, having my nana over, natural dyes, having a plan to publish my book, eating pizza tonight!, and going to Houston. One of the Learners then asked if we could do gratitudes to end the meeting. We adjourned the afternoon roundup and invited folks to stick around for gratitudes. The Learner then expressed that she was grateful for “going down a better path in life.”

Day 71 of AY20-21: a good day

As we entered into the second half of the cycle we noticed that Learners were beginning to fall off of some of the calls. At the morning meeting only eight Learners joined the three Facilitators. Facilitator Lauren started the meeting off with a review of the practices from the Community Awareness Board, set the conditions for the meeting via game shifting (one of our practices), and then asked everyone what practices they would focus on. An adolescent Learner typed in the prompt in the chat (one of our practices). Most of the practices focused on not speaking over others: active listening, mute when not talking, being prepared for the meeting, mute when not talking, n/a, none, mute when not talking, mute when not talking, being prepared for the meeting, keeping eyes out for weird creatures and mute when not talking, and staying muted.

Morning meeting

Facilitator Lauren then asked how they are getting connection with others during this remote period. The ways in which the Learners are getting connection with others while we are remote were more diverse: phone calls with friends and marco polo with sister; Discord; roommates, offerings, and discord; text people on Discord; IDK; IDK; meetings and Discord; meetings and Discord; Discord and hanging with friends; offerings and facetime with grandma; activities, meetings, and doing stuff with mom and dad.

After the morning meeting I had my weekly one-on-one check-in with an adolescent Learner. Facilitator Ariel would have a check-in with another Learner later in the day. Both check-ins were really nice conversations with Learners who are not always up for much conversation. After the check-in I led the daily 7-minute workout and was feeling pretty good about myself and the remainder of the day that lay ahead.

Coffee and read offering

I joined the other Facilitators for the coffee and read offering. Each of us continued to read books that we had previously read in this offering. The book I have been reading, Curious, has turned from interesting to very disappointing. The deeper I get into the book the more I want to write a book just calling out everything that is wrong with the author’s conceptions of how learning happens, and what happens in schools. But because this is a book that we are reading for the Education Conversations book group, I will suffer through the rest of it. Each of the other Facilitators are enjoying their book much more than I have been.

At 12:00 p.m. there were competing offerings, with an adolescent Learner hosting a game of Among Us while Facilitator Lauren hosted her second natural dyes offering. Facilitator Ariel and I both joined the Among Us offering, with Facilitator Ariel downloading the game before the offering and playing around a bit with it so that he knew what to do. Unfortunately, for some reason, the version on my phone would not work and after troubleshooting for about 15 minutes I left the two of them to play.

Natural dyes offering

The natural dyes offering was quite popular though. Three Learners showed up for it, two of who did not show up for last week’s offering, and by the time I dropped in to see how things were going there was a lot of activity going on. At one point one of the members of the call asked a Learner who had her camera off if she’d be willing to turn her camera on to show everyone how her tie-dye was coming along, and she turned on her camera and left it on. We honor the Learner’s desire to have their camera turned off, but Facilitator Lauren did comment that it was nice to see the Learner on screen.

Bike project offering

At 1:00 p.m. there were again two offerings, with Facilitator Ariel hosting a bike project offering and Facilitator Lauren hosting a nature connection offering. Several Learners have expressed their interest in biking, so Facilitator Ariel created the bike project offering as a way for them to work on bikes together. Unfortunately no Learners joined on Thursday. Facilitator Lauren created the nature connection offering as a way to get Learners outdoors so they could connect with each other and with nature, but the offering lured no Learners into it. Although no Learners showed up for either offering, because both Facilitators created the offerings as a way to invite the Learners into something they were interested in, they still found value in doing the offerings solo.

Nature connection offering

At 2:00 p.m. the only offering was free write, which one of the adolescent Learners showed up for. It was the second time I got to speak with the Learner that day, so we skipped over checking in with each other and just stated our goals for writing for the hour. She was going to continue working on her book, while I took on a much smaller task of writing a blog entry recapping the Abrome day from earlier in the week. We each settled in and focused, and when we checked in 50 minutes later the Learner said that she had made great progress on her story, and I had finished my blog post.

The Facilitators then came together at 3:00 p.m. to review another two chapters of Raising Free People. The chapters were titled “Recognizing Unschooling as a Communal Model for Collective, Long-Term Liberation” and “Leadership: The One-Word Bridge between Learning and Liberation,” and we probably could have done four sessions covering these two very important chapters. We discussed our own liberation journey and work through Abrome, the fears that some White parents have of raising racist children, and resources we could potentially create to help young people who don’t get to attend Abrome but who still wish to be free. We also talked about the practices and culture of Heartwood ALC, and Agile Learning Center outside of Atlanta that is referenced repeatedly in the second of the two chapters we covered.

With not enough time to discuss it all, we needed to jump off the call to go right into the afternoon roundup. Only nine Learners showed up for the afternoon roundup, but one of the families did send us a note that their young Learner was going to miss so they could spend time together outdoors as a family, which I felt was a fabulous reason to miss the meeting. Facilitator Ariel asked everyone what their favorite month of the year was and most everyone responded with the month their birthday was in: March, April, June, September, October (four times), November, and December (two times). Two of the people who chose October don’t have October birthdays, and I am pretty sure that one of them chose October because of Halloween, her favorite holiday.

Reviewing practices at the afternoon roundup

Facilitator Ariel then asked what people would do after the Abrome day ended and there was a mix of online and offline activities: take dog for hike, cook dinner, and relax; write a bit more and have a call with one of the Abrome guardians; either go on a bike ride or lay on ground outside; work on a scarf; play Minecraft, play Super Mario Odyssey and walk dog; play on the computer; let the chickens out and watch YouTube or play Minecraft; origami; Roblox; hop on VR with mates. Then we reviewed how we did on our practices for the day and then opened it up for announcements. Our oldest Learner shared her job search progress and expressed how eager she was to begin working full-time.

When the meeting adjourned the Facilitators had their end of the day check-in. We discussed outreach initiatives, some finance issues, our Covid-19 concerns for the Learner who is about to start a new job, getting N95 masks for that Learner and the rest of the Abrome families, and some photo and video initiatives that we could put in place. It was a good day, not a great day. We miss being with the Learners, and although we had a few moments of wonderful connection, we want to seek out even better ways of holding space for connecting with Learners.

Day 70 of AY20-21: hump day for the week and cycle

Wednesday was day 70 of the pandacademic year, and the halfway mark (day 8 of 16) of the cycle. As Learners and Facilitators oined the call there was a fun conversation about flamingos. At 10:00 a.m., Facilitator Ariel opened the morning meeting with a review of the awarenesses and practices we are working on to co-create our culture. One of the practices we are working on is not speaking over others, and one of the Learners got quick feedback on that when he began talking over others.

Morning meeting was better than the picture suggests

Facilitator Ariel agreed to split the morning prompt with a young Learner who asked everyone how long their wingspan was. An adolescent Learner typed the prompt into the chat as that is also one of our practices. The answers to the prompt ranged from quantifiable lengths to comparative lengths with other animals: 5’2”, 5’6”, 5’9”, 6’5”, 7’, 16”, a barn owl, and somewhere between that of a red-tailed hawk and a bald eagle. Then Facilitator Ariel asked where everyone would go if they could go on a trip anywhere in the world. Some mentioned states, some mentioned countries, others mentioned continents, while one chose a Norwegian archipelago: Arkansas (romantic interest), Florida (Disney World), Arkansas or Florida (family), Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Dubai, Germany, Africa, South America, and Svalbard.

Daily 7-minute workout

When the morning meeting was adjourned I stayed on to have a one-on-one check-in with one of the recently enrolled Learners which lasted about ten minutes. Next up was the 7-minute workout which all the Facilitators and one guardian joined in on.

Simultaneous free write and Roblox offerings

After the 7-minute workout I quickly jumped over to Discord to join the daily free write and was thrilled to see one of the adolescent Learners was there to work on the book she is writing. I also noticed that a 14-year-old Learner dropped in for a game of Roblox with an 8-year-old Learner who really looks up to him. During this timeframe, Facilitator Lauren checked in with a 16-year-old Learner who has been spotty in terms of showing up regularly for meetings. She had a really great conversation with him and he even turned on his camera during the call.

Appreciating the finished product

At 12:00 p.m., Facilitator Ariel went out to a local park to build some cairns in a rock stacking offering. The offering was targeted at the one new Learner who has not been showing up for meetings, as he and Ariel really connected over building cairns and moving rocks during the last cycle. Unfortunately, that Learner did not show up, but Facilitator Ariel is doing his best to continue to hold space for the Learner for when he is ready to show up. Nonetheless, it was a great exercise for Ariel as he got some great hiking in to get to the place where he was going to build the cairns, and then he got to build three large cairns.

Facilitator Lauren was keeping things moving with a yoga offering the next hour that also turned into a solo offering. The great thing about the Facilitator offerings is that they are always something that the Facilitator wants to do, so even if no Learners show up, the Facilitator continues on with the offering.

The following hour, Facilitator Ariel hosted his online gaming offering. The Learner who showed up for that offering has been eagerly joining or leading online gaming offerings, but does not show up for any other offerings. We are lucky that Facilitator Ariel continues to show up for the gaming offerings that allow that Learner, as well as some of the other Learners, to have some connection with a Facilitator during the day.

afternoon roundup

At 3:30 p.m. we all came together for the afternoon roundup. First we discussed our favorite offering or experience of the day: constructing three cairns, free write, 7-minute workout (because of the crew that keeps showing up), I don’t know, socializing with mates on virtual reality, playing Super Mario Odyssey on Nintendo Switch, hiking (because I saw peacocks), talking with friends and [a younger Learner] on Discord, talking to apple support so that I can download apps again, starting a new Jurassic World Evolution game and doing well with it, and playing Nintendo. Yes, there is a strong bias toward gaming, as would be expected when the Learners are stuck at home because we are in a period of uncontrolled community spread of Covid-19 in Central Texas. And all but one of the Learners is eager for us to put this pandemic behind us so we can be together again.

Any System Designed Around the Average Person is Doomed to Fail

“How will children learn what they need to know if you don’t teach it to them? How do you know they are on track?”

These are the two questions we most often receive from parents and educators when we explain that the Abrome learning model is non-coercive. We do not test our Learners, we do not give them grades, and we do not give them homework.  We do not have classes for the Learners to sit in on, or a curriculum for them to follow. In a society, where virtually everyone is forced to go to primary and secondary school, the assumptions are that learning happens at school, and that without the standard structures and practices of schooling, somehow that learning will be lost.  At Abrome, we value the lives of young people far too much to give credence to these false assumptions.

Learning can happen anywhere, and the structures and practices of schooling are obstacles to learning, not vehicles for it. In this post I will address two beliefs or schooling practices that are particularly harmful. The first position I will attack is the belief that young people need to be directed and motivated to learn what is essential.  The second position I will attack is that we can measure a student’s mastery of those essential learnings by comparing them against same-age peers. 

Motivation: How will children learn what they need to know if you don’t teach it to them?

The overwhelming majority of young people do not need to be told what is essential to learn, and they most certainly do not need to be told how to learn it. Society assumes that if left to their own devices, young people will spend all day eating Twinkies and staring into space. It assumes that young people are docile, lazy, and/or want to remain ignorant about the world around them. It believes that young people are only interested in the most basic forms of stimulation—passive entertainment, food, and refreshments. What it fails to recognize is that our human nature is not to be docile, lazy, and/or want to remain ignorant about our world. In fact, we want to understand our world, to master it, and we are eager to engage with the world in order to do so. It just so happens that most people have had those instincts suppressed through traditional schooling and a generally hierarchical, oppressive society. 

Because we pull young people out of society and throw them into schoolhouses with strict class schedules and curriculum requirements, we take away opportunities to engage with the world in ways that are meaningful to them. Many adults bang their heads against walls trying to motivate young people to find an interest in reading, writing, and arithmetic, which they presume to be the foundation to a successful academic career and professional future. And many adults are greatly pained that the only things that many young people seem to get passionate about are video games.

Daniel Pink’s New York Times best-seller Drive leans heavily on a half century’s worth of psychological research into motivation.[1] In it he makes the argument that our understanding of motivation is fundamentally flawed, and that our efforts to motivate through benefits and rewards actively undermines motivation for all but the simplest, rote tasks. He argues that deep motivation is driven by autonomy, mastery, and purpose, which are three ingredients that are essentially absent in traditional schools. They are also three ingredients that young people have the rare opportunity to access through video games—which helps explain why so many young people (and adults) are drawn to video games as a respite from school, much to the dismay of parents and teachers.  

What Abrome does, that so few other schools are willing to do, is give Learners the opportunity and space to choose what they want to engage in. In other words, they have autonomy in their learning. We allow them the freedom to choose (or not) the measures of achievement that they want to apply to their efforts, so that they can develop mastery on their own terms. And by focusing the community on identifying and pursuing experiences that are meaningful to our individual values, they develop purpose in their activities. And while it is difficult to let go of our desire to shape young people through extrinsic motivation, we understand that by trusting them to shape their own educational experiences (with our support), that they will eventually develop that deeper level motivation that is essential to a love of learning that will remain with them for life.  

Age-based benchmarking: How do you know they are on track?

The concern over whether or not alternative schooled (including homeschooled and unschooled) students are “on track” is misplaced because of several misconceptions. First and foremost, parents and educators do not have a firm grasp on what is an appropriate pathway for individual students, much less 50 million school-aged children. Given an ever evolving and dynamic economy and society; and a future predicated on knowledge, inventions, institutions, and discrete events that no human can fully imagine; it is the height of hubris for any educator to state with conviction what defined pathways will lead to future success for any student. Yet traditional schooling systems employ curricula that require students to hit certain benchmarks according to a pre-set timeline, with the most “progressive” traditional schools giving students the ability to self-pace their way through defined blocks or units. If traditional schools that rely on pre-defined curricula cannot determine what the appropriate pathways are for each student, how can they properly determine if a student is on track?

Another misconception parents and educators (amazingly) have is the faulty belief that most students in traditional public and private schools are on track. Traditional schools are not shy about their almost universally aligned beliefs that the purpose of primary and secondary education is to prepare students for admission into and success in college, which is a ludicrous measure of success considering that one does not need to go to college to lead a remarkable life. However, even by this woefully misguided aim of theirs, the schools are a dismal failure. The public high school graduation rate as of 2014 was 82%, meaning that traditional schools failed to graduate nearly 1 in 5 students.[2][3][4] As of 2014, of those who graduated high school, about 68% enrolled in college.[5] And as of 2006, only about 39% of those who enrolled in college for the first time graduated within four years.[6][7][8] While these numbers do not all cover the same cohort, it becomes readily apparent that less than 1 in 4 traditional schooled students graduate, go to college, and graduate from college within four years. So the default position of traditional schooling is by their own definition, “off track.”

A third misconception of parents and educators is that we can determine who is on track by comparing them to an age-based standard. Nearly every traditional school in America is segregated by age. The most “progressive” traditional elementary schools allow students to be in mix-aged classrooms that span 3-4 years of age, and no traditional schools that we know of allow 16-year-olds to work alongside of 8-year-olds. By segregating students by age, these schools also segregate curricula by age. And age-based curriculum is built around the learning capabilities of the average student. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as an average student.

All students learn in unique ways. Learning comes in part from the creation of complex neural pathways in the brain, and even the construction of those pathways for the most basic concepts differ from one individual to another. These differences are amplified when we consider that the appropriate timing of learning, the duration it takes to learn something, and the sequence in which one learns something differs from person to person. When those differences are multiplied by all of the subject areas, lessons, and concepts that are embedded in traditional schooling curricula, it becomes obvious an average student does not exist.

The End of Average, a recently released book by Harvard professor Todd Rose, highlights the dangers of trying to judge people by systems that are based on the hypothetical average person.[9] The title of this essay (“Any system designed around the average person is doomed to fail”) is also the self-described cornerstone of his book. And as highlighted above, the traditional schooling system is a failure, by its own measures, but it is also dooming to failure the students who are subjected to the system. So even if it were possible to identify the average traditional schooled student, that ill-fated student is not the one parents should be measuring their children against.

Recommendations for moving forward: Trust your children

We live in a society where traditional schooling is the wrongly assumed standard that we must be willing to subject our children to in order for them to learn what they need to learn and for them to be on track for future success. While no school or education model can assure future success, trusting young people to take control of their learning experiences greatly enhances the probability of future success.

Allowing young people to choose their own learning experiences, and how they engage in them, will substantially increase the likelihood of them becoming self-directed and motivated life-long learners. This will allow them to reach higher levels of mastery in the domains that they choose to play in, and it will greatly improve their life experiences while they are school-aged. And not comparing them to others is not only the most compassionate approach we adults can take toward evaluating their educational progress, but it is also the most rational and humane approach. Instead of asking if a child is on track with his same-aged peers, we should be asking whether they have the opportunity to mix with people of all ages, so that they can learn from those who are younger, teach those who are older, and every possibility in between.

1.     https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805

2.     http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/tables/ACGR_RE_and_characteristics_2013-14.asp

3.     This number does not include private school or homeschool graduates

4.     This number conveniently overlooks the documented practice of public schools classifying many dropouts as “homeschooled” to increase their reported graduation rates

5.     http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

6.     https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_326.10.asp

7.     The four-year graduation rates at American colleges and universities varies tremendously: http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/professionals/four-year-graduation-rates-for-four-year-colleges.pdf

8.     Complete College America produced a particularly disheartening report on the failure of most college students to graduate on time: http://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/4-Year-Myth.pdf

9.     https://www.amazon.com/End-Average-Succeed-Values-Sameness/dp/0062358367