Abigail Oulton is the Co-Director of New York City’s Agile Learning Center.

March 17th, 2020

3/11/2020

As I write this, the novel COVID-19 hasn’t reached my neighborhood, hasn’t closed our Agile Learning Center yet. But a week ago I could count the number of confirmed cases in New York City on my fingers. As of yesterday, the grocery store shelves only looked a little barer than normal... more than during flu season but less than in the days before a big snow storm.

I’m acutely aware we didn’t have any snowstorms this winter. On the phone with my mom, who still lives in the country, we groaned about what this would mean for the mosquito population in the coming months. That was before everyone was talking about viruses... two weeks ago.

There are many reasons I believe Self-Directed Education needs to be the future if we’re to have a life-affirming future. The dual practice of self-determination and community care, not unlike the dual practices of mindfulness and compassion, to me clearly offer the medicine we need as a species to literally save worlds — ocean worlds, rainforest worlds, desperate and aching human worlds — to get to have a future worth passing on. There are many moments when I feel grateful for the opportunities practicing facilitation in an Agile Learning Center offers me. For surrendering to chaos and late nights and gray hairs and the same meme song for hours on end, I get to partake in magic. Kids fall in love with stories. They teach each other instruments. They invent elaborate games, grow windows full of plants, show up adults who underestimate them. They remind me to get off my computer and stretch every so often. They practice Spanish so they can build deeper friendships. They pursue, gloopy experiments with joy both reckless and determined. I’m not saying these moments don’t exist in conventional classrooms... but I love being in an environment where they have space to bloom without worry of being cut short by some bell, pop quiz, or adult’s judgement of “that’s not learning... and even if it is, it’s not what the lesson plan says we need to do today.”

My facilitation practice and work supporting the Self-Directed Education movement are expressions of love. My commute is an I Love You. So are the night hours I spend sorting finances and writing emails. Soothing a tired 8-year-old is an I Love You. Teaching a field trip crew bird names is an I Love You. Letting teenagers tease me and fix my knotted earrings is an I Love You. All of it... I offer as direct action out of care for the intertwined well-beings of human and more-than-human species.

Because the norm at the Agile Learning Center I’m based in is to offer facilitation and community organizing as care, we encourage people to be gentle with themselves. Staff don’t have set numbers of “sick days” or rest days. Kids are encouraged to sleep if they’re tired, stay home if they’re sick, spend the day in a park if they’re feeling like they need some quiet time in the sun. We talk openly about how we all have bodies, with different needs, and how we interact generously with other people whose bodies have their own needs. So sleep. Hydrate. Make sure there are no nuts in the communal lunch we’re cooking. Sure it takes communicating and being clear about what we’re all responsible for, but we’re capable. I’d much rather raise people who rest their bodies and contain their cold germs than raise ones who prioritize “perfect attendance” over community well-being.

So here we are. Tonight, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. It’s dangerous for the immuno-compromised, for those with respiratory struggles, for the old, for the panic-prone. In the past week, I’ve listened to the organizers I trust discuss how to keep each other safe and how the government is moving slowly. Probably too slowly. Probably we should get proactive, listen to those who know this struggle, self-organise to protect the most vulnerable among us. I watch people consider anew that their choices mean life and death for beings beyond themselves, that it’s not safe to assume we know who is and isn’t at risk. I watch the internet ripple with panic and misinformation and also information and delightfully also lots of 20-second songs and poems to accompany your handwashing adventures. (“Wash your hands” reminders don’t seem to be reminding folks of the Water Protectors, but it always reminds me that water is life and this land is aching.) I feel grateful to be in a space where we’re already practiced at considering the ways our choices impact others and at choosing in order to protect the most vulnerable among us.

This week, I’ve been listening to conversations around schools closing. I’ve read article after article. It would certainly be a mess if schools were closed long-term here like they are in China. Parents depend on schools for childcare while they’re at work, for meals, for health services. Kids depend on them for meals and warmth and access to books and to caring adults and generally for a place to be that isn’t an overcrowded apartment... and our kids without homes depend on them for much more. I think of the delicately balanced lives of myself and my neighbors and friends. We can know the right choice to slow the virus’ spread and literally save lives is to socially distance and self-quarantine. But... when many of us work semi-constantly to afford basic housing, groceries, and utilities — not to even get into healthcare — supporting measures that will have us missing paychecks and cancelling fundraising events is... also pretty scary. Will this pandemic inspire people to organize and insist we check our priorities collectively? Is there a chance we’ll get new norms out of this that center care, wellness, and meaningful lives for all? [A deep breath...] I can dream about sustainable futures and a more humane society, but first to attend to who and what I’m responsible to: unschooling centers. Self-directed, self-organizing, community centers.

I felt something coming. I spent last weekend’s insomnia hours researching. I prepped all week between bouts of facilitating. Monday I made a video for our crowdfunding campaign, set up the campaign’s webpage, and started brainstorming what we’d need to move to online // off-site offerings. Tuesday I published the crowdfunding page, started researching communication and video conferencing platforms, and started researching app-building for non-tech folks.

Today I conferred with staff, chose our course, built a super basic app, added a page to our website so community members would have the link and instructions to log on to our Zoom room, and then sent a parent email. My first ever pandemic email, as an under-30 “principal” of an unschool school, discouraging them sending kids via public transit and letting them know that we would be marking kids staying home for “social distancing” as “off-site” rather than “absent.” I sent them links to the app, the Zoom “virtual classroom” webpage, and the crowdfunding page with its 17 minute video. I told them that kids who wanted to join offerings from their voluntary-quarantine should text us and we’d be glad to videocall them in. It was 11 pm by the time I sent that email. There hasn’t been a night this week I’ve stopped working before 10 pm. I hope the prep is useful... and reading a friend’s updates from his quarantine in China, I hope that it’s enough. It feels like the decision to close, and probably related decisions, are the kind folks seem hesitant to be responsible for. I wonder at the subtle toxic masculinity of “I’m strong, not scared, and not scared into staying home!!” Wonder that it doesn’t manifest instead as “Together we can defeat this! #QuarantineQuest!” Wonder about the culture of rugged individualism in the so-called US... Where will it take us if we let it? I wonder if decision-makers dragging their feet do so from fear of being accused of overreacting? Of miscalculating and inconveniencing families more than necessary? Of being alone in their apartments with their worry? I wonder how many people in this city are scared to be still and quiet with their worry.

Whatever the reason, I have compassion and also have decided accidentally killing someone by facilitating the spread of a virus that has a 1-2 week incubation period is scarier. I think of those I love in healthcare professions, who live with elders, and who work in healthcare professions and live with elders. We need to take care. If someone needs to just decide and say “blame me if this turns out to have been the wrong move,” so be it... sign me up.

3/15/2020

Half our kids came in Thursday. It felt normal-and-not. We played board games and piano, made art, screened Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and took a park trip. A dad who works in a hospital nearby came in to pick up his kid’s laptop since his son was out. We left unspoken our mutual uncertainty about how long it would be before I saw his kid again. We bowed and waved instead of hugging, said “stay safe” instead of “see you later.” After school, I emailed parents that only those of us who could get to school without using public transit could come in on Friday and that the physical space would be closed starting the week of 3/16. On the Slack for facilitators from across the international ALC Network, other US folks had started asking about closures. People shared what they were reading and thinking. Antonio from Abrome and I both shared email templates for announcing the closing of our physical spaces, I shared the tools I’d been making, and Katherine Chen shared the doc she’d put together to support CUNY professors moving their classes online. I got a flurry of texts and phone calls... Yes, people agreed, this is serious and we are ready to lean on each other. Now how do we do that?

Friday, I was at school with three kids. One lives nearby and walked, one lives downtown and had her dad drop her on his drive to work, and one biked from Brooklyn... through the rain. We did a Zoom call with 2 of our other facilitators and 2 other kids for our morning intention-setting meeting and for our Friday community culture-shifting meeting. Katherine shared how things are playing out at the university and in her apartment building. Mel shared about their zine-making and what they’re reading. Then we signed off and I spent the day with the kids who’d come in, drinking tea, playing piano, working on projects in the Makerspace, playing tabletop games, and reading an Octavia’s Brood story on Instagram Live. I (re)read “Homing Instinct” by Dani McClain, wondering at having picked that and “Hollow” by Mia Mingus as book club selections just 2 weeks ago without knowing how timely meditations on limited mobility and the leadership of disabled organizers would be. Maybe my voice caught a little on the livestream... When I introduce folks to the concept of Self-Directed Education, I start with the science, history, and stories from my days. Part of my deep faith in it, though, is that my own self-directed learning has been full of these kinds of miracles. Surrendering to my curiosity, following my intuition, I’ve regularly looked up to realize that the learning I need for a new situation is content I’ve already got notes on.

A parent donated cleaning solution when he picked up his kid. Nancy, the volunteer who teaches our cooking offering, texted me about whether she could offer a virtual tea time next week instead. When the kids had all left, I paused in the quiet then pulled out my laptop again. I put a COVID-19 Resources webpage up on the ALC-NYC site. I posted an explanation of why the school was closing. (Today, Sunday, all public schools were announced closed through April... but as of Friday we were one of the few schools in NYC proactively closing, so I anticipated protest and wanted to explain our choice.) I posted “how to talk to your kid about this without freaking them out” advice from counselors, links to resource guides and articles about navigating pandemics, and Dori Midnight’s exquisite poem “Wash Your Hands.” I posted intro-to-self-directed-education resources for parents and caretakers who might need a reminder that it’s okay if their kid wants to spend a whole day making pancakes or playing Minecraft. I posted links for online subject-specific content that our community already uses for offerings, and I started a section for updates on our transition to everyone being off-site. If we learn in public, maybe others will be able to copy what we’re doing and get to breathe a little easier. I had a call with Jenni from ALC Mosaic that led us to create a spreadsheet to share virtual offerings from facilitators across ALC spaces. I emailed a few folks with editing permissions, and soon there were contributions from Brooklyn Apple and Abrome. In Network land, on Slack, I shared that spreadsheet and the webpage I’d made, and Beckett from ALC Philly shared a Google Forms template for helping parents organize local solidarity pods. Crystal from Gastonia Freedom School posted a “free learning content for kids” resource link at the same time my mom posted a different one on her Facebook... so I added a tab to the spreadsheet of scheduled offerings and suggested folks collect such links there. Meanwhile in the chats, facilitators discussed concerns about the implications of closing our sites, the impact this would have on the kids’ well-being, on the parents’ ability to keep working and supporting their families, and on our financial viability as organizations. I worry... and know there are limits to what I have power over... and am acutely aware that I’m going to have to be really creative in order to keep the school existing and our facilitators getting paid through the coming months. Even if all our families keep paying tuition and we get back to school in 2 weeks, the ban on large gatherings and folks’ fears about travel mean I’ve shelved plans for a series of large fundraising events that I was counting on. I watch my social media as freelancer friends and other nonprofits begin posting their own crowdfunding campaigns and worried asks for help. Been listening to Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance this week, which I got from the library before I knew the week would be what it became, so I greeted and have continued to greet those worries with a “this, too” acknowledgement, and then turned my focus back to the present... where the collaboration is developing its own momentum and feels like it may actually do some wide-reaching good.

Stopping at a pharmacy on the way home, I was confronted by a small Superman. He grinned and growled, recognizing me as the kind of adult who would maybe play with him. I returned his greeting, then countered his invitation to “Patty Cake” with elbow bumps. His mom told him to stop bothering people. I said it was okay, in the light voice I use with stressed folks mid-crisis, then added that I work with preschoolers. Mostly these days I work with teens, but littles are great and that line usually reassures parents that it’s cool to let their kids make Superman-werewolf sounds at me. As the mom’s expression changed, assessing without relaxing, I realized she was wondering if I was covered in germs, if I was carrying a virus to her after a long day at work. The child nodded seriously at her, grinned at me, then began play-sneezing loudly. “Stop that!” she nervously barked at him. I silently wished them an easy night, then wondered all the way home at how kids play to make sense of the world and how consistently worried adults fail to engage with them gently when the moments their play reflects are... well... scary.

Saturday I answered calls, texts, WhatsApps, emails, Slack messages, Instagram messages, and my roommate’s off-line questions about our pantry. I accepted school would likely be closed for 2-3 weeks rather than the 1 I had originally announced to parents. 2 I had been expecting... but seriously considering that it might be the 4-6 weeks I was now reading were being called for in some places felt like staring into a great, yawning unknown. There would be time for staring later. I noticed that more than one person had posted online about leaving the city, and I realized people were starting to flee.
I walked the 2 blocks to school to work, because a kid who’d left her glasses said she might be able to come by and pick them up (she didn’t). I looked up from my laptop at 9 pm, having built out the school app I’d made so that students could propose offerings, post culture awarenesses and change-up proposals, email facilitators, sort through the schedule, and share reflections on what they’d been up to. And I’d built an admin version for facilitators to review the content kids submitted before it went live to everyone. I’d cloned the app to share with other ALCs in the network, as a template, then posted it to them with a note about how to make the admin version. I’d pulled all the useful resource links we’d compiled on Slack and sent them out to members of the ALC Network in an email, so those not on Slack would both have them and be alerted that there was some very active collaboration happening that they might want to jump into. I texted check-ins and love notes to friends, then decided to spend the rest of that night off-line. I decided to try to take a walk in a local, not-crowded-with-humans, very-crowded-with-plant-life park the next day, to try to keep embodied and avoid burnout.

So today, that’s what I did. I downloaded a new audiobook. (I finished Radical Acceptance and my library app had The Sixth Extinction available sooo I queued that up. It opens with the Jorge Luis Borges quote, “Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen.” I laughed at the timeliness.) I put my pink K-pop mask in my pocket as I left; since my bedroom window doesn’t face the street, I never know what fashion norms changed overnight until I get outside, and I wanted to be ready to mask up in solidarity... even knowing that my fashion accessory of a face cover would be of limited virus-repelling use. Hesitated touching the handle of the door to exit my building. Noticed folks walking down the street — mostly without masks — giving each other space in a way that was maybe just New Yorkers being us but was maybe also folks trying to guess how far 10-to-12-feet-apart was. Went to the small coffee shop I like to support, to order a small coffee and tip 200% while commiserating with my barista friend who answered my habitual “How you doing?” with “Still alive,” opening space for us to talk frankly about how it felt for each of us to stare down the coming week. We joked seriously about how I was going to pay for my $3 coffee with a card so we didn’t have to handle any cash. We worried as lightly as we could how long this would last. We parted with “stay safe,” and I knew I wouldn’t be back for a while. Walked to the park, ignoring notifications from communication apps and at first ignoring my phone completely. Before heading home, several hours later, I sat in a patch of sun to answer some texts — Where is the link to the shared schedule? How does one use Zoom? Had I heard NYC public schools were now closing? — and check the vibe on Slack. I put up some Instagram posts, directing people to the ALC-NYC resources page and promising to keep updating it. Then I took pictures of flowers and birds on my walk back to my street, making a mental note to post them over the coming days for folks whose news-filled social media feeds could benefit from a rogue cluster of crocus.

Arriving home, I answered a handful of Slack messages. Texted with Nancy about her health and how to use the Zoom room to host an offering this week. Put an email together for ALC-NYC’s parents, students, and volunteers with information about what to expect this week, and then quickly sent an addenda when a parent pointed out that I hadn’t (re)sent the link to the page telling them how to access to Zoom room. Took a phone call from my parents, talking with my mom about what of the resources I’m compiling will be useful for the very traditional Catholic elementary school she works at in Pennsylvania, where they’re also transitioning to off-site learning. Posted a friend’s offering to the InterALC Offerings spreadsheet, which 12 facilitators from 8 ALCs have now added to and which many many more have viewed or emailed to their communities. Then remembered that I had started documenting my work facilitating ALC-NYC and the ALC Network in responding to this (bizarre) historical moment. Sharing before I know how things will play out is still difficult for me sometimes; it’s less deschooling perfectionism at this point than it is that I feel so much more satisfaction when I can present a full case, a complete story. Realistically, though, if I wait then maybe the moment when the lessons in my “here are the first steps we took in New York” reflections make a difference for a reader will have passed.

So here is what’s written so far. Stay tuned, stay safe, and may it be of service...

Tools:

I used my HP laptop’s “photos” video maker to make our video, which I then posted on Vimeo. I’d had other videos up on Vimeo for free; this one was so large a file that I had to get a paid account, but with the intro-to-Agile-Learning-Centers-philosophy content it felt enough like a video worth sharing that I took the plunge. The account upgrade went on my personal credit card, as my donation to the fundraising campaign. I used Donorbox to build the school’s crowdfunding campaign.

The school has a “Pro” Zoom account, that we’d gotten before the Coronavirus crisis inspired Zoom to remove the 40 m. time limit for educators using their free accounts. I like having the options to record and send folks into break-out sessions. I also like that folks can call in with a phone number even if they don’t have internet access.

I used Glideapp for the school and network app. It took a little tinkering with, but I watched a bunch of their tutorial videos and ended up pretty pleased with what it let me do.

Our students already use Trello to record what they’re accomplishing each day. The school has a Trello Gold account, which we got because it used to let us export .csv files of their boards whenever someone needed a transcript. That feature seems to be changing, but it’s still nice for them to have a board shared with their facilitators and other supportive grownups. They tend to have a column for ideas, one for goals, and then a series where they track completed activities.

The ALC Network uses Slack for communication, and we’ve also been heavily using Google docs and Google groups email lists for offering coordination.

Folks are researching platforms for online DnD campaign hosting and for board games... I’ll post updates on our experiments with those platforms as the week goes on...

3/16/2020

Event organizing delights me — I love the wild visioning, the practical lining up of details, the imagining and planning for all the possible things that could go sideways, the  l o n g  moments of anticipation waiting for real live people to come test whether what I’ve made is any good, and then the free fall into action and improvising as those sparkling and chaotic guests bring the whole event to life.

Today was the first Monday of the school closures. NYC’s public schools will be closed until at least April 20th, with limits on other businesses and gatherings being announced via text every few hours. I couldn’t sleep; I read, posted on Slack, updated the ALC-NYC resources page with another guide document, then got on Zoom for morning meeting. Nine of us came. We usually use this meeting time to build the week’s schedule and share our personal intentions for the day. Today, though, we did check-ins and asked questions about how to change our video backgrounds to Star Wars pictures. We played with muting and unmuting ourselves, with chatting and changing our display names. We looked a little at the schedule, but then Sebastian (8yo) was sad about not being able to go to Central Park then was excited about Pokemon and then we were all excited about Ryan’s cat. Suddenly it was time for the meeting to be over so Dungeons and Dragons could start. I signed off. It didn’t feel super “productive,” but it felt like exactly what we needed.

Through the day, the InterALC Schedule kept getting added to. I was too busy keeping up with communications coming in to go to any offerings I didn’t host, but I’m anticipating that things will quiet down once we find our rhythm. I hosted a midday call for folks who’d slept through morning meeting to giggle and connect. Fourteen people came, from five ALCs. We planned a virtual jam session, talked about whether we would prefer a taco party or a cake party (and what kind of cake!), and admired each other’s pets/baby siblings/plant-friends. There were a few moments when a kid would say something real about their COVID feelings — feeling scared, missing school, wanting to be outside — and the other kids would effortlessly shift from playing our game to discussing their similar feelings. Then they’d drop back into the game, leaving me appreciating the regard with which they held each other and the delight of co-facilitating with other adults who can intuit when to sit back while they kids do their thing.

At the afternoon meeting, 11 people came. Usually we use this meeting time for sharing what we did during the day and what we’re grateful for. Folks showed up playful, delighted to see each other. Kids took turns DJing or serenading the group with whatever instruments they had on hand. We cooed over people’s pets. We changed our video backgrounds to plants and space and videogame scenes. I heard that Dungeons and Dragons had decided to get set up to move to a new platform, Roll 20, next Monday. History had been a success, and folks reflected that the format of taking a quiz together then talking about the material worked really well for them. I heard about offerings where people did headstands, drew pictures of cells, and started learning podcasting. Overall, people had felt that their days were full of interesting and fulfilling activities. They were happy and grateful — as much as they could be while stuck at home — and ready to keep refining this whole virtual-exploration-of-the-network-as-a-resource.

After they logged off, I tried to record a video on the basics of using Zoom, but then my laptop decided it was done cooperating for the moment so I put that project down. Talked with facilitator friends instead, noting that we would need some tenderness and beauty in the coming weeks. Curling up with a laptop inside all day already feels tiring for my body, even without the extra weight of worry and grief settling across my shoulders. Because our network has tended relationships enough to now act as a community, and one that’s practiced at both care and adaptation at that, I feel as sure of our resilience as I feel unsure about what the next few weeks hold. I feel confident we’ll serve and support the young people in our communities in delightfully creative ways over the next few weeks. Putting my phone down, I scribble some notes about what’s going well and what to test improvements of tomorrow. Then I stack picture books by my laptop for tomorrow, so I remember to read some to stressed grown ups while we’re all doing the best we can.

On the one hand, it feels like I should be less tired running virtual school. I don’t have to commute, to check what’s happening in different rooms, to take kids to the park, to listen to 3 of their questions at once. But... it’s exhausting to be building and planning the online programming at the same time. To track how it’s going across miles and time zones. Watching Slack and my email for alerts that people need troubleshooting help, watching texts for questions or alerts of new restrictions from the city. It occurred to me just today that maybe it’s also so tiring because of biochemistry of the moment. Like... what is navigating each minute in survival mode (and as in caretaker mode) doing to my limbic system? To all of ours, collectively? I wonder if generational trauma linked to plagues lives in my cells...

Morning meeting went smoothly today. I tried posting the times of all the offerings in the chat as a reminder, but I missed some and some got scheduled later and... it was good enough. Walked to the post office to mail Olive her reading glasses and Nahla her books. Where I’ve seen 1-2 folks with masks the past few days, today I noticed that masking up is becoming the new norm. I livestreamed my walk back to school, through Central Park, so folks stuck inside could see the flowers and friends who haven’t been to NYC could get a virtual tour of the resevoir as a pretty distraction. A friend watching typed in the comments that her watching daughter liked my mask and was wondering if I had the Coronavirus. I quickly answered “no,” then wondered at my unfounded certainty. I explained that I was wearing the mask for a self-reminder, for signalling to give me space, for a performance that would maybe check other pedestrians not taking this seriously yet. And it’s pretty. And it’s anti-surveillance. And it’s definitely not hospital grade so I’m not taking resources from doctors. Then I turned the camera on a line of ducks sleeping serenely together in the water between The Dakota and The Guggenheim.

We did a staff check-in call at 1:00. Usually we do these after afternoon meetings at school, but we’d observed that the kids would want to hang in the videorooms. We didn’t want to kick them out, so we’re adapting. We talked about call norms — what formats work well online and which have been a struggle, how to handle littles who want to talk to themselves through the whole math class but don’t know how to mute/unmute, how our kids’ joking has changed (or not) in groups where their audiences are a mix of friends and strangers — then I shared a bit of what I’m thinking in terms of outreach. We want to make some offerings public, with so many kids in the world stuck right now. We also want to keep them small enough that they’re comfortable, dinner-party like, and to be offering services families who pay the school tuition will feel grateful to have special access to. I mentioned that I’m thinking of calling families on Friday then shifting to each of us calling kids weekly moving forward. They liked that idea, as well as the idea of putting together webinars on basic community tools/practices, to offer online by next week.

Rachel emailed that she wants to offer a parent support call over the weekend and see if we’d host a community gratitudes call on Friday. Other parents have emailed gratitudes and resource suggestions along with their questions, and it feels like folks are slowly getting ready to re-engage after the shock of the past few days. Hopefully the systems we’ve got set up for them make it easy and enjoyable for them to jump into sharing and supporting each other.

I closed the school day with Adelina’s storytime, where I got picture books read (and sang!) to me by some 5-year-olds before reading them Neither and The Bad Seed. The little girl who waved her book after Adelina had finished 3 turned on her mic in time for us to hear her dad saying that she doesn’t actually know how to read. I gushed that I love looking at pictures, if she wants to show us the pictures and maybe tell us her own story. She grinned, showed us a headstand, then grabbed a board book with a confident declaration, “I can read this one!” She opened it and I realized with a start that the book was What A Wonderful World, and she intended to sing us the whole thing. I didn’t cry (I consume so much human cruelty... sometimes witnessing moments of pure care and kindness startle me to tears) but I did send a recording to my mom and some other people I suspected might need a little lightness in their days. We decided storytime should be a regular offering, and I thought of how my high school self once passed an exam by making everyone herbal tea, reading them picture books, and turning in a paper about how stress would make us sick so we needed to proactively help each other chill out.

Sebastian facilitated afternoon spawn again, with much more focus. I made a poll, which again got responses indicating folks had enjoyed their days. The meeting went so much faster that I had to tell a kid who hopped on at 3:20 that he’d missed meeting. He asked if he could tell me what he’d done, and I said of course. We discussed the logistics of Dungeons and Dragons tomorrow, and then everyone who’d been hanging logged off. Maybe I’ll prep for bookchats... after a nap.

Abigail Oulton is the Co-Director of New York City’s Agile Learning Center.