Hi, welcome to episode four of Holding Unfolding, a podcast about facilitation. Shout out to Sterl a.k.a. DummrollPlease a.k.a. NotDummrollPlease a.k.a. PixellatedSkies for the new music. And always to Pharaoh for our cover art. I’m Abby Oulton. I use she/her pronouns. I’m based in East Harlem, on unceded and occupied Lenape land. And, uh, it’s kind of chilly and cloudy outside here today, even though it’s also starting to feel like summer. So that’s exciting.
This week’s interview is with Julia Cordero from Heartwood ALC. And she’s founder, director, facilitator and a parent. And I’m really excited to share this interview for a lot of reasons, but in part because she starts off talking about what her experience has been being a parent and a facilitator. That is something I get asked about a lot, but something I can’t speak to from experience. So this was delightful. We chat a little bit about books.
We talk about math.
There is a point where Julia will use the word “checkpoint” and the meeting she’s talking about with the group is what we call “spawn point” in our school here in New York. And essentially it’s a homeroom. So it’s– it’s the group that gathers at the beginning and end of the day in a smaller group to reflect and share and connect and do all that stuff. And I have one more note… Oh, no, that is actually my only note for this week. So I hope you enjoy the episode. And thank you in advance for putting up with our choppy audio. We’re making the best of it.
Abby
Great. OK. Hi. Hello. It’s so exciting to get to chat with you. Do you want to start by introducing yourself, give your name, your pronouns, and where where you’re at in the world right now?
Julia
Yes, I am Julia Cordero. My pronouns are she/her and I am a facilitator at Heartwood Agile Learning Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Abby
And you are presently on the road. So the audio will be whatever it will be.
Julia
Yes, it’ll be great.
Abby
You facilitate at Heartwood. And so you– can you talk a little bit about that space and your role there?
Julia
Yeah, yeah, well, I’m one of the founders and co directors, so I have been there since the inception. It’s been me and Anthony, the other co-director. So we have had the privilege of being part of the formative identity of the school, and as I was thinking about this interview today, it’s– because it has been covid this year, a lot has changed in terms of what we do as facilitators.
And so I might be switching back and forth between what it looked like last year, what it looks like this year, and what it has the potential to look like next year, because all those are different in terms of what facilitation looks like and what my role is at the school. All those are a little bit different, but I am a five days a week facilitator. All day, every day, with the kids on the ground, so to speak.
Abby
And you also hold admin roles to, like, do organizational things that are, like, facilitating the organization continuing to exist.
Julia
Right. Yes, thanks for bringing up the hard topic. It’s– it’s so hard to balance both of them, so sometimes I try to pretend like I don’t. But yes, both Anthony and I are, like, completely essential in making sure the business keeps running. Literally probably 10 minutes ago I just got off an info session call with prospective parents. So, yeah, it’s it’s nonstop. As I expect it is for most facilitator’s and or school directors.
Abby
I know that you also facilitate, like, event stuff and community building in normal times.
Julia
Yes.
Abby
Do you feel like that’s a thing you do regularly enough, that it’s part of your role? Or is it kind of a when the mood strikes you thing?
Julia
I like that you called it regular times. I’m going to refer to it like that: in regular times. Yeah, I think, like, event building is like part of community building and so much of the identity of Heartwood is based in community. So any time we can gather in celebration together as a community with students and parents, families and staff, I think that always feels really, really good, that it’s so nurturing.
So we generally try to keep a lot of events running. We’ll have an in-person event this year that we’re really excited about, which is our five year birthday is coming up. So Anthony is organizing that one and he’s making a scavenger hunt. And you do your hunt in your pod, in your family pod. So that one should be really fun, and it’ll be our first attempt at in-person this year. But we’ve had– we’ve had stuff online this year. And it has its own sort of quirky uniqueness that’s kind of fun, and it can definitely be really nice to log off and automatically your home, but it’s taken a lot more
effort. It almost feels like as facilitators and event planners virtually, we are in a position a little bit to be entertaining, making sure the vibe is good online because it’s so much harder to read people. You can’t depend as much on community members. It’s not like you can,… Like people don’t, like, go off into breakout rooms and talk among themselves. So, yes, events are totally central to what we do there. A central part of community building at the school.
And our first– I’ll let you know how it goes after this one. And we have some that are ritualistic, like every year we do a winter dinner. And then we have some that are pop up. And Anthony is really the magician behind the pop up events. Last year he did a Heartwood awards show, which was really fun. So everybody came dressed up like they were at an awards ceremony. It was formal dress or you weren’t allowed in the building.
And then he’s worked with kids before to do dances, auctions, things like that. So they’re definitely, like, part of the lifeblood of the school.
Abby
You can’t hear me giggling when you’re describing setting dress codes for events, and…
Julia
It’s good. It’s so fun.
I mean, I was really — like the students were like, if we’re going to really do this, it’s got to be… There were lots of conversations about whether people would actually be admitted in. So the compromise was to get people… They purchased a few bow ties. So that if you’re not dressed formally, you had to at least wear a bow tie.
Abby
That’s amazing. Did they– who made the awards?
Julia
Oh, it was all Anthony. He didn’t tell me about any of them and they were hilarious.
Every student got an award for something, but they were all like… They were all just, like, stuff he made up. I can only remember my own child right now, of course, which was an Imagineer award, because he mixes engineering and art together. And so, like, each kid got an award that was like, you know, based on their personality or their contributions to the school. They were the only people up for the award in their category, so everybody…
Everybody got an award.
Abby
I love it. That sounds like so much fun.
Julia
It was really fun and really, like, sweet community building.
Abby
Then you mentioned– you alluded to the other — I don’t know if you relate to parenting as facilitation at all or what that experience is like. But also you’re a parent.
Julia
And oh my gosh.
So I mean, this is probably relevant for other people as well. I have two kids and one of them was with me for three years, I think. Yeah, both my kids right now are in a traditional school. And to just be vulnerable about it, there’s a few reasons. One is I coparent with my husband and my husband is a teacher and has worked at the same school for twenty five years. And he really wanted for the kids to be at his school for a while.
So that was something we had to negotiate in terms of, like, taking care of our partnership is the best way to have healthy children. So that was a lot of navigating. The one that was with me for three years was really pretty easy. And the environment and, like, our relationship allowed that, even in a small space, I rarely saw them throughout the day unless they got hurt. I was the go to. But my second, my other child, my oldest child, actually I, I very specifically did not have with me, because the attachment of that relationship is such that I think it would be really hard for them to give me space.
There’s a lot of anxious attachment happening there, and I just think it’d be really, really hard. And we haven’t solved for that yet. As he gets older, we’re hoping that evens itself out and he would be able to come to Heartwood. But I’m also — I want my kids to have all kinds of different educational experiences as well. And I don’t know. We sort of, like, take it day by day. The school they’re at right now, we’re clear they won’t stay there past junior high, which is only a year away.
So we have decisions to make for sure. But it is– it’s really wild being a parent, particularly making educational choices for my and with my people that are not necessarily aligned with Heartwood. One thing I had to be, like, super clear about with my youngest, who was at Heartwood, was this is actually a decision me and your father are making. And we’re making it because we think it’s best for you. And you may not like it, but it’s what has to happen to take care of our family.
And that was hard because that’s not the nature of the work I do at Heartwood. So, yeah, it’s really difficult terrain to navigate when they’re either– when they’re with you or when they’re somewhere else. Like, all those are difficult to navigate. When we have info sessions, I often feel like it’s like the first thing I should say. Because I worry, oh, does it look bad that like, you know, I founded the school…but,
like, oh, but my kids don’t, like– I’d never send my kids here…is what I fear it looks like. I had to have really clear conversations with the parent community when we choose– chose the school that they’re at right now which is not Heartwood. That it wasn’t– it wasn’t that I don’t believe in the philosophy. It’s just relationship
and parenting is complex, like, so many different little balancing acts and perspectives.
Abby
Yeah. I think it’s really interesting that you followed up explaining telling your kid, “your father and I are making this decision based on our family needs” and putting that in contrast to your work at Heartwood. Because on an individual level, as a facilitator in a self-directed ed. space for young people, it’s like… Yes, usually in an individual conversation, it’s like, OK, young person, what do you want?
What are you trying to do and let’s figure that out. But also, part of what makes ALCs different from some other forms of unschooling is in parallel having that conversation about the network of relationships that we’re in.
Julia
Yeah.
Abby
And being like, OK, well, where are the places where we need to have freedom within parameters set by, like, what does the whole need here?
Julia
Yeah. I think it was a what does the whole need?
And it was also, like, it’s our job as parents. Like, it was very– it was difficult for me. And it was good to have to sit in those questions. But I very much felt like it was an adult power-over moment and…But that it wasn’t… You know, sometimes we think of that as, like, so horrible and negative. Like, it was because we could see what’s the most important in this situation is that both of your parents are getting what they need to be in harmony with each other.
That that’s ultimately the best gift we can give you, is compromising with each other. And that’s going to be more important for your overall development than what school you’re at.
Abby
Which is a research-backed phenomena…
Julia
Yeah, you know, yeah. A little hard to surrender to that for sure, because, I mean– and I guess that is part of the ALC work is like to put the ego aside, put the ego aside. You know? But– and it was hard when my kid was like, why don’t I get to decide where I go to school? And just to have to be really explicit, like… Because we’re the adults, we have more power. And this is the decision that from our position of power and awareness we are making for our family unit.
And he was very upset about it. So that was that was hard, but made for some good family conversations. Who knows what the right answer is, but at least it got us having some conversations about what’s really going on.
Abby
Yeah. Well…And I think the modeling partnership as an ongoing check in and negotiations and changes like that is really powerful as something to offer young people and other just other people generally.
Julia
Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see how it evolves. On a sort of like similar but different note is, like, my oldest child has been in this traditional progressive school for, like…This will be his fourth or fifth year. And like, I’m sort of hellbent philosophically on– I really don’t believe that the concept of middle school and junior high is healthy for young people in terms of like isolating kids who are going through puberty.
Like, I really think a mixed age environment is so nourishing during that time period, and it’s sort of the opposite of what we do as a society. So here I am with my own philosophy and my kids not going to go to the school after middle school. But like… At that point, he’s also going to be 12 years old. So I can’t necessarily– at 12 I’m not going to be like, you’re not allowed to go here because of my philosophy.
So it’s sort of, like, the opposite thing. I’m so scared that he’s going to want to stay so… It’s just– it’s just interesting to navigate it from the opposite perspective. To like– I want him to choose to want to be self directed at 12, like any reasonable young person would choose to be at Heartwood. But like, that really may not be what he chooses.
Abby
Yeah. It totally feels in integrity to me to be like, “all right, given all of these points, these are the options we’re working with.” And then, like, “all right, young person, which which of the available options do you want?” And if your kid is like, “I want to be at the big high school with a homecoming game” or whatever, like, yeah.
Julia
It’s like…OK.
Abby
It wouldn’t be SDE to be like, “No.”
Julia
I know, that’s what’s so funny about it.
Abby
Sometimes people will ask me when they’re starting ALCs, they’re like, can you be a facilitator and a parent? Can you have parents facilitate and… and they want a blanket answer. They want a universal yes or no.
Julia
Yeah, I mean, I can say as an example, I opened a daycare when my first child was young, 18 months, and it was horrible. Like I said, because of the particular style of attachment that is that– that is in our relationship.
It was impossible for me to do my job because the need he had for me to really be like giving him undivided attention was so strong. And when he didn’t get it, it would be like, quote unquote “temper tantrums” or like, you know… There would be this sort of like a behavioral reaction. And so it was really impossible. It was– I ended up leaving that daycare, actually, because I had adopted my second child shortly after that.
So…It was a surprise adoption. If you’ve ever heard of such a thing. It happens. So, yeah, it wouldn’t have worked as much as with the calm attachment that it worked with. And there were still hard days for sure. But I felt like we could navigate them with communication and clarification of boundaries. That Anthony was very helpful, like, keeping boundaries clean. So, yeah, it is like you’re saying, there’s really not one answer. It depends on a whole lot of factors.
Abby
Yeah. And the ability to hold space for the answer to change, as, you know, among your kids and as you’re all at different stages in your relationships. It’s, like, it’s a super complex thing to navigate. Did you and Anthony have conversations to arrange boundaries or about ways he could help you while you were parenting and facilitating? Thinking about my first kind of SDE experience, there was a day where a parent who had his kids there, like, pulled me aside the first day kind of thing and was like, “here’s what’s happening.
Here’s what I need from you when there’s a conflict or when they get hurt or whatever.”
Julia
Yeah, I would say it was it was pretty much the same thing. I tried to stay checked in a lot with Anthony. Yes, definitely. We had those kinds of explicit– Anthony and I had those conversations, my child and I had those explicit conversations, that Anthony’s the person you go to– that should really be your default person while you’re here. And I tried to do a lot of checking in, too, for fear of– because I had that experience with my first child at the daycare,
I think I was hypersensitive to it. So I was trying to stay checked in as well with Anthony. Like, are there places that I’m crossing boundaries, that I’m being unfair? I also think I have a natural ability to be, you know, I’m not a parent who lets my kid get away with stuff in that situation. I’m almost, like, harder on my kids. So I sort of do the opposite of what people fear, but, like, to a fault.
There were times when I really had to have that conversation with my son where I was like, “listen, this is this is a place I go to. If you’re doing something that’s out of bounds, like, I’m more inclined to, like, actually be rude to you and I’m sorry for that” and trying to kind of explain that and navigate that. So I think it was a lot of conversations with– with both Anthony and with my child.
Abby
Were there things, specific things that Anthony did that were helpful for you, or that you did for yourself, that were really helpful for you?
Julia
Yeah, I mean, definitely figuring out with my own kid there I really just had to have a really firm boundary with my own child. There wasn’t, you know, where as like with another child I might like sort of quote unquote, like, talk it out, with my own child I had to really be like, “and you hit the boundary.” And now… That was really important for me to figure out. So, for instance, my son was at my checkpoint for a while and I sort of tried at first– I was like, it’s really not working.
Like, he would disengage or he would, like, walk away in the middle of meeting. Things that were just like, you know, he’s a kid who picks up social cues easily. So it wasn’t that he was just– I mean, I think it’s just testing his boundaries. I’m his mom, you know, and he’s like, what can I do? Which is, like, a really natural part of development that other young people in the space…. They don’t have that need with me, because I’m not their parent, so I think what I– what I ultimately said was like, you can’t be my checkpoint anymore. Like, this is not working.
And so I think being able to find that kind of a firm boundary with him and realizing I have to get to that quicker because there’s something else going on in the dynamic… Another kid might be like, do they not pick up social cues? Do they not understand what I say? You know? I check in with their parent and see if, like, is there something…Is it hard for them to write? And so, like, they’re resistant to that?
Is there someone in the group they’re struggling with? I just had to learn to be, like, a lot quicker in that process with my own kid. To really say, like, you can’t– we can’t do this, like, mother-child dynamic here. That’s not what school is. We can do that all day at home. But when we’re at school, this is the boundary.
Abby
Thank you. Yeah.
Julia
Yeah. No, thank you for saying that. I hadn’t actually thought about that.
And I will say too, you know, there were– there were– So while, because there were times when, because Anthony was his go to, as a parent, there were times when I didn’t like the way Anthony was responding. And it was so hard to just figure out, like when to shut up and when to speak up. Being that I have unlimited access to Anthony, like another parent wouldn’t have that, you know? And like, was it a really big deal or was it just really important for my son to have a relationship with Anthony and they have their own dynamic, and that’s OK?
That was, like, really excruciating for sure. Probably one of the hardest parts. Does that make sense, that perspective?
Abby
Yeah, no, absolutely, and it’s not a thing that I would have thought to ask about, but as soon as you say that, I’m like, oh, I’ve definitely, like, co-facilitated with a parent and either, like… Sometimes it’s that I’m circling up with them afterwards asking about and maybe gently coaching them on navigating a situation — which is a whole thing as a non parent, to be like, where do I speak up and where…?
Where is that not my place? — And also, it’s definitely been the opposite, where they’re like, “Oh, your dynamic with my kid.” And it’s either, you know, some of my expectations are different, or I’m letting them climb too high in the tree. We have different feelings about whether you need a helmet when you ice skate. That kind of stuff.
Julia
Yes.
Abby
And just the complexity of — in a society that kind of worships a narrow version of a nuclear family — less and less, but still so —
sometimes it was like, parents not being sure what their kid’s dynamic with me was and being like, “are you…” You know, “You’re allo-parenting. And I don’t know that I like that. I want my kid to come get help from me.” So it’s like, all of those emotional components.
Julia
Yeah. And mine was like… And I’m sure that, like, race and gender are involved in this, too, for sure. But mine was often– a lot of times was about when my child was irritated at something Anthony did, because they’re sensitive in certain ways. And either Anthony wasn’t reading that sensitivity — I mean, of course, I can read my child backwards and forwards. Not that I’ll always be able to, but like, at a younger age, as a parent, it’s easier to do that.
And what of that had to do also with being a white woman? Just around, like, just being very protective of his emotional state and then feeling like Anthony would do things to agitate his personal state, his emotional state, and knowing that my son’s going to have a certain reaction to that. Watching it happen, having my son want to talk about it later, and just trying to figure out like, how do I, you know, similar to what you’re saying of like, how do I empower this relationship that he has with Anthony?
Because it has its own dynamics. And Anthony is not necessarily the person that can read every gesture on your face and what emotion it corresponds to. And that’s OK. We wouldn’t expect him to do that. That’s because that’s not the nature of your relationship with him. So, you know, and then how does that– how does that fall into– how does that relate to gender? Two of them both having identity around being boys. And what does it mean to be emotional or not emotional or not read each other’s emotions?
My son is mixed and Anthony’s Black. Like, are there racial and, like, cultural pieces going on there that I’m trying to interrupt with what I think is right, because I’m like a white woman Mommy? Like, “it’s not the right way to respond. My kid is very upset. Now, can’t you tell you’re not doing the right thing? You’ve upset my child now.” So I hadn’t really dug into it. And so you just asking the question… But looking back, all those kinds of dynamics were coming up.
And they were hard. I mean, I’m thankful that, like, I did know– that I had some awareness around it and that I had to learn to say to my kid, like, if you’re really upset about this, it sounds like something you need to bring up with Anthony. If you don’t feel like you can bring it up with Anthony but you want to, like, I’m happy to support you in that. But I’m not going to like, you know, make another adult out to be a bad guy with you.
I’m not going to– there was like, wanting to be joined and like, didn’t– didn’t Anthony do something that I didn’t like and isn’t that bad? And you should fix this for me. And it’s like, learning how to just back away and be not butting into his relationship. So that was– that was hard. And good and great, great growth.
Abby
Yeah. So… What are you facilitating? You guys have been online and in person and I heard, like, sharing the space on, like, a schedule?
Julia
We… Yeah, we did a lot of iterations this year. I think we’re probably in our final one for this year. So right now, what that looks like is we have split into pods and the pods are generally split by ages. And we– Anthony has a pod. I have a pod. We used to– we used to switch back and forth. We no longer do that. So for right now, for the first time, I have young people that are generally nine of those of the younger kids, like exclusively. Which is fun, but also I really miss, like, everybody together or having a mixed age group.
I mean, I guess compared to traditional school, it probably is mixed age to have five and nine year olds together. But, you know, for like an ALC or self directed environment, the range is five to 18. So, so that’s what we’re doing right now. Earlier in the year, we were– we were exclusively online and then we switched to like some days in person, and we would switch between groups, Anthony and I, and then the pods kind of switched again.
It’s just, like, iteration after iteration. That’s based on what’s coming out from the CDC, which is who we decided to follow as our guide, and also what’s OK, what feels safe to our parents. And developing a community of trust in each other’s behaviors outside of school and taking care of each other. So anyway, the current iteration, two days a week, we split the school in half. And that is because our pods– it’s partly to keep our pods to 10 kids, and also because Anthony and I, Anthony’s group and Anthony and me, we don’t mix those two together.
Abby
I think I got it. So you share the space two days a week, mostly to facilitate being able to keep the groups small and not mix them. Have I got that right?
Julia
You got it. Cool.
Abby
Cool. And you go to a nature preserve on Fridays?
Is that what you said?
Julia
Yes. It’s so fun for me. It’s fun for the kids, too. But yeah. So it’s like, we just do all day outdoors that day and then we have access to a bathroom and we have, like, a wagon with all our supplies in it. We have, like, we hang up swings and play in the creek and it’s– it’s large enough, like, that — that I feel like it offers enough opportunity to do all kinds of different things, even though we go every Friday.
And it’s really fun. I’ll say this is, like, one of the bizarre advantages of covid is that it pushed us outside. And so, it’s really fun to watch the springtime happen and catch tadpoles and watch them grow and watch the color of the leaves change and the different flowers bloom that, I don’t know, we certainly weren’t as attuned to last year.
Abby
Yeah, that resonates. It’s funny like… My logs from right before covid hit here… I was, like, looking back on my notes when we hit the one year mark and
I was reading some of the older stuff, because I was trying to track when it started being, like, part of my awareness as something in the world to be tracking. And there’s a whole thing that I had written in, like, mid-February about being frustrated by being overwhelmed with paperwork and being like, what would really fix this for me and make it feel bearable would be if I had a couple of days a week all outside doing outdoor education and just outside play.
Outdoor ed for me in New York City is a lot of, like, working with city folks of all ages on their idea that the city and nature are, like, separate and separate spheres.
So, yeah, and I was our winter outdoor person this year and got all the outdoor days and it was chilly and amazing.
Julia
Yes, same I… I had, I had like… It was hard for sure. But there were days when the other thing is, because I have I’m particularly risk averse because my husband is high risk. So even when we were at school, I was outside most of the time. And the other thing I didn’t say, which I think is actually really important to my facilitation this year, is that I’m able to bring my dog with me to school.
And while that sounds silly, it really changes the dynamic, because I’m with younger kids who want to pet the dog all the time. And so they literally, like, follow me everywhere. Like, the young people are so in my personal space all the time because of the dog, because the dog is near me. And so. When I was facilitating with the older kids, I would be outside most of the time, but a lot of the older kids were like, “Forget it, I’m not freezing.
Are you kidding?” But the young kids were outside with me all day when it was below freezing. And there were some days that were really beautiful. When it was like, let’s build a fire and stay warm and let’s walk to the store and get graham crackers and marshmallows and hot chocolate. And then five days of that. And we’re like, now we’re tired of s’mores and it’s really cold. There were some days when it was like, we’re just trying to survive today.
And while that was– at the time felt debilitating, like, what are we doing here if we’re just trying to survive until we get home? It also is exhilarating to look back on and be like, yeah, we did that because it’s just– it was what had to be done.
Abby
Yeah, my small bag of fire starting supplies was one of the, you know… I think my my top investments for outdoor winter time this year were like, a giant thermos for water so that I could bring hot chocolate packets and hot water, and a fire starting kit for the days we were going to go make fires.
Enough hand warmers and spare gloves that I could distribute them to all the young people when their’s were wet. And a soccer ball, weirdly.
Julia
It was just, like, a lot of days walking to… It is weird when it’s like… It’s slowed everything down so much. So to keep ourselves warm, we would walk to the store to get firewood. Like, firewood was probably what we spent the most money on this year. But there was something about walking to the store to get it.
But also the place we could walk to had firewood that really wasn’t very dry. So then it would be like trying to figure out what to do with that firewood. It wasn’t very dry. Like, there was just all of this, you know, I guess it was like one of those rich facilitated learning moments that was part of what it was just by the force of what it was. But it was like, just how to make a fire that would, like, burn and keep you warm.
And it was, like, day after day of, like, you’re walking to the store again. Here we are. With the protocol of like, OK, we can be in there but we have to be in and out in 15 minutes. Like putting timers on and like, we did it. Did you get the hot chocolate? Oh, no, we forgot that. It was just, like, day after day of that. There was something, I guess, really beautiful about slowing down to that level. Like, we didn’t… We didn’t even get to offerings. There weren’t, like, offerings in those times.
It was just like, how are we going to do this day and how are we going to enjoy it together? Because this is what we have. Yeah, so I think there were times it’s actually nice to look back that way, because there were times when that was really demoralizing. But looking back, realizing just the power of slowing down.
Abby
Yeah, did, um… I guess if you just switched groups, I don’t know, like… I’ve noticed changes in what– the kids will interrupt a group conversation to like, you know, point out a centipede. There’s little things that have changed as their awareness has moved.
Julia
Yes. Yes, definitely. And definitely. Yeah. Yeah, it’s a sweetness that I — I think that, I mean, I think it’s beneficial just from literally like a vitamin D perspective for all of us to be outside, but that when we have the option to be inside and I think the regular times, we just wouldn’t have chosen to be outside that much. And how– just how nice that is to– to– exactly what you’re saying, be noticing things. We do volunteer work with the young kids every Tuesday, and they walk in and there’s a a little alter there that you can put flowers in. And they pick flowers on the way to the walk every week, and so that, like, every week they’re watching what are the new flowers? You know, it’s like clovers. And then there’s these purple ones and it’s like– they’re freaking out. Like, there’s this new one! Did you see this new one?! And they’re dandelions. Yeah. That that kind of thing just wasn’t happening in the same way in normal times.
Abby
Yeah, that’s so cool.
Are you– do you have like– did you come into this year being able to name all the little seasonal flowers, or has that been a growth edge for you?
Julia
I don’t– I have had that experience before, but what I have never done before, like the huge growth thing for me is I have consistently my entire life — and Anthony knows this, too, so like it was really weird for him to watch it — I’m always cold. I don’t like when it is cold outside. Like, if it’s August, I’m so happy. I like to be extremely hot and sweating, but I don’t like to be cold. And so the fact that I would be outside all day, every day, when it’s below freezing…
That was– that was extreme growth for me. And the sort of, like, hilarious byproduct of that, speaking of vitamin D, is I didn’t have seasonal affective disorder at all this year. Because I was outside for six and half hours every day, even though it was freezing. So that was a huge growth for me to know that I could survive it. And I think it was one of those adult things that you can do where it was like, “well, this is what needs to happen.
So it doesn’t really matter what my concerns are.” And so I just, like, set that the fear of being cold– it had to just be set aside.
Abby
That’s not a thing I knew about you and makes it all the more impressive. Well. Congratulations!
Julia
Thank you. Actually, thank you. It’s like…a huge, huge deal. Yeah. It was like I had to just pretend like it wasn’t, oh, this is not who I’ve been for forty four years.
Just yeah. I’m outside. It’s cool. Fake it ’til you make it.
Abby
Yeah. I mean did you have a day where you woke up and it was like “oh this is what I do now?”
Julia
This is– I think I just made myself say that every day. Like it was just, this is– this is what I do.
Abby
Yeah.
Julia
Yeah. We’ll see. You ask me– ask me next year.
Yeah. You know, did it become part of my identity or was it just something that I had to adapt to? I don’t know.
Abby
Yeah, I’m also thinking about next year, but as somebody who does like the cold, you know, some of my favorite days, we were out this winter when we had lots and lots of snow and had snowball fights and I’m definitely like…
Once the kids don’t have to be outside, are they going to choose to be outside with me? And like, you know, of course it’s their prerogative to prefer to be, you know, cozy inside. But I notice myself really hoping that some of them will want to do outdoor days.
Julia
I have that feeling, too, and I wonder– I’m glad you brought that up. Because I also have the feeling of it feels like a slippery slope, in terms of being a facilitator, because I have an agenda almost around like, oh, I hope they’ll be outside because it’s, like, so good for them.
And just like, really having questions about like, oh where is that– where do I draw that line? Or where do I…? It really just brings up questions about like, what if they choose to stay inside all day, you know? Of course, it’ll be OK, because that’s what they choose, but how will I maneuver through my own thinking of like, well, that’s not as healthy.
Abby
Yeah, for sure.
Julia
But I will say again, like, if you want them to come outside with you, you should get a dog. It’s just that– it is really, really stunning.
Abby
My apartment is a no pets building, but I have witnessed the magic dogs and children are together.
It’s funny because I don’t feel…
I don’t want them to come outside, like “for their own good.” I, like, value a lot the things that they’re doing when they’re inside together, including the stuff that makes other adults nervous, like when they’re spending all day at a screen or reading or whatever. Like, I value that more than I’m going to gush about right now. I want them to want to go outside because I want it for me.
Julia
Oh, that’s a nice place to be.
Abby
Yeah. This is like– this is, if they also want that, then I get to share that with them and don’t have to figure out where to carve hours in my.. Like…
You know, where do I have non school time, then, to go fill that need for myself?
Julia
Yeah, yeah.
Abby
And we’ll see, we’ll see.
Julia
Yeah.
Abby
Are there — because you’re doing online offerings, too, is that right?
Julia
Yeah, online offerings would be with the online only group, which is only five of them. And that’s fewer than last year. It used to be even the in-person students were doing the online classes, but they’ve really stopped doing that.
It’s become so fascinating, because it’s organized around offerings instead of offerings being something that’s splattered in the day. It’s like, the whole day is organized around offerings from the online community. And the advantage of that is the level of focus that they bring to offerings and the level of desire of really wanting to extract something from an offering is really different. So, like, I’m seeing these kids, like… They want to know, they want to do, like, traditional math or they want to do
writing, want to get better at writing. They want to get better. It’s like, these things that I think when they’re in the physical environment, they have these pursuits. But there’s also the distractibility of just the environment and what’s happening around them, and it dilutes it. And so it’s just like this undiluted pursuit from a lot of the online students that I have to say is really fun as a facilitator. And I’m really enjoying it. It’s a lot…To be online, to do– to facilitate online requires a lot more prep than in person.
Oftentimes I feel like I can just show up. Online requires that I be prepared in a different kind of way. But I have grown to really like that it brings out that kind of focus in the young people, and I look forward to more in person being able to use that as a reference point. Like, hey, let’s look back at this time. Did it feel better to you when you are more focused like this? Which I’m pretty sure they’re going to say
yeah, because they have in the past, when we were in person, really struggled with having pursuits but feeling distracted. And so, like having them have that reference point and being able to say, OK, so what do we need to do so that you get what you need from this environment? And I– I guess I’m– I’m looking forward to– we’ll see. Maybe it won’t happen at all, but I just feel like it gives them something, some Velcro. To look back and be like, I want a little more of that.
So I’m excited for it now and excited for what how that might become useful as a reflective, reflective information in the future.
Abby
Yeah, yeah, really, like without the desire to go be immersed in their social relationships and working on those skills and stuff. Or the, like, “oops, I, I was going to come to this offering that I proposed.
But also now there’s a park trip or I realized I need to go to the deli.”
Abby
Yeah, I’m…curious and excited to circle up with the kids when we’re back in some kind of synchronous thing and be like what, you know, what do we want to keep? What did we learn?
Julia
Yeah. And I think, like, when the environment itself is so distracting, which Anthony and I struggle with a lot, which some of it is just, like, societal and the times we’re in, the age we’re in, and what it looks like to be in SDE right now. But some of that, I think, is our personalities as well. But what I think many of the young people haven’t had is, again, just that reference point of like, does it, does it feel good to you to be this focused?
Because they’ve had in their head like, oh, I want to be focused on that. But I don’t know if they’ve had the reference point of, oh, that feels– that feels good. I want to be focused on that, not just in principle, but because I’ve had that experience before and I like the way that made me feel.
Abby
Yeah. What– what are you facilitating online? What are these offerings?
Julia
Well, I have two kids who are doing writing, and they’re at different levels. And so they’re mostly focused on five paragraph essays, but not necessarily focused on that, like, as a form of structure, but not necessarily structure for like a research style paper. But really for structure of any any kind of writing. Just using that– the idea that, like, make your point, three pieces of evidence, wrap it up.
And that’s been really fun.
One of them is a really proficient writer, but has had a lot of anxiety about it. And the other one doesn’t have a lot of experience writing but has a real natural voice. So it’s been really fun for all of us. And they have committed to writing a paragraph a day, which I find excruciating. But they’ve been doing it for like two months. I’m like, if you– if that’s what you want, go for it. I fully support you.
Totally will be your accountability person. Another is a group that has been learning about math. Which are just like the basic four — addition, subtraction, multiplication and division — and it’s been such a blast for me because I learned, for instance, like traditional column edition. But I’ve become like super obsessed with finding math videos of different ways to do the basic four, because, of course, like growing up, I thought that was, like, the only way to do it was, like, “traditional” column edition, for instance, and like learning, oh my God, there’s like five hundred different ways. Not five hundred.
That was a math exaggeration. There are several different ways based on culture and based on your upbringing to add something. And the “traditional” method is one way and that may be the one that works for your brain and it may not. And here’s this other way. And that’s been really, really fun to explore with them and fun for me to sort of, I guess, decolonize that. So I have had so much fun with them, and that’s a group of five of them that that do math in some form or another. Some of them are doing more, like, high school math, geometry, algebra, and others are doing the basic four. Other classes online… Audio book club where we listen to audio books together. Sex Ed. is online.
I do that online for the online students, and then the in-person students do come to that, like, if they signed up for sex ed at the beginning of the year, they’re required to come. Lit club has been, like, the longest offering ever. It’s been going on for four years and that is… Audio book club is really just listening to a book together. Lit club is reading the book and then coming back and discussing different parts of it, themes and such.
Abby
And I have to ask, like, what are you reading? OK, so I’m going to tell you some of our favorites. We’ve been reading for so long. One thing that I — that I think is important to know is I started this club four years ago and I started with the very clear boundary of “I will choose the books,” which I realize doesn’t sound very good. But I was like, “Listen, if you want, if you want to make your own book club, I’m happy to join it.
And you can choose the books.” But in this book club, I started it, I mean, I created it specifically for myself. I wanted to exclusively read Authors of Color, and I wanted to be sure that that was going into my brain, because the default for me was otherwise at that time. Several students said they wanted to join and they just keep coming. And it’s been going on for four years. So we’re exclusively reading Authors of Color and have been for four years.
And it’s some… I would say we go in between genres. Like it’s definitely all narrative. We’ve never done a memoir and we’ve never done a non- fiction…. It’s the double negative gets me there… You “never done a nonfiction” book. But that being said, some of the ones that they have loved the most are…”Felix Ever After” we read this year. Sometimes, we’ll like read a book that is so good and then everything that comes after that, we’re like… womp womp. So… “Felix Ever After” is one of those. “Poet X”
is definitely one of those. There’s one we read that I loved so much, that they liked okay — these are all still in the YA genre. We’ve been in YA for a year and a half or so — which is “Julia Takes a Breath.” I think they didn’t love it as much because I mean… I think the reason I loved it was because it was a college age… It was a coming of age, but it was in college instead of high school.
And it was also, she was coming up in a time that I was kind of in that same… I was also coming up.
So I was like, oh, I know the musician she’s talking about. Right now we’re reading Children of Blood and Bone.
Abby
So good.
Julia
Oh, my God.
I mean, I knew it was going — I kept putting it off, but I’m glad I did because it actually really shocked me. And I appreciated being shocked by how intense it gets. It starts off like you’re just in an action adventure. And then it’s like, oh, all the organs in your body are going to respond to this, not just like your cognitive brain. And I heard Mel talking about the N. K. Jemisin…is it Broken Earth trilogy?
Abby
Also so good.
Julia
We’ve been trying to get our hands on that for years, but the public library’s never got the first book in stock. It’s, like, always out. So I’m hoping after we finish this that maybe finally enough years have passed since it’s come out that the public library will have it in stock. Those are some… Those are the ones in the YA genre that we’ve been loving. Previous to that, we read Purple Hibiscus and wow…. I’m like, wow….
Abby
I don’t read a lot of fiction.
Julia
Oh, because because you asked this earlier, I’ll go ahead and say — and I tell them this all the time — I literally never read. Like probably from when I was 13. My mom says when I was young that I read proficiently. Like second and third grade, quote unquote, above reading level. Really into it. And then I just stopped. And my mom was an English teacher, so she was on it and couldn’t– couldn’t figure out why I wouldn’t read. There didn’t appear to be, like, learning issues.
It was just like, I was not interested. She got me this horrible series when I was young to try to get me to read. It was just so — the story was so traumatic. You know, a lot of these YA novels like, love to like, dose on some extra trauma and apocalyptic trauma and horror and everybody is killing everybody. And this was just horrible. So I read it. I read it fast and then literally hadn’t touched a fiction book until I started this book club four years ago.
So that’s like, twenty five years later. So I am thankful to the young people all the time, because I wouldn’t– I wouldn’t be reading fiction if it weren’t for them. And what a gift it’s been in my life, just in terms of being a facilitator and the ways in which we grow alongside them.
Abby
That’s really cool.
Julia
Yeah.
Abby
How did you decide on — did they decide fiction? You said you picked — you were picking the books.
Julia
It started because, like I said, my mom was an English teacher. It started — It’s just funny. It started my first year at Heartwood. Maybe it was the second year, the start of the second year. My mom was a junior high English teacher forever. I don’t know how many years. More than I can count to. And, and I — because I was a new facilitator, I was like —
You know, when you’re, like, fresh, like, “What offerings am I going to make? What will be really interesting? Let me try this and let me try that.” And I was like, really wanted to be overprepared. Like, I was like, what what do young people at that age read? I don’t even know, you know? So she sent me stuff, and then she sent me, like, all her curriculum to go with it. And I read through all the books.
I was going to be, like, so prepared. Like this was not going to be a book club. This was going to be like a real class with real lessons. And… And that’s kind of how it started. So she just gave me several books that were interesting to young people at that age and what, what different things she did with people in the classroom, with the young people in the classroom, to kind of bring out the learning in those books. And it was very scary to me the first book that I chose —
I don’t even remember what it was now — that wasn’t what she recommended and that had an accompanying curriculum. Because I sort of, like all of us, didn’t know my place if I wasn’t the one who was like, really like leading the literature discussion. And I didn’t know the difference between, like, literature and Y.A.. And there’s just, like, a lot I didn’t know. So it started out that way. And what kept it going was just like, the kids just wanted more. You know, the young people just, like, wanted more and more.
And when we found YA, like — Again, I had never… I didn’t read for so many years, so I didn’t even know that genre. I was like, “Oh, my God, who made up this genre?” And they were all like, “OK, you idiot. Like, this is, like, a genre that’s been around before you started reading two years ago.” And those have been really, really fun to read with them. I think my mom was who put us on to Purple Hibiscus.
The stuff we were reading previous to that, it was almost, like, intro stuff. And all of this was meant to be the culmination, the culmination of the stuff we had been reading in terms of, like, it was — she had it advancing in difficulty and depth. So that’s how that started and now we just read books. I do get these things… I do appreciate getting these things called Lit Charts, which I can get on most books unless they’re rather new.
And that just gives me, like, a kind of quick guide to themes, and it helps our discussions get deeper a little quicker. But that’s all I do to prepare. Now, sometimes I try not to read the stuff, because they’re spoilers and I kind of want to be on the journey with the kids. I very much like when you had a heavy plot point and are, like, texting them all like, “Oh my god, have you read page one ninety four?!”
But I do — I do find the lit charts help because they just have chapter by chapter discussion questions and, like, quotes we can kind of dig into that help frame out our time together. So we don’t like, I don’t know, start talking about what flavor lollipop we think is best and then all of a sudden lit club time is over.
Abby
You said you started picking books beyond the ones that your mom had recommended. And are the kids recommending them now? Like, where are you finding your ideas and suggestions?
Julia
I dig pretty hard and I try to get like five or six at a time. I talk to the librarian at our local public library quite a bit, and I make a list of things, and I’ll go to Amazon and read reviews, and then I go to Goodreads to read the reviews, and then I’ll go to like, “if you like this book,
you might like this book…” And I try to keep it topical to what they’re, what they are interested in, what I think might be of interest to them. The reason I just don’t open it up to them is it gets a little chaotic. And I know that there’s no one… I mean, every now and then, I’ll take a suggestion into my research process, but I also know that nobody is going to dove as deep as I’m willing to dive to make sure it’s a read that feels worth the time that we put in, the time that I put in.
Like, I’m like… I love reading. I want to read great books all the time. I will research for eight hours to make sure of the three hundred books that were published this year, of these 10 of them that were by African American authors, of the five of them that were by women, Women of Color, not– not necessarily African-American, but Women of Color, which one is like… I’ll just go in heavy like that. But I think it’s more about me, you know, like I’ve said to them over and over.
And sometimes I’ll say, like, “hey, here’s three, I’m thinking about,” like, “What sounds the best?” Or I’ll pick a book that’s, like… We’ve been doing books about trans identity, and then we did a book about asexuality. Those are topics that are coming up and, and so I’ll be like, “This is about this or that is about…What do you think will be the next best one for us to read? Given these titles and these parameters?” I don’t know.
Sometimes I feel like, oh, am I doing it wrong? Should I be letting them have more say? And then I’m also like, it’s what I wanted at the beginning. And it’s been going for four years, so it must be working. Nobody’s, like, giving out. They’re all like, what are you reading next? What are we reading next?
Abby
Yeah, well and I think they’re… I mean, if you opened with “This is how I’m doing my book club and I’ll support you in starting your own if you feel inspired to,” you know, there’s groups where saying that would be– wouldn’t work. But it’s like, you know your group. And if they’re like, “Actually what we want is to enjoy reading books and not have to do the, like, filtering and curation labor. We want to just, like, bask in your curation,” like, that is valid.
Julia
I think that’s my guess of what — what is — why they’re just like, “What’s next? What’s next? I know she’s going to put in the research.” I don’t know, maybe — maybe in four years from now, I’ll be, like, tired of reading. But it’s so new for me, you know? Because I never did this before.
Abby
Yeah.
To — so a little bit changing course, but you mentioned your mom.
Julia
Yes.
Abby
And my — not my first visit to Heartwood. My second visit to Heartwood was for the Racial Justice Summit that you all put together and hosted and that you facilitated. You plural, collective… The limitations of English…
Julia
Yes.
Abby
And. I remember talking to you about one of the exercises and you were like, “Oh yeah, my mom facilitates these trainings. Like, anti bias, consciousness raising trainings. And here is some of the exercises I’ve learned from her.” And I’m wondering about…I mean, obviously other facilitation tips and tricks from your mom, but also generally experiences… Like, what your experiences have been being in facilitated spaces and how that’s influenced your practice.
Julia
This is, like, making me giggle. So.
Anthony and I have — I don’t know if it’s a good habit or bad habit, I don’t know, but it’s — a habit. A lot of the facilitated places, a lot of the facilitated spaces that I have been in have been with Anthony, and we kindof go into critique mode together. It’s private, it’s with each other. But I think it’s just, like, we’re processing how — sometimes you have to process what you don’t want to do to get to what you do want to do or what didn’t work.
So, you know, certainly, like, having a co-facilitator relationship is really formative. I think how we both facilitate — because we can process with each other so much. And I think we also both pick up very different things from the facilitated spaces that we’ve been in, very different things speak to us. And I think being able to process those out loud together is really, really helpful in terms of crafting what works for us and what doesn’t. What has informed that? I mean, definitely my mom, for sure.
Yeah, I guess that is a really hard question to answer because– because it feels like it’s coming from so many different places. So I can answer that like many… I mean, from the time I was 15, I think I knew that I connected with young people in a way that other people around me weren’t. Part of that is from having siblings that are so much younger and being in caretaking roles. But it was more than caretaking. It was like, young kids really liked me.
And so though I tried to pursue other things — I did a video editing for a while and, I don’t remember all the other stuff. I was an auto mechanic. — Like, I just kept coming back to working with young people. And I also noticed that I do well with young people across a range of ages. Like I noticed that that was different than other people around me. To not just be like, oh, I’m really good with young kids, but that I seemed to be able to connect with young people across the spectrum generally.
And so I think everything else was kind of built around that. I’m sure some of that I got from my mom. I also think the high school that I went to, I could give a lot of credit to because I went back to that high school — it was actually K through 12 school, I just went there for high school — but I went back there as a teacher and just got a lot of yeses about trying some different things. Ended up running an after school program there, ended up running, like, a video education program and working in different classrooms.
So I think there was a lot of, like, splashing around. What I could say about facilitation now is, I guess the best way for me to phrase it right now is I know I’m facilitating well when it feels it’s like a… It’s almost like a meditative state. It’s like when I — I mean, not that like… Like preparation is definitely required for sure. But when I can step back a little bit and allow, that is a really specific feeling in my body.
And that is when I know I’m, like, hitting my own sweet spot. And that happened like, you know, there’s moments when I like… I really feel it. And happens — it happened the other day when I was with this six year old. And she’s given me math questions and she’ll write down on a piece of paper, like, two plus two. And I’ll be like four. And she’s like, how did you know that? And then, like, she’s like, she can’t believe that I know these things.
But she’s clearly… Like she’s playing with numbers. I really like math, too. And so I was really attracted to that. So I, I got out this– this thing for her that’s like, where you write down like, one– one to one hundred basically. And one of the reasons I like it, it’s a number scroll. It’s like…It makes Base Ten really clear, because every line is ten. Then you can watch the patterns and all the patterns of the numbers.
And so I got that out for her because I thought she’d really like it. And the idea of it is you write down from one to one hundred, and if you’re, like, in a teacher– in the context of teaching, then you’re, like, making sure not just that the numbers are the right numbers, but that they’re facing forward and that they’re legible. And, you know, all these things about, like, what the numbers scroll is supposed to look like. But it was this moment of her getting to like number eleven, and then us finding an ant crawling across the ground together, because we were kind of like, close to each other on the ground.
You know, she’s writing the eleven. And it was just like, following that as, like, there was a deep breath of like…Getting to the number twelve is absolutely not what’s important right now. And it’s not how to nurture her love of numbers. It’s how to squash it. And it was just like…being with her watching the ant and then watching her, her brain come back to “I want to write number 12,” and really being able to feel the difference between teaching and facilitation in that moment. I don’t know if the story translates what it felt like in my body, but it was like a tightening when I was like “but the number 12!” And then a relax into “oh, and the ant.” And then I’m like, “oh, look at that. I guess she wanted to come back to number 12 when she was done with that.”
Abby
That’s really beautiful.
Julia
Does it translate well?
Abby
Yeah. My facilitation — and I don’t know if this is true across the board, although it sounds like it so far for a bunch of people — is that, like, very Zen presence and, you know, being in the not-knowing. And just “Oh, that, too. Ah, yes, and that, too.” Lightly, even when — whether it’s a pleasant surprise or something that’s hard, you know?
Julia
Yeah.
Presence is a good one.
Abby
I love — I’m so pleased that you’re doing math stuff.
Julia
Oh my god, I love math.
Abby
Yeah! And it’s, like, such an injustice the way conventional schooling is like “Here is math, this narrow, shallow punishment.”
And just like it’s —
Julia
I know, I find it to just be like the most… I’m like… I just feel so inspired by the patterning of math. Like, these amazing patterns. Look, you can do it this way and it still works. You can play with it this way. You could understand the pattern by doing this or you could try it this way or, like, it’s just, you know, it’s like deconstructing a pattern or trying to extrapolate on a pattern. Yeah.
So fun for my brain. Yeah.
Abby
It’s like, there’s this fascinating, satisfying realm and somehow we’ve turned it into like worksheets and drudgery. This is — this is not fair to anyone, including that whole realm itself.
Julia
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I said a little bit of this earlier, but to go into a little bit more detail, I’ve been learning about what’s called “Vedic math,” which I’m still trying to wrap my brain around.
It has to do with the Vedic scrolls, and there is some — what’s the word — like, I can’t tell if it’s, like, the mythology around it or like different… Some people think the scrolls are real. Some people think they’re fabricated. Anyways, outside of all that — I mean, I think it’s really important to understand the culture that it comes from, but — what was so interesting to me is that most of the Vedic math tricks run left to right instead of right to left.
And that was really mind blowing for me, particularly culturally, because, you know, I say… I say, like, the “traditional method,” and like apparently I’m talking about the traditional US method without even realizing it. But just…. Like how mind blowing it was. Like, oh, my god, you could run an equation left to right? You don’t have to start with the one space? There’s something about that that was like… Why did.. Why did someone try to tell me to fit in a tiny box?
And that this was the one way and the one thing, and it’s not, like, a rich pattern of being that different cultures deconstructed different ways because we all seek to understand these these patterns of the world and how can we extrapolate them to build our civilizations. I got a little deep there.
Abby
Whenever you catch yourself learning to read again, you know, as — as an adult being, like, totally back in that beginner and being like, “Wait, what?
It’s a whole… There’s a whole…?!” You know. And then you’re like looking — I’m projecting a little bit, but — then you’re like, “Oh, what other ways of doing this are there that I hadn’t considered?”
Julia
Like definitely.
Abby
Is there anything that you were hoping I would ask and I didn’t?
Julia
I don’t think so. No, I think I was — I was happy to go wherever it was going.
Abby
Well, thank you so much. This has been lovely.
Julia
Same here. It’s always such a gift to get to talk to you.
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