North Star is about two weeks into its online efforts. The main lesson: There is a very important reason that North Star is a community center. Our online efforts to support each other have some highlights, but really, we miss being together. For all that we use homeschooling as a mechanism to provide self-control to teens and families, we are not particularly enthused about this stay-at-home moment.

Here are a few of my reflections on these past couple of weeks:

1. Staff are working harder than ever. All of our staff are spending long days and full weeks ramping up into this alternative approach. We are learning how to use Zoom and Slack. We are re-working our classes for online interactions and presentations. We are trying to connect our teen members and college work-study students for one-on-one tutorials. We are making every effort to check in with each teen member of North Star on a weekly basis. We’re used to long hours, but spending this much time staring at a screen rather than sitting down face-to-face is draining.

2. Teens are very hard to connect with directly these days. Many teens don’t check their email or answer their phones, and we don’t use the same social media platforms. Texting sometimes works. In our regular operations, we had weekly standing appointments for our tutorials and advisories. Now, I can no longer just grab them in person, and it can take a few tries to actually get a hold of them. Further, it feels that everyone’s schedule, including my own, has become more fluid, and some teens (and staff) are finding it hard to keep track of the day and time in our new lives.

3. Collaborating with our network is great for adults, but slow to take hold with young people. We have about a dozen centers in our Liberated Learners network, and we have all opened our online classes to all the members of all of the centers. Cool! Except that teens turn out to be wary of joining classes run by adults they don’t know filled with teens they don’t know. You might think that connecting with teens in Princeton NJ, Dallas TX, L.A. CA, Leesburg VA, Dedham MA, and more (maybe even the Philippines if we could work out the time difference!) would be exciting, but it’s been met with lukewarm interest so far. We will continue our experiments – virtual field trips to museums, Magic: the Gathering tournaments, movies and more. Meanwhile, the staff members of the various centers have been holding weekly meetings together, which we all find uplifting.

4. Kids seem to be doing okay. A decent portion of teens are coming to our Zoom classes. Most express appreciation at our advisory calls and welcome the attention. The teens are glad to meet with their tutors, both for the learning and the social aspects of the interaction. Many have set up their own online social gatherings. Some have a few activities they are doing with their families. Everyone is doing the best they can. North Star’s role, while diminished, is still meaningful, and we have some sense of our community members going about their lives.

5. We need to worry about some kids. We know some teens do not have good family relationships or comfortable homes. We know some are dealing with anxiety and depression. So we worry, and we spend extra time reaching out to connect.

6. Online resources are abundant, and largely free! My goodness, if you are seeing this essay on Facebook than you are likely aware of the lists going around for how to learn various topics. I’m not going to re-produce those links here, but people feeling curious can have wonderful materials at their fingertips. If you or a family member has a fresh interest to pursue in these times, ask around for some help!

7. For the most part, I think people are maintaining, not growing. If you or your loved ones are maintaining themselves with familiar hobbies, I encourage you to feel normal! I’m not finding these past two weeks to be a moment for new challenges and activities. Perhaps that will come in the next few weeks, as the weather warms and we settle into this new lifestyle. Mostly, though, my sense is that people are still adjusting to these times, and not embracing this free time at home as a chance to build new skills.

8. We are flying blind. We don’t know how long we will need to continue serious social distancing. We don’t know if we need to fear catching the virus or spreading the virus, or even if we may have already had the virus. We just don’t know much right now. I hope that all of our academics might be interesting and useful, and provide helpful ways to structure our days and interact with others, but I don’t feel this learning is the top priority of the month. I hope that more information will come soon.

In this crisis, I wish each of you the best as we all tend to our families and our health. There is plenty of stress for all of us, and I continue to wish that schooling might be offered in a way that it becomes the least of our worries, and perhaps even a useful distraction. Good luck in the coming weeks.