What's the Recipe? Examing Examples of Community to Find What's Working

In today's episode, we discuss the elements that build community, drawing from our experiences in various settings. We highlight the importance of predictability, humanizing leadership, and intentional communication. Sharing examples from both our personal lives and the makerspace, we note how social interactions and choice foster community among students. Community emerges from intentional practices and shared values, fostering a sense of belonging and collaboration. 

Introduction Music by: David Biedenbender 

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Transcript

Ashley O'Neil: 0:00

Yeah, I think it does the the norms, because there is consistency in how the leadership show up there, right? Like there are predict. There's predictability to what you're what you can expect, even if each adult is a little bit unique. And I think the communication part, like how they have mastered communicating, also, it's

Julie Cunningham: 0:19

one of those organizations in which it sort of doesn't matter what people's like, cultural values are, or their political beliefs are, like, it's sort of interesting, or their faith beliefs, it's sort of interesting in that aspect, right?

Ashley O'Neil: 0:34

I think that gets at the humanizing part. Like, you see this collection of people, but you don't see them as a collection of demographics, yeah, you just see, like, yeah. And even your leader, facilitator, even they do a little bit of that humanizing themselves, right? Like, you know, really good facts about them, you know, some imperfections about them. So, like, there's not, there is a human factor there, where, I know, we call them parasocial relationships, right? Where, like, you know a lot more about them than they know about you, but there is a humanizing there that makes it, I think, makes people want to come back. Okay,

Introduction: 1:10

now we're recording. So welcome to teach wonder. Yes, welcome to teach wonder. Do podcast hosted by Ashley O'Neill and Julie Cunningham.

Ashley O'Neil: 1:31

So for this episode, we are trying to think about the recipe that builds community, because we saw some examples of it in our homeschool practice when we talked a little bit about that in previous episodes, about stepping back and making more space for the participants, and that leads to community. But there's some other patterns or tenants that we think contribute to that, because not all social interactions lead to something where you come back, we've all been to a thing that you're like, I'm never doing that again, right? Or you've all seen friendships or relationships kind of fade away as soon as the moment's done. So what is the value and then interactions that lead to it? And can we break down or find what seems to be working when it comes to building community?

Julie Cunningham: 2:17

Yeah, and I think if we are going to talk about, what does it take if we are if we were wanting to build a community, and we sort of try to evaluate, okay, then what are the what pieces do we need to be intentional about in order to build a community? For me, I started by asking myself, what sort of communities do I belong to, and did I get there intentionally or unintentionally? And now that I'm there, and I call it a community that I'm a part of, or I recognize that I'm part of this community, what value am I or someone else getting out of the community? What are we, I guess, both providing to the community right potentially, and then what are we as members gaining from the community? Because I think if those two parts weren't both there, I might not stay a part of the community that I see myself as a part of.

Ashley O'Neil: 3:18

So do you and I thought about it in a different way. I think I kept my educator hat on a little bit, and I thought about the different types of programs that we have here. And as we've been reflecting a lot on what's working here, where are we seeing community in these places, I have examples or specific things from three different types of communities that we have going on in the MakerSpace.

Julie Cunningham: 3:42

And to be fair, we don't have enough time for this on our podcast, but we have had the three programs that Ashley is going to mention. We've had a lot of iterations of those. So the nice thing about being in the space that we're in and working with other working collegially with one another, like we we've iterated the so we're more or less, I think, happier with programs now than we perhaps have been over the years. Not that we've just because we grow. Right?

Ashley O'Neil: 4:17

It would be a podcast, yeah. Explorer is like, what didn't work, right? Why? Exactly like, what are the versions that got us here? Because you're right, there have been a lot of missteps, or a lot of things where we've like, we're not pleased with what is going on here, so we've made intentional changes. Uh, for sure. Maybe another, another episode, right? Okay, do you want to share an example first or

Julie Cunningham: 4:37

so? Um, one of my for me, most interesting communities that I feel like I'm a part of. And I say interesting because I don't see the people ever face to face, and yet, I do feel like I belong to this community is peloton, and I am in no way shape or form marketing. Peloton. I really enjoy bicycling outside, but that isn't always something I can do easily in Michigan. Depend, weather dependent, right? So during, I think probably during when we were at home, during the pandemic, I got a peloton bike, and I didn't really get it to be a part of a community. And so the fact that I see this now as a community, and I feel like I'm part of this community several years later, I find intriguing. And so I think that's intentional on peloton part, because they, of course, want to make money from their product. But some things that I think that they do, as I reflect on what, what makes this a community, right, is that they're, I'm going to call them coaches. They're instructors, they're coaches. They really, you really do, feel like they're talking to you personally through the screen, I think, and part of that's the shout outs that they give during the classes. Part of that's the feedback that they give. Part of it's, I'm sure, they're intentional messaging. Part of it's the work that some of those instructors do on social media outside of the class. But the people are the coaches, the instructors are humanized. And at least in the classes that I take, they encourage you to think about the other people in the class as your teammates. So in some sense, there's some humanizing. There also the ability to give each other sort of shout outs during class, right to think about your teammates that way. I'm sure that piece plays a role in both the communication and the humanizing, and it's really an informal group, right? I don't know anybody else's name that's necessarily up on the board during a class. I actually even close the leaderboard during a class. I don't even watch that because it's not why I'm there, but also, you do know that there are other people like you, that if you're up early working out, there's other people in the class, right? If you're up late working out, there's other people in the class, you're not alone. So I think you do feel like there's other people doing this with you. Yeah,

Ashley O'Neil: 7:19

that makes a lot of sense, I think that we would have been remiss to not include like, a digital relationship or a digital community, because that is a big part of everyone's lives here. And I think that it's it, it matters that we gravitate or it says something about us as people, that we gravitate toward those places that the the digital section feels like it's a tool, but it's not the whole thing, right? Like the thing that matters is the people, and the digital tool is what just gets us there. So one example I think about, we have students in homeschool, and I know I brought this up in previous episodes, but I've just been thinking a lot about them, because this was my pilot. I've made a lot of changes to this one, specifically this year. So we have some students in that space, or a student in particular in that space, who kind of, at the very beginning of the year was going to do his own thing, like, I am here, I'm going to do my own thing. I'm not really going to like, you guys are here, that's fine, but I'm kind of here to do my own thing. And that was, that was okay, right? Like, he had a mission and vision for what was going to happen, and that was great. But over time, I have watched as we've provided more choice. I kind of brought that up in previous episodes, how now that student is asked about, hey, is so and so going to be here? Is so and so here yet? Am I? You know, not yet, or they're on their way, and then when they show up, that student is a person that kids gravitate toward, and in response, he also gravitates toward those other students. And so I've seen him kind of emerge as this person who has a lot of really interesting ideas, a lot of really new, cool games that can be played, some new ways to think about using toys. He challenges me all the time on what we can do in our middle space, which is very much a converted office block, made into makerspace. So it doesn't quite have all the bells and whistles of our traditional makerspace, but I think one of the really interesting things about that is that I have seen him blossom, and all of the students blossom around him with these social negotiations that they do. Just this last time that we were together, they kind of made a fort, and they didn't have enough fort boards, which is a really cool tool, or really cool tool that we have, and so they used a yoga mat to kind of act as one of the walls, because then that would give them enough resources and materials. And another student was building with the fort boards, and they kind of could have used all of them. And so we had a group playing together, and this other group playing on their own, and he did these really sophisticated social negotiations of, can I explain to you what our vision is? Would you like to. Help us make this. I think you could help us. And do, you know, contribute the chimney to this thing? And it was amazing to see that this group had, I mean, for four to seven year olds, had this great idea, had looped another child in, got them all involved. And then when that child said, Well, let me finish this first, they totally respected, like, his autonomy to finish his task, and said, Great, when you're done making that, we'd love to have you join us, and we'd love to use your materials. And that happened, right? And it happened without any adult intervention. It happened with a ton of respect and dignity for all of the play that they wanted to do. And the level of social like navigation, there was something cool to see. So one of the things I think, that I noticed is that what was an informal group, where they kind of flipped back and forth, and they didn't really create this maybe meaningful exchanges, or what I thought of as meaningful exchanges, have really become a formal group that cares about each other, that has, like a shared vision often, and I've seen the sophistication of what they can do grow over time, and it's been built by them completely. So I thought that was an interesting example. That

Julie Cunningham: 11:08

is an interesting example. So do you think that they all the norms, not all the norms, but the norms that they are adhering to? Do those come from, like the community, or do those come from an expectation for how they should behave when they're in their space, or some sort of combination? Because many of these students don't know one another or outside of this time together, so it's not as though they travel here as a group, and they're some could be, but there's

Ashley O'Neil: 11:43

a diverse group of and interestingly, we have kids who don't know each other, and then we have siblings. So we have kids who know each other really well, right? And then kids who don't know each other at all, and they're all kind of mixed up together, yeah, I think it. I genuinely think, I mean, I have to contribute some of their skills. Obviously, they come with these kind of skills in this practice language that they have, I can't take credit for that that comes from their family, or things that they've done outside. But I think the other piece of it is that we kind of set up at the very beginning like what I would like to see happen, and I got a lot of feedback from them for what they'd like to see happen. If there is an activity that's not available that time, they can ask me for it, and I put it on a piece of paper, and you make sure it's available the next time. And so I think we've informally modeled that as a group like this is how we interact with each other, and because they have so much freedom and choice, and it is a space of Yes, I think they really value that. And those like norms have come out of these, like, low stakes, little interactions, right, that have built, over time into something bigger. Like, I don't think in September had this we want to build this thing. We need your fort board. I think that would have resulted in some friction. I think there would have been a conflict there. Someone would have gotten upset or disappointed, and they wouldn't have had the tools to make that happen. But I think because we've done these little negotiations back and forth about sharing resources, about getting choices for activities, or me modeling, if you don't want to do that right now, you can play over here, and then when you're ready, come back, like they've seen that happen in all these little ways, I think it's grown for them. Nice,

Julie Cunningham: 13:20

yes, because I I'm glad you explained that, because I think sometimes we say norms, or community norms or and they're not really, if an instructor gives these rules up front or this structure up front, they're not really the community's norms until they're accepted by the community. So how, how do we go from these are the expectations in this space, right? This being verbalized potentially, to Oh yeah, I've actually those make sense to me and I'm willing to use those. And that not only do those make sense to me and I'm willing to use them, but I can use them in this situation to get something that I want right,

Ashley O'Neil: 14:07

for sure, for sure. And I think also it is important we set up we set up norms often. And in fact, my next example is about setting up norms up front, but they don't really have any meaning to kids without the experience in that context. And so I think that's an important thing for us to remember. Us to remember. Like, we can say in our classroom or in our space, we value. Everyone gets a voice, and we all take turns talking. That isn't really meaningful until we've, like, flex those muscles. And so I think for me, it's one of our shifts when we've come to it's come to building community is recognizing, like, they need all of these tiny little practice points that grows into something bigger for it to actually make sense, especially for kids. I mean, adults are different, but kids don't have as many experiences to draw on. So we're like building the boat as we're like writing the rules for at the same time.

Julie Cunningham: 14:54

And all learning takes practice, right? So if we don't practice these things and we. Know, not given a space to practice them in, then it's unlikely that these are going to be things that we learn how to do. And so I just want to clarify, since all of my community examples are personal, it's because that's where I started, right? I started by saying, Okay, if communities important and communities important to students, and developing and creating community is important to learning and to education. Then, what is it about the things that I feel like and nobody would ever accuse me of being particularly outgoing or like one a person in which I've like, gone in search of like, being a part of communities. I find myself a part of the three communities that I'm giving you examples of, almost like, like the community is is important to me, but it's almost like secondary to how I got, it's almost like how I got there wasn't by looking for community. So to me, that's interesting and sorry listener, if that's not interesting to you, but I'm hoping that you can take something about my examples of community to say, Oh yeah, I get that if we were going to develop or build a community, this might be an important piece. So my second example is probably for about three and a half years now, I've been going to dog training classes, to agility with my dog, and I just started there because I had a different breed of dog that had a lot of energy. And I thought, Okay, I'm not obedience. Really isn't my thing, but I could get behind like doing these games with my dog. So three and a half years later, I've been through a number of different classes and with a handful of different instructors, and I find myself probably in a class now, I would say about, probably about a year and a half with the same group of people. So I've found now that we are sort of a community, right? Like we will know when somebody isn't going to be there next week, like we will know in advance somebody will have conveyed, communicated that, right? There's like a certain level of respect to who's going to be in class next week. We not only know each other's dogs names, but we know each other's owners names, humans names, which you can laugh but for a long time, if you get through a variety of different classes, all you know are the dogs names, which is totally fine. We have an expectation, like our instructor knows us right, and knows our capabilities and sets our courses from week to week based on our community's expectations and our community's abilities. We have a set of norms about like communicating who's potentially Whose turn is it to go next, or feedback to one another. We feel, all feel comfortable at this point, providing feedback to one another, which, as adults, taking risks and learning something new is not to go unnoticed. Um, we spend time, you know, helping each other in terms of, like, video taping or getting prepared, or you forgot this, and I've got your back, or whatever. But then the last example I want to give is just probably a handful of months ago, our instructor said, Okay, you're all ready to compete. And we all looked around at each other like, no way. None of us, I feel like we're ready to compete. I feel

Ashley O'Neil: 18:31

like I need to interject and say that when Julie started going to dog agility classes, she was like, Don't worry, I'm never competing. Yes, that's accurate.

Julie Cunningham: 18:39

And actually, all of us said that we're here just to have fun, right? We're here just to have fun. We're here to have fun with our dog. Like I would had no interest in competing. I am enjoying competing, to say on the other side of that, but so we all looked at each other like no way. We do not want it. We're not ready to compete. We're not interested in competing. What we decided was as a when we decided that competing was not it was on the table, and we needed to take it seriously. We decided as a group that we were all going to go to the try this competing thing, this competition thing, on the same day, at the same time, and I think that's also part of recognizing this community piece, like you're going through a little bit of an adversity now. I mean, is that real adversity? No, but we were uncomfortable, right? And you're going through that, and you're going through that together, and you so you have that shared experience of being uncomfortable together, and I think that is part of potentially being a community or the way in which you treat each other moving forward, and so I didn't set out to look for being a community at dog agility. It happened for me, and I'm glad it happened like I rely on this community for things. Experience and experiences surrounding my dog agility, I look forward to competitions in which and we've managed to not all be at the same competition every single time, but we've managed to at least have each other's back, like one of us will compete with another, and I feel like that has developed into a community, and I value that. And so when I'm unpacking it as when we make communities in education, I'm just thinking about those things, not that I want to give children adversity in order to become a community, but I think in education, sometimes we are uncomfortable and we are put in uncomfortable, not unsafe, but learning can sometimes involve risk and be uncomfortable, so maybe that's part of being a community.

Ashley O'Neil: 20:49

It's like we planned this. We didn't, but my next example is about field trips, because field trips are a challenge for us in a couple of ways. One, we have an established community, a classroom that has had a leader for however many months, right? Coming into our space, and we're the newbies, we have a fair bit of information we need to impart to them, some of it safety related, right, how to use materials, some of it logistics related, where things are. And then we have to kind of explain the task to them in a way that makes sense and give them enough information, so we've got some information to impart. We're kind of breaking into an established group that has all of these norms and rules that we likely know very little about, because it's just been a handful of emails with us and the teachers, and then we have our own goals and our own expectations and norms and values from the makerspace that we want to impart and share, because that is the point of our field trip, right? Like spoiler, we don't really care if you've made a robot or a dog or a basket out of your prototype. What we really care about are some of these values and skills and practices and norms that are less tangible and less interesting to talk about with the kid. And so we use our prototypes as the vehicle for that. So one of the things I think that we have gone through a million versions of, is how we do this best, right? And what we've currently landed on TVD, if it'll stay this way, but what we've currently landed on is we really have distilled down our goals, and one of our big ones is developing a sense of camaraderie with the students and rapport quickly, and we do that often by being a little bit silly, a little bit whimsical, and by focusing a lot on their joy and their capability. And so I think by the end of a field trip, it's really interesting to see how comfortable the kids are in this space, how chatty they are with the facilitator, regardless of what adult is running a field trip, which staff member, how chatty they are with them, how how proud they are to share. Can I show you my thing? Let me show you my whatever. So they've built that rapport with us quickly, and we've kind of transformed an old community just temporarily into something that's just a little bit different. We hear a lot from teachers that, oh, those students don't typically get along well in our space, they are working together, and it seems to be quite joyful and something kind of exciting is happening, or we hear, you know, that students aren't really interested in doing things, typically, it's really cool to see that they're so chatty or whatever here. So we see examples of students kind of being different or showing up differently in the physical space that we have here. And one of the things I attribute it to is, when we first started field trips, do you remember how we would kind of liken it to the, like, a baking show, and I would think of, like, those intense American baking competitions where it's like, hands up chefs, and like, there'd be all this stress. And I think about the two different environments between that, and just go with me, but the great British baking show, okay, so like, in an American baking show, often they intentionally apply this stress. There's a massive clock with, like, red countdowns, and the music is like, dun, dun, dun. Like, the music is intense, and like, they're running around, and there's just like an intensity to the situation that happens that seems to apply a lot of stress to what is already a stressful situation. Conversely, if you watch the great British baking show, like we both do, without fail, they apply a lot of silliness and whimsy to that space. Outcomes still the same. You still have to bake a thing. It's really difficult. There's a challenge. Sometimes the participants get pretty stressed about it, but in no way are the adult members right adding or contributing to that stress. And I think one of the things that I think we have worked on in our space is thinking about how joy can diffuse anxiousness or stress or other things, right? And how we can playfully approach that, like, if something gets spilled in our space, we're pretty funny about it, right? Like it's not a big deal. Sometimes we'll make a joke about it. When students are using tools. We talk about how capable they are, and we're kind of silly about you don't need that adult to do that with you, right? Like we are playful with how we engage in it to kind of get them to feel capable about that thing. But you're not going to see us, the adults, applying that stress to the space we see our job to keep things. Grateful to keep things calm, to keep things kind of in that low stakes environment, right, where they feel like it's not that big of a deal, right? And from that, we can see that the interactions from students are a little bit different,

Julie Cunningham: 25:18

I think. And I think to your point, we're never like we celebrate failure here, right? Because we celebrate iterations, but also we're never trying to contribute to failure like we're trying to always contribute to a student feeling successful, and therefore, like we wouldn't want it to we wouldn't want the risk, the stakes, to feel higher, for them to feel more likely to fail. Just the opposite, right?

Ashley O'Neil: 25:48

Yeah, and a lot of things go wrong here, right? But we know we don't have to help with that, right? Like this is going to be challenging enough. This is enough out of kids comfort zones. I know you mentioned being uncomfortable. This is really uncomfortable in here for a lot of kids, they do things very different here. It's a big change, and so we recognize that we don't have to contribute to that in any other way. And I think us realizing that our role is to provide that stability, that calm, that joy, has been a beneficial part of how we build community in a very fast time frame with new groups of kids. I'm kind

Julie Cunningham: 26:23

of impressed with our our series of examples, and how well we're relating together, because you couldn't have set me up better for my last example, which is organization that I volunteer with, which is adventure team, and I volunteer with the Midland chapter, and it's about helping kids be the best versions of themselves through adventure. And we use a bicycle as a tool for our adventure. So I work with we have six groups of kids at our event, and what I want to say about building community is that in order to alleviate what often can be anxiety inducing, right, putting students in a new situation and learning something new, which you just mentioned in the makerspace, is very different from a K 12 classroom, and we have ways of reducing students potentially anxiety and frustration here, the way in which we do it at Adventure team is very intentional. So every week the students come, the students, the riders come, and they see the same setup at what we call base camp, and so they know exactly what to do. Every week they go to their their numbered one through six, right? So they go to their station, they put their bike down at a cone, and they put their bike so that the derailer side is up anyway. There's just, it doesn't really matter, but there's just a series of things in which it's the same every week. Like you, you don't enter base camp with your bike without your helmet on, you wear your adventure team shirt every week, so everybody is identifiable. So all of those protocols allow the learning of the bike skill and the character skills to feel less risky, right? Because everything else is repeatable from week to week to week. So you can focus on the relationships with the other riders, you can focus on the relationships with your coaches, and you don't have to wonder, what is the night going to be like, because those routines are set in place intentionally to build community, and we do a couple of other things, like putting the youngest kids closest to the trailer, which might feel like sort of the safest position to be right, and closest to those other adults who are there Helping with base camp, like we always put the pumps for the tire, the air pumps for the tire, right in the same place. The tent always has snacks and water, like just things like that. So those routines there help to build community, and riders can help one another with where to go and what to do next, right? Coaches are present the leads. The coaches are present at their station, and their station has the backpack with the first aid, and it has all the things they need. And so that intentionality, I think, helps really can help to build community. And then one last thing that that we do at Adventure team is that we always have riders grouped by age, and so they're as likely to make friends with their peers right in the same age group, regardless of their ability on a. Bike. And again, that is intentional. So So I think communities can be built with some of that intentionality in mind, right in ways in which, again, this is an ongoing 10 weeks, once a week over summer. And so we don't have some of that ability in field trips when we think about ways in which we mitigate, perhaps, anxiety that students bring into the field trip, but I'm just suggesting that when we do have an ongoing relationship, there are ways to also mitigate things that can be anxiety inducing, and so structure could be one of those. Yeah, I

Ashley O'Neil: 30:42

think that's a great like, we talk about building kids capacity a lot. We that was a big focus of one of our teacher PDS last summer. And one of the ways we do that right is by freeing them up to have the social things, because all that other stuff is taken care of, right? Like, I don't have to worry and like, expend my social energy and asking where to put my bike I can expend it, and being silly and playful with the other kids while we're waiting, because I know all that stuff already, right? So when we think about what are our actual goals here, and what can we put in place to reduce the noise so that kids have the capacity to do the things we really want them to do, I think that is a really smart, intentional way for you to build the community. They all, they all know where to find each other, right? They're not going to stay by their parents, because they're waiting to be told where to gather. They know where to go, and so all that informal hangout time could happen because they know where to go. And that's really valuable, yeah. So my last example is makeshift, and makeshift is one of our other programs that's informal in that registration opens up like two weeks before the event. We tend to have a core group that is pretty regular. We're at capacity in that, but it can be always new students, and we have a rotating group of college students who can participate our STEM education scholars. So sometimes they can come, sometimes they have class. So that is another variable that's not always the same. And when I watch makeshift it reminds me of like you're looking out. And there's kids who are kind of like Beatles. They kind of just stay in one spot, and they're they're dedicated to that thing, and they stay there the whole time. And then you have these kids who kind of like flit they're like little, little flying insects, and they kind of float around, and they land here for a bit, and then they kind of flit away, and they of float away and they land here. And one of the things that it makes me think a lot about is that we intentionally keep things informal in that space where the kids can bounce from idea to idea, they can plant themselves in the spot and stay there the entire time. And from that has come some really interesting things. Thing, one, kids get new ideas from each other, rather than than asking me a million times over, what can I do? What can I do? Or me having to like, what are you interested? What can you do? They are flitting around and getting inspired by their peers and getting ideas from them, right? And I've seen that happen a lot, where I fled over and I see that you're working on blocks, although I'm interested in making a video game, I'd like to do that too, right? And so that is an organic way where they start to rely on each other and see each other as you matter in this space, right? Instead of focusing in on their idea. The other thing I think it does is it helps develop those informal peer negotiations that we talked a lot, a little bit in the homeschool group, right where I can have an example interaction with this kid, asking him about what he's working on, or just sitting next to like I see a lot of that with the middle schoolers, where they sit next to each other and just watch what the other kid is doing. That is building a social network that they can then cash in on later. So maybe they're just watching each other this time, and then maybe next time I'm playing your game and you're playing my game, or maybe next time I'm asking where, like the paint goes, or I'm asking that type of thing, and we watch those little social networks become something real, so that the students who've been here for years, they're excited to see each other, they have built a community that isn't, I'm not the center of right? And I think again, it's one of those things where, like keeping things intentionally informal, allows them to gravitate and try things, to see what works and doesn't work from them, right? And they can take those risks and experiment and what community building looks like for them, and it doesn't look the same every time. There are some kids who talk a lot to other people, there are some kids are kind of on their own, but they all feel like a part of that community in some way or shape or form. This has been another episode of teach wonder. Thank you for listening. You can find important links and information in our show notes. You