I met Nina in the fall of 2014 at the first ALF Weekend retreat in upstate New York. Since then I’ve followed her journey as she’s realized a dream to create a learning center that she would have wanted to attend as a child. By ALF Summer 2015 ALC Oahu had run a successful crowdfunding campaign and brought together a team including Mandy as facilitator, Stephanie, and [woman with website and?]. ALC Oahu was set to open for its pilot year in August.

It was at ALF Summer that I began negotiating the idea of coming out to Hawaii with Nina and Mandy. Fresh off my success at the short lived ALC Everett I was looking for another impactful adventure. Months past and I watched ALC Oahu from afar through blog posts, social media, conversations, and updates brought to the Monday night Facilitator calls. It appeared to me that of the handful of operating ALCs my presence at Oahu would have the greatest impact.

By November 2015 Nina and I had settled on an agreement for me coming out. Here is the basic agreement:

Oahu will support drew with:

• Stable housing
• A stipend for food and other expenses

In return Drew will:

• Commit at least 4 Months in partnership with ALCO
• Co-Facilitate and generally assist ALCO for a minimum of 25 hours per week

Outcomes:

• ALC Oahu will gain in-person facilitation support
• ALC Oahu will gain in-depth feedback from ALC Network support through Drew for the purpose of improving operations and sustainable growth
• Drew may provide ALF training to an additional facilitator for ALC Oahu

Shortly after a $250 plane ticket to Hawaii became available and I jumped on it. Set to land in Oahu on January 11th.

Upgrades for Intention and Reflection

After spending a few weeks in ALC Oahu I began to see patterns that could be improved. I was able to share my awarenesses around the cycle of intention setting and reflection with the community at their Change Up meeting. I noticed that there wasn’t a practice of recording intentions and reviewing them at reflection time. I didn’t dictate a solution, only an awareness. Mandy and the community were able to take that and create solutions.

Holding Membranes

There were only 3 full time students at ALC Oahu. The center needed to grow but it was also in a vulnerable position because it didn’t have an established solid culture yet. When a very excited family came for a visiting week we were excited for a new student but ultimately the community had to turn them away because the parent’s energy would have taxed the limited energy of those holding the group together. It was a challenging but wise choice to value the right fit over growth.

Trail Week

As my time was coming to an end ALC Oahu went on spring break. At this point one of the students had moved to NYC for an unknown period of time, another was away for the previous week on vacation, and the center was left with just one student. Energy was low going into spring break. The following week, however, was a free trial (ALC Experience) week which saw many new faces in the space. It was an injection of amazing energy that recharged everyone involved.

The ALC Oahu space was very interesting because it was part of a co-working space called Box Jelly (Honolulu’s first co-working space). ALC Oahu used the “white room” in the back to hold space. It was a large, mostly empty, room which had to be packed up at the end of every day and unpacked in the morning.

The shelf held all of our supplies, it was covered up in the evenings with a black sheet.

The closet held our larger items. When setting up the room we would put out some carpets and pillows on the floor which is where we spent most of our time. There were also some desks and tables available in the room. All of our tools (Kanbans and intention boards) were moveable.

Much of our time was spent outside on trips to the beach or hiking trails. We would also spend quite a lot of time out and about in the neighborhood.

It costs money for me to operate in the world. I paid for most of my time in Hawaii out-of-pocket. Most of my housing was covered by staying with one of the ALC families in exchange for 6 hours of web design work per week.

Total Cost:
$2250.69

Round Trip Flight: $641
Supplies + Transport: $190.09
Groceries: $552.6 Monthly: $184.2
Housing (rent): $867

From Jan 11 – April 6

Total Hours:
252

Working in the ALC: 
182

Average Monthly Hours:
80

Agile Tree

Trust – Soil

Coming into ALC Oahu took a lot of trust in myself. I wasn’t sure that I could make a positive impact or perform well but I dove in head first and gave it a shot. Trust is central to ALC’s culture, trust in the kids to take responsibility for their own learning, trust in facilitators to facilitate powerfully (from a place of trust), trusting the group to hold the whole things together. Often we overlook trust in ourselves.

Lesson: Building trust is paramount in your team and it begins with trusting yourself. Trust that your needs have value and should be expressed. Trust that you are powerful and can make good decisions. Building trust within the community (especially between adults) is very important. Getting clear on needs, work style, desired roles, and money are all very important. Tools like Blueprint of WE, trust building exercises, and other tools and games can help a lot.

Roots

• Learning: Learning is natural. It’s happening all the time.
• Self-Direction: People learn best by making their own decisions. Children are people.
• Experience: People learn more from their culture and environment than from the content they are taught. The medium is the message.
• Success: Accomplishment is achieved through cycles of intention, creation, reflection and sharing.

I felt that ALC Oahu was very strong when it came to embodying the roots. Finding the right balance between working with kids and working on kids is probably challenging for any group of adults. When I helped Seamus and Alex make their business pitch I kept wondering if I was doing too much work for them. In the end it felt like good collaboration because I was authentically invested in co-creating.

Lesson: Trust that you can collaborate with your kid’s learning and adjust to find the right balance through feedback from your peers!

Be Agile

ALC tools were adapted by ALC Oahu from network knowledge in a way that served the community well. The daily intention board was such a good example of this. Mandy facilitated the creation of implementation of the board from feedback I and others gave into a elegant stipped down kanban board. It was exactly what we needed to help us better capture and reflect on our intentions.

Lesson: Make, adapt, and use tools that serve the needs as they are right now. Don’t over design or over think. Trust your intuition and don’t be afraid to use your natural authority as an adult/facilitator to change up things.

Intentional Culture Creation

Building a startup from scratch is an amazing feat but it can also be very stressful. Facilitators brought in some of their outside “baggage” to the space, but I think this is actually a really good thing. I felt that some issues could have been discussed directly with the kids or around the kids.

Lesson: We all have off days or get stressed stepping out of the room or speaking in hushed tones about certain topics out of fear for the children is probably not necessary (if it’s for your comfort, that’s fine of course). Model having a bad day! Model talking about issues on your mind with fellow facilitators. Model positive and direct communication. Model having and acknowledging your feelings!

Facilitate

ALC Oahu did such a good job with facilitation. The trips were amazing, the connections to community wisdom and support really made for some incredible offerings.

Lesson: Having authentic connections to the greater community and inviting their participation is so important to creating a rich environment where magic can happen.

Respect each other’s time and space

It was interesting taking my New York City Time mindset and adjusting to “island time”. I had to learn to slow down and expect things to flow more naturally. This served as a great example of why our ALC tools and principles need to be flexible to fit the culture they are in rather than try and fit the culture to the tools.

Lesson: Go with the flow, be real about your expectations and what you can and can’t commit to.

Shareable Value

ALC Oahu had a great social media stream. Documentation was very good but it was rarely revisited. Simply commenting on a student’s blog post can really encourage reflection.

Sharing  doesn’t have to be fancy or fit a particular method. I like to blog, Nina likes to Instagram, we do what feels best for each of us.

Lesson: Making shareable value is much easier when you do it in ways that are easy and comfortable for you. It’s better to have a platform you use rather than an empty one!