Reflections: Big Sky Ensemble Virtual Meetings

As this season comes to a close, a season unlike any that has come before, we want to share one of the highlights of our distance learning experience.

With the onset of COVID-19, we immediately discussed how to recreate our weekly group classes with our oldest students making up the Big Sky Ensemble. In these classes, the students not only were able to practice and play together, but also had time to chat with us and each other, sharing whatever might be on their minds at the time. We also convened for a monthly workshop facilitated by our administrator, Hannah, playing games and doing activities around topics like safety, community, and identity. Both staff and students have expressed that they valued these in-person meetings, and we knew we had to find some way to keep that energy remotely.

Starting in early April, we invited all Big Sky Ensemble students to join us for a weekly Google Meet session - All staff and all of these students, just like each week pre-pandemic. We began by creating community guidelines together that incorporated this new platform of meeting (things like muting your mic when not speaking so the speaker can have the most attention), and then dived into planned topics each week. These topics included non-violent communication, youth activism, emotional literacy, and general check-ins about life in quarantine. Student input was always a main focus, making sure to ask questions around how students wanted to spend our time together and what topics interested them. Often, either our facilitator Hannah or one of the mentors screen-shared so that all participants could watch a video or view an image related to one of these topics. Other times, we did drawing activities where we responded to a given prompt and then were able to share our creations virtually.

What remained constant each week was our “Rose & Thorn” check in: An activity not created by NSP and used in many other youth organizations. Everyone shared their “rose,” something positive about their day/week, and then something not as positive, being their “thorn”. At our final meeting last week, we gathered together with one of the highest attendance of students since our virtual sessions began in April, and reflected on the year with a slideshow consisting of pictures of performances and lessons. It seemed that all students and teachers had similar “thorns” in this final meeting - That the season was over, and we wouldn’t spend time together each week until the fall.

As we look forward into next year, and tackle the questions around new methods of learning mid-pandemic, we now have seen the ways that distanced connections can remain just that - connections. Thank you, Big Sky Ensemble, for reminding us how strong our community has become.

Students Diego, Joseph, Max and Ryleigh joined by NSP staff at one of our meetings!