Hi and welcome here 
You can’t see any folder either in your home.
Which OS and version of Synfig do you use? Seems like a snap version.
If you want to get images you need to import them instead opening
File > import or Ctrl-i
I use chrome OS but I installed Linux. It is a snap version. What do you mean by I can’t see any folder in my home either?
For the tutorials online, usually they select the file that already appears in this file menu and import it from there. How can I get the files to show up in this so that I can import them to synfig?
Snaps have their own access rights system.
On the screenshot, we can see that you are in your Home folder, but there is nothing inside, not even a single sub-folder…
It means ther is something wrong and I already saw such things with snaps 
Snaps and Chrome OS are not working perfectly together.
Instead, you could try to use the AppImage which seems better in compatibility:
If you want to continue with snaps, you should read about the permission system and you have to activate some accesses, like the files of your home (here for Linux but you can see the Home permission):
Thank you for all this info! I will have to get my tech literate classmate to decipher this for me. When he does and I follow whatever arcane instructions your message contains, I, a computer dummy, will get back to you 
Did you try an AppImage?