How To Start You Own School

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" . . . Families moved away, new families came in, and everything had to be freshly explained, built from scratch. Operating by consensus on the basis of honesty, caring, and sensitivity is a fragile and difficult business at best; it requires a basic cohesion, common commitment, and a fairly stable group whose growth is organic and gradual . . . "

Kids Seeking.. . Everything

And what to say about the growing number of kids (all over the country, all by themselves) becoming aware of how they're being screwed by the dominant culture's institutions?

Perhaps this poignant phenomenon has always existed.

Nevertheless, the time is now, the need is vivid. Kids who on their own are seeking free schools can use plenty of non-exploitative help. Take them in. Help them find other escapees with whom to work . . . and be. Help them build envelopes. Help them with space until they learn how to win it themselves. Then stand aside.

Offer apprenticeships. Take them into your families and communes. There are hundreds of children and young folk for every together commune in the country. Refugees from insanity.

* * *

Early Pitfalls!

Well again, I suppose if you want to look at it that way, you're already surrounded by Early Pitfalls by now. Actually, that's the chief curriculum for a lot of free schools: anticipating every potential pitfall—and then walking right into them. If you're of such a bent, then you've got the seeds of further trouble sown in your first comings—together.

But there are some weird things that go on right from the start. One of the great paradoxes of free schools is the almost total absence of relevance to the children. It starts in the planning sessions. When the children are brought into free school meetings it is often to say the expected crowd-pleasing diatribes against the public schools, or whatever else the parents happen to be talking about (kids catch onto games-for-filling esteem-needs pretty fast). New schools almost always underestimate (1) the immense skills a child already has by, say, five years of age, and (2) Salli's Children's Liberation Movement notwithstanding, their deep need for adults . . .

And some schools unnecessarily fritter away one of their most precious aspects: the chance to uniquely reflect the interests of a small group and thus experiment with truly new approaches to learning. Think of it! If your school is to be a learning place, and if each person is to be free —free to learn what he wants at his own pace—then realize how different and unique your school must be to truly represent the fullest flowering of the participants.

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