Beyond Free Schools: Community
(Page 10 of 11)
November/December 1970
By Jerry Friedberg
And the children. Sharing the burden of dealing with needful, demanding, mess-making kids makes it more possible for any one of us to say "no" or "yes" more readily. Less guilt, less Responsibility and less one-man burden means more genuine response-ability, yesness and joy. The children receive more attention from more adults more genuinely than children commonly do. At the same time, they've been much starved for peer group contact and we're looking forward to being joined by others with more children. Meanwhile, we go ahead getting used to talking over the problems and frustrations we experience in dealing with the kids, helping one another, confronting one another, learning . . .
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Both the kids and the adults are experiencing some very new things here. The kids are continually in relation to the adult world—a new sort of adult world at that—for the first time. They're learning to be more independent, to develop their own world and at the same time to relate more to ours. They've been having a rough time with it and so have we . . . also getting a lot out of it and slowly settling down.
A striking, simple fact: We literally never worry about "are the kids learning enough?" and such. Such talk, and the agonizing self-torture ("am I doing enough?") that goes with it, has never even come up here. It's clear enough that the kids are more and more involved in adult activities and learning lots in the process.
Roger likes to help me as I go about handyman-work and I enjoy explaining to him how the drill works and why a crescent wrench can't be used where a pipe wrench is needed. Stephanie insists upon helping Helene with milking the cows and she (and all of us) are about to see what it's like when a calf is born. Tuning the cars, working with the tractor, feeding the chickens and our new brood of fourteen ducklings, gardening, haying, mending fences, baking bread, dancing, cooking . . . all these have become opportunities for the children to learn with us, to help and to see us in relation to one another.
Often at Lorillard there was a sense among the staff that we were "trapped" in school; that not enough "natural flow" outward occurred unless we planned for it. Even then there was something artificial about a trip to a museum or a different kind of neighborhood. Here, Roger comes along when I go to the welder's, and he and Stephanie join us on a trip to the mill, to the local auction, to the lake for a swim or to our breadselling stand at the farmers' market.
At still another level, the kids are part of our experiments with a new life-way. They often sit in on our business and encounter sessions. They see us struggle with our own feelings, deal with our differences, worry about neighbors' sensitivities, love and hassle, meditate and celebrate. There are experiments for them with greater self-regulation in things like bedtime, food, dress and language. There is lots of space for them to explore, be alone or just with one another in—and develop—their own worlds . . . as well as lots of opportunity for relating to the adult world.
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