Beyond Free Schools: Community
(Page 5 of 11)
November/December 1970
By Jerry Friedberg
Two more things about The Lorillard Children's School:
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First, we began with staff control in consultation with parents, rather than with parent or joint control. We had observed enough other experimental situations to know that parents again and again have proven the most conservative force in free schools. Where parent control has been tried, schools have usually moved backward from initially free directions.
In interviewing applicants (we hardly turned anyone away), we were never concerned with the children—except in extreme cases—for they are rarely the problem. Rather, we were concerned to find parents at least open to, if not strongly supportive of, a free school approach. And there—particularly in recruiting our 40% black and Puerto Rican enrollment—we had difficulty from the beginning.
We opted, then, for staff control . . . clear that our paramount commitment was to a different way of being with children and one another . . . a way that often needed protection from the parents themselves. Our goal was to work with parents as much as we could, hoping that enough of them would get the "feel" for this new way as we moved over time toward joint parent-staff control. In a moment I'll talk about how this did/didn't work out and proved a critically weak spot.
Second, our staff changed and grew by a unique process of self-selection. Anyone who wanted to join the school was invited to come for an open-ended stay: An hour or a year or a lifetime, depending upon how things meshed. There were no forms or regular screening processes except contact and more contact with real people in real situations, including lots of honest feedback in both directions. If we clicked with one another, the person stayed longer and eventually grew-osmosed onto the regular full-time staff.
Six people joined us this way during the year. Dozens more came, found the process too difficult (it was at times painful for us, too), didn't click with what they found or otherwise felt moved to leave. We never decided "no" at someone, took a vote or any other such thing. We were out front with our reactions and it was up to each individual to make his decision. In this way the staff, which began as a group that had grown together organically over considerable time, continued to grow gradually and organically.
Unfortunately, the very fact that we were a school meant that enrollment did NOT come about through a similarly personal, gradual, organic process. People came largely because the public schools were felt to be terrible and this school was bound to be at least something of an alternative. Beyond that, parents were an extremely heterogeneous group who disagreed among themselves and with the staff on many basic things.
In the first family that withdrew, Eula and Bob dearly loved the school but couldn't cope with the tension in their daughter, Karen, created by the difference between her highly disciplined home life and our far freer school atmosphere. Other parents stayed and continued to press for more discipline, prohibition of children's cursing, greater emphasis upon academics, more positive instruction, etc.
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