Beyond Free Schools: Community
(Page 7 of 11)
November/December 1970
By Jerry Friedberg
The 9-3 syndrome seemed so terribly artificial and, at times, absurd. The times we went to the country with the kids and parents for a few days seemed so much more natural and right. So our interest grew in the possibility of a more total, less fragmented communal living/learning situation.
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Being a school meant, too, an atmosphere of expectations about RRResponsibility for teaching and learning. The staff felt pressured (and not all of it was external). We had to come in, things had to happen, contact was scheduled, responsiveness to children became a duty. Our labor of love began to feel like a job.
We started out knowing we didn't want to be a school like others, and so the very word "school" became repugnant (one of the worst things a staff member like Sherry used to say in moments of desperation: "My god, we're becoming a SCHOOL!"). What we discovered as we went along was that there was something very basically amiss with being a school of any kind . . . something essentially wrong with the very notion of school.
WE DON'T HAVE ANY RULES, ASSIGNMENTS, WORK-ROTATIONS, SCHEDULES AND SUCH BUT DEAL WITH NEEDS TOGETHER AS THEY ARISE, PAYING CLOSE ATTENTION TO OUR FEELINGS RATHER THAN THEORIES. WE VALUE SPONTANEOUS-RITUAL, WORK-PLAY AND JOYFUL MADNESS.
More and more of the staff found it increasingly difficult to be there. We were upset at the pulling and tugging and upset when we felt out-of-it or "not doing enough". We had set up an institution which contained expectations that no longer felt right. Without the screen of formal roles, duties and such, our upsets, moods and needs came through and affected the school strongly day-to-day.
We felt increasingly that we didn't like removing children from our total lives and the lives of their parents and placing them in specialized environments for a good chunk of their lives . . . not as a matter of choice, but as a given. We didn't want to be adults running a special place for kids: A special world with lots of expectations about specialized functions. That felt artificial and phony compared to what began to emerge as an alternative vision.
We wanted a place for people—adults and children—where each would have lots of freedom to be or not be with others; where children could relate to adult activities (and vice versa) since it would be an adults' as well as children's world. We wanted a place where contact and learning would be natural, sporadic and not much worried about since there would be lots of things happening all the time as adults and children went about their work and play.
We began to see that such a thing cannot happen as much as we would like in an enterprise run in good part for (and increasingly by) others with whom little daily life is shared; among whom there is little intimate knowledge and love; from whom mostly hassle comes; and who have their own separate and very different life-ways. (I have difficulty writing this, remembering many with whom much knowledge, sharing and caring developed. I hope they will not feel slighted.) It cannot happen in a school, with all the expectations and fragmentation a school must involve.
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