ABOUT THE FREE SCHOOL

More than thirty years ago, we gathered in an old building which had once been a mid-nineteenth-century German Lutheran church, then an Italian-language parochial school named St. Anthony's, in Albany's South End. The year was 1972, a time when most of the original Italian residents were moving away to the suburbs, alarmed by the rising tide of crime and squalor which were (and are) the inevitable concomitants of occupancy by a socially isolated, impoverished black matriarchal population with few organic roots in the family structures of real community, most of them having fled the segregated South following the Civil Rights era. At that time a local newspaper article dubbed us "The Shoestring School," reflecting our relative non-monied status.

 

Well, we haven't changed all that much. We are still an integral part of this changing neighborhood, where longtime residents and new-comers are living and working together to rebuild a sense of true cooperation and commitment. And inside our building is an extraordinary learning community. There is a kind of electric aliveness about both the school and the growing community that surrounds it. You might say that we bus kids into the ghetto, although it really is no longer that, in view of the mix of all sorts of people from all walks of life that we have become, at least in our part of Albany's South End!

 

Founded in 1969, we are one of the oldest urban free schools in the country. We have developed an internal economy which enables us to avoid dependence on grants from government or industry. The important element we offer children, both by experience and example, is an awareness that "You can do it!" Even the children who leave us after two or three years, let alone those who are with us for the full decade, have a clear sense of confidence, dignity and leadership. Their eyes are alive and open, their shoulders back yet relaxed, their bodies poised and vigorous. In every sense of the word, they belong to themselves - and their subsequent careers bear this out fully.

 

The Free School is a process which must be experienced to be fully appreciated. The kids themselves make the choice to join us, after a week's visit - we do not leave that decision to parents alone - and since the changes they may want and need to make occur only over time and the space to discover for themselves who they really are, we ask parents for a commitment to allow their children to stay in the school for at least a year, so that the value we have for them can be fully realized.  

 

We are eight adults and (up to) sixty kids, ages two to fourteen - white, black, Hispanic, Asian, from both middle class and poor homes. Unlike the families of children in most urban schools, our parents flock to our monthly "PTA" meetings, eager to share their discoveries with each other of how they respond to the changes being brought home by their children. Together, we work and play and share the joys and sorrows of growing and living together. We follow a calendar similar to that of the public schools, and tuition is on a sliding scale based on family income, so no one is excluded. And, as with the children, so it is also with the adults who work and live in this little community. In all of the thirty-three years of our school's existence (so far), we have never hired a teacher, never fired anyone who came to teach with us, never asked for "professional" qualifications, never mandated what subject a teacher should offer! Thus, the adults, as well as the children, are only those who have really chosen to be members of our learning community! And, it needs to be added, the dedication of the ones who have come and stayed on is awesome, and the kids reflect it.

 

An amazing number of the people who came to teach at the school have been with us for several decades! Some potential teachers chose not to stay when personal character defects that affected their relationship with the kids or the community were pointed out to them - but many more chose to stay and learn what really works. The extraordinary promise of a totally voluntary learning community is one whose story unfolds year after year, as we continue to consolidate the spiritual and social harvest being reaped from this evolving process!

We are committed to finding tolerance and compassion in an environment dedicated to openness and emotional honesty, drawing on the natural resources of the surrounding community for support and outreach. Don't expect to find a lot of expensive learning materials inside the building. We know that motivation comes from within the child and is not dependent on outward gimmicks. We have discovered that success comes quickly to children who are learning because they want to and not because they have to. And we know that children learn best when they are engaged in joyful, exciting, real activities. So, we cook, take care of goats and chickens, draw, paint, write poetry, make books, create original plays, and, almost incidentally, acquire basic academic skills(including computer literacy) in an atmosphere of work, play, and study. These programs include crafts, pottery and woodshop, music and dance, creative costume design and other sewing projects, science projects, history, cooking, geography, and several languages.

 

Older students participate in a wide range of apprenticeships with professionals and others in the city at large. Every spring these amazing kids raise the money themselves for a major trip, doing things like traveling around the United States or helping hurricane Hugo victims build a new septic system in a mountain village in Puerto Rico or reuning with friends at the annual National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools conferences. In the summer of 2002, they raised enough money to attend an international conference (IDEC) at an alternative school in New Zealand. Experiences like these help them to develop a sense of autonomy and competence. All of us have frequent opportunities to become well-acquainted with nature on the 250 acres of semi-wilderness land over which we have assumed custodial care in near-by Grafton, N.Y., where we walk in the woods, fish, swim, and even collect and boil down sap from the trees to make maple syrup.

 

We welcome visitors, whether as potential school families, as researchers into educational innovations, as educational doubters - or simply as curious observers. We need to be experienced to be understood, and allowing visitation to be unrestricted (at least so far!) has become part of our community's tradition. The children enjoy new people, readily assimilating them into their life experiences, and thereby enhancing their natural acceptance of the larger world "out there." And a few who originally came as skeptics or even to scoff, have remained to learn!

 

Truly, we are always "making it up as we go along" - which is the title of Chris Mercogliano's book about the school, published by Heinemann in 1998 (which you may read several reviews of by clicking here, read excerpts from by clicking on the Articles page, or order from Down-to-Earth Books by clicking here.

 

The school community also publishes a nationally acclaimed magazine: the Journal for Living, a Quarterly for Empowering Families (which can be ordered by clicking here - and has only recently (after fourteen years!) stopped publishing SKOLE, the Journal of Alternative Education, a quarterly which often shares the children's creative work with our subscribers, along with the writings and drawings of children from other places. Back issues of SKOLE can be purchased by clicking here.

 

So give us a call, (518) 434-3072, and come visit! OR, read Chris Mercogliano's concluding statement about the true significance of The Free School by clicking here. And to see what the first member of our second generation looks like, click here. She's a wonder.

Click here to view the second generation! 
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