When Mary Leue, our founder, asked
A.S. Neill what he thought of her idea of starting a free school
in the inner city, he responded with only one thought: "I would
think myself daft to try."
But Mary was used to doing things
her own way, and so try she did. She was determined to found a
school based on freedom and democratic principles that was
equally, if not more accessible to children of the
poor.
Thirty-two years later, the Albany
Free School is still going strong, comfortably housed in a 130
year-old parochial school building on a residential side street in
a racially and socioeconomically mixed downtown neighborhood in
the nation's oldest incorporated city.
Diversity remains one of our
hallmarks. Approximately half of the kids come from the inner
city, one-fourth from uptown neighborhoods, and the remainder from
outlying suburbs and towns.
The school operates by means of
sliding-scale tuition. No one is turned away for financial
reasons. Approximately eighty percent of the students are eligible
for a free or reduced price breakfast and lunch.
So, who are we?
Truth be told, we are a community
far more than a school - a safe, nurturing, open space where daily
fifty-five kids ages two through fourteen, eight full-time
teachers, a cook, a steady stream of interns, volunteers and
visitors, as well as myriad goats, chickens, rabbits, pet rats,
lizards and goldfish work, play, learn and eat together. Yes,
there are certain traditional school trappings: Some rooms have
desks and blackboards; there are lots of shelves with books and
teaching materials of all kinds in others; and throughout the
building there is a state of the art computer network, thanks to
Times Warner Cable and a very generous local business. In
addition, students are organized into homeroom groups more or less
by age in order for them to have a space to call their own and a
specific teacher to check in with during the day.
However, the resemblance to
"school" pretty much ends here. Noise overshadows quiet. Kids are
moving about constantly and play is rampant. We do not have a
curriculum, or any compulsory classes. Classroom sessions that do
take place are usually informal and last as long as the interest
holds.
There are not any tests or grades
either, because we have discovered by trial and error over the
years that learning happens best when it happens for its own sake.
Again and again, our experience has confirmed that a child's
innate desire to learn is a far more powerful motivating force
than any external reward - or threat.
For a long time our unofficial
motto has been: Never a dull moment, always a dull roar. But
perhaps we should also borrow the Stork Family School in the
Ukraine's motto, "First love, then teach." For we have always
placed the greatest emphasis on the fostering of loving, caring
relationships. Observant visitors frequently comment on how
closely connected the students seem, how carefully they look out
for each other. The visitors note the brightness in the kids'
eyes, the spontaneous joy, the natural exuberance. This is how
children appear who are secure in knowing they are loved, and who
are free at all times to return that love.
A companion motto would then be:
Trust children and they will learn. Because when you entrust kids
with their own so-called "education" - which is not a thing after
all, but rather an ever-present action - they will learn
continually, each in their own way and rhythm. There is absolutely
no need to push and prod and fret over when a given child will
master reading, the mainstream dictum notwithstanding. Children
who truly possess the responsibility for their own learning always
handle that responsibility in a sensible and mature fashion. Adult
fear and anxiety - oh so understandable in these days of
heightened hype over standards - only slow the process
down.
The same can be said for children
and their behavior. Expect them to act responsibly and they
usually will. This is why we don't monitor and manage our
students. Instead, they learn to manage themselves. Urgent
problems are dealt with on an ad hoc basis in student-led council
meetings, which anyone can call at any time. The meetings are run
by Robert's Rules of Order and afford the opportunity to explore
matters in great depth if necessary. When the issue is an
interpersonal conflict, the meeting becomes a supportive circle
where real emotional healing takes place. We pay a lot of
attention to the emotional lives of children because, as Joseph
Chilton Pearce once said, "Address the heart and the head will
follow."
Meanwhile, here students share the
responsibility with teachers for school policy and planning
through the weekly all-school meeting, where students and teachers
have an equal vote. Between council and all-school meetings, Free
Schoolers quickly become fluent with the ins and outs of real
participatory democracy.
Visitors frequently ask what a
typical day at the Free School looks like. We can only shrug and
say that an accurate answer would require describing 165 - the
number of days in an average school year. Each day unfolds
organically according to people's moods and interests, to the
season and the weather, and to local and even world events. We
reserve the right to make plans quite spontaneously. For instance,
one morning this past year the preschool instantly mobilized a
trip to a nature preserve when a three-year-old asked if he could
go and search for the painted turtle he had found there six months
previously. Or another time the whole school dropped what it was
doing when we learned that public high schoolers from all over the
state were marching on the State Education Department to demand an
end to high stakes testing. We hurriedly walked the ten blocks
across downtown to join in on the protest.
This isn't to say that there aren't
plenty of ongoing, focused activities and projects, too. On any
given day students might be found writing poetry and short
stories, creating books, magazines and works of art, rehearsing
and performing plays, or learning French or algebra. There are
daily reading and math classes for kids who choose to tackle their
basic skills in a more orderly, directed way, and also classes in
areas like history and science depending on student
interest.
Though we are by no means a special
school for problem children, we frequently serve as a safety net
for children who have been falling through the cracks of the
conventional education system. At any given time, approximately
half of our students are referrals from the public and parochial
schools. Our reputation with students that are struggling
academically and/or behaviorally, and whose needs the system has
failed to meet, is such that an increasing number of kids are
coming to us having previously been tagged with labels like ADHD
and placed on Ritalin and other biopsychiatric medications. Their
parents seek us out because they're concerned about the side
effects of the drugs and because they've heard that we work
effectively with these children without drugs of any kind. Our
active, flexible, individually structured environment renders the
drugs entirely unnecessary.
Part of the reason we are so
successful with students in crisis is that we neither segregate
them away from, nor place them in competition against their peers.
Instead, we invest faith in their integrity and ability, as well
as place them in a position of responsibility for themselves and
the school as a whole - all the while paying close attention to
their emotional development. Students who come to us essentially
for refuge and repair leave us able to make a successful return to
the conventional settings from whence they came - even after
spending as little as a year here.
Another hallmark of the school is
its permeability. There are frequent exchanges between the school
and the surrounding city, which we utilize as a "classroom" on
nearly a daily basis. Older students participate in a wide-ranging
apprenticeship program. They have worked alongside area artists,
veterinarians, actors, attorneys, carpenters, dancers, models,
midwives, archaeologists, magicians, chefs, computer programmers,
and even pilots - the sky is literally the limit. They also seek
out community service opportunities, volunteering at places like
food banks, soup kitchens and infant day care centers. Some
students become active in local environmental and preservation
issues as well.
In the spring of each year Free
School seniors, meaning the seventh and eighth graders, undertake
a major trip - to places sometimes as far away as Spain and Puerto
Rico. The experience represents a rite of passage for them, not
only because they have to cope with being far from home in
unfamiliar surroundings for an extended period, but also because
they have to figure out how to raise all of the funds themselves.
It is no small challenge for a group of eight to ten twelve,
thirteen and fourteen year-olds, many of whom are from low-income
families, to bring in five to ten thousand dollars to cover their
travel expenses.
There are a couple of other
distinctive features to the school: We operate a small organic
farm on the block, where students learn the basics of animal
husbandry, composting, and growing flowers, herbs and vegetables.
Additionally, we now own two tracts of land about twenty-five
miles northeast of Albany, where students go for day trips and
extended stays. One site, known as Rainbow Camp, is a rambling
former inn set on a small lake. Here we fish, swim, boat, take
long walks in the woods, and spend overnights. The second site
consists of an old farmhouse, barn and 250 acres of mostly
forested land that was given to us in 1995, where we are in the
process of developing a satellite program for environmental study
and wilderness activities. There we have already completed a
twenty-four foot in diameter octagonal "teaching lodge," as well
as a high and low ropes course, both set deep in the forest. A
small-scale maple sugaring operation is also underway. Once or
twice each year we invite groups from the neighboring public
schools to join us for ropes course, orienteering and nature
workshops, with plans to expand this connection in the
future.
Thus we continue on into our fourth
decade, the growth of the school continuing to be guided by an
unpredictable blend of mission and serendipity. Visitors are
welcome throughout the year. We only ask that they please contact
us and make arrangements in advance.
Click here
for another version of Chris' statement, with some great images of
kids!