No, really, I am. Working with all these unfettered and free as lamb's butt kids I end up admiring their hutzpah, grace and wide openness and lamenting my own broken adult stupid/borningness, like, why can't I spend all day in a cloud of blissful immersion, churning out endless tisse paper snowflakes? What's
wrong with me?
It's not like I don't think that, for the most part, kids
really are clearer, happier and more connected to the good juju than a huge percentage of adults, I do, but I don't think they can help it: they've been around less, had less time on earth to be hammered with weirdy ideas and, the big kicker, especially for lots of kids who get to go to a Sudbury/Free School, they've got parents who aren't trying to shoehorn them into becoming Mini-Me's. These lucky ducky kids got seeker parents, those whose contrast in their own childhoods caused them to send out rockets of desire to become truly great, allowing parents. These folks (often become teachers at Sudbury/Free Schools) all lost their way, got talked off their horses a thousand times, had to build the bridge while others kept blowing it up, until they finally discovered bridges that were inherently sound and could not be destroyed, ones built of truth, understanding and love, and so they learned to walk their own genuine life paths even when no one else thought that was even a little bit cool, and became capable of allowing others even when they don't agree or understand it. I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the Revolutionary War when freedom was really in the news, I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will die for your right to say it. Okay, melodrama, I know, but I love the genuinely free space created with this melodramatic gesture.
And there's another piece. Life has caused me to become more, not more than a snowflake maker, just more. I've spent time on earth, deeply and wildly immersed in many many play places and have evolved my preferences accordingly, so while Hhannah hits snowflake making for the first time and cannot stop, each time she opens one, she's opening a magic, I'm at a different place with snowflakes. She still can't believe that a cut here or there has such exponential power. She must have made two hundred snowflakes, snip, snip, fold and unfold, her sense of revelation and wonder enormous. And while I'm still surprised and pleased, my joyful focus is a little different. I love watching the kids unfold in the making; on Thursday, Hhannah was my snowflake. I love being alone for a moment with scissors and paper and infinite possibility. I loved being part of a team hellbent on turning the school into a wonderland.
Abe says it best:
The nonphysical part of you has become that expanded Being living that better experience. It is neither necessary nor possible for you to backtrack to a former physical perspective. Life has caused you to move on. And, most important, that expanded version of you is calling you; and if you will listen, a well-lighted and easy-to-navigate path will appear before you. (p.131 The Vortex)
I love how the school is often a portal through which I glimpse pieces of that well-lighted path. There are days, as a staff and parent, that I'm a bit uneasy when I notice how far off the beaten path of education (whatever that is) we free schools are. It's usually when I see a parent or new teacher trying to make sense of the situation, desperately struggling to quantify this journey, and feeling like seeing a kid do fractions would help them calm down. They can
feel, intrinsically, that there is great value to a space that allows children to naturally wend their way through life on their own terms, yet they struggle to stay in that feeling good place because it requires so much trust in the process, and trust in the inherent nature of humans, which is to keep growing.
And so, while I will always be a bit jealous of children, with their verve, ladybug obsessions, clarity of vision, willingness and ability to play at the drop of a hat, I also have to admire a group of people who have
intentionally chosen this, who are able, despite great pressure from mainstream culture, to so fully trust each human's innate capacity to know what they need and to line up with it. So our work as teachers is often to remain clear and available for the kind of trusting that faciliates a truly free environment where learning occurs, as well as connection, and breathing, and unraveling and insight-discovering and laughing and dreaming and thanking. Which reminds me, thank you Free Teacher People, not just for being big (enough to allow the children you work with genuine freedom), but for first remembering how to allow YOU, and for speaking in the language of freedom, your native tongue.
For all of you staying in the states, a new endeavor is opening June 1st, called Free Range Katuah, which keeps the basic premise of the Sudbury model, with kids being free to choose their own experiences, and all decisions being made democratically. Some of the ways in which this is different from Sudbury schools is that it doesn't wait for kids to ask to offer learning experiences and so there will be a full roster of local learning experiences available to the students. There will also be a school currency that will allow more flexibilty for families and is a way to value the full range of resources, not just the financial ones. There will be shared meals and clean up. For more information on this new endeavor, please email Mary Ellen at maryellenphillips@ yahoo.com.
