Something there is that doesn't love a wall

Guest contributor Laurie Filipelli is on a mission to help writers of all ages transform their experiences into meaningful poems and personal narratives—and mightily crafted college application essays. She holds an M.F.A in Poetry and an M.A. in English and has taught high school, college, and pedagogical courses. Laurie is the author of two books of poems—Girl Paper Stone (Black Lawrence Press, 2018) and Elseplace (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2013)—as well as the Mighty Writing College Application Essay Guide, in collaboration with Irena Smith, Ph.D. Her weeklong Kids with Pens poetry summer camp will take place July 20–24 and is now open for registration.

It’s happened to most of us at one time or another: you return to a cherished place after an absence—maybe a weekend, maybe years—and you find something irrevocably changed. The place no longer feels like the place you knew; a line is drawn between before and after.

After winter break, my daughter and I went back to her school and found a new chain-link fence. Given the age in which we live, this is not a surprise. People want to feel safer, and this feeling, some psychologists (and fence makers) tell us, is achieved with a strong perimeter. If we know our boundaries, we can flourish. 

As a poet, it is hard to believe this is true. Our writing may benefit from the limits of form, but it is the breaking of barriers that gives words life. We use repetition so we can augment variation. We limit our imagistic palette so that the brightest colors shine through. The impositions of an artist are self-imposed, not stifling. The most meaningful work requires not safety, but risk.

My daughter and her friend walked along the fence, gathering old balls, lots of sticks, and a busted pick-up/drop-off sign. Near the soccer goal, they erected a shrine, topping it off with a placard of painted wood on which they wrote a dedication to a time “before the fence.”

Weeks later on the playground, I couldn’t help but quote Robert Frost’s ‘Mending Wall” to a friend, not the oft misused part about good fences and good neighbors, but the part that sums up the steady work of nature in the face of artificial boundaries. Something there is that doesn't love a wall. The shrine by now had long been disassembled (the placard, serendipitously, found a home on a loving parent’s Twitter feed), but the fence itself was adorned with muddied sweatshirts. I watched with pleasure as a kid who’d mastered the art of tree climbing attempted to hurl himself over.

In our fenced-in world, it takes effort to make mischief, and imagination to move beyond our fears and longings for the past. We can’t remove most fences, but we can ask ourselves, as Frost asks in his poem, what “we’re walling in and walling out.” We can chip away at boundaries in our own minds, and, with some effort, even learn to climb.


Laurie Filipelli

Austin's Abrome joins Flying Squads as a collaborator

We are pleased to republish this thought-provoking piece by Antonio Buehler, which originally appeared on the Flying Squads blog. Antonio is, among other things, a co-founder, adult learner, and facilitator at Abrome.

Abrome is a Self-Directed Education (SDE) community in Austin, Texas, that is now in its fourth year. As Facilitators (adult staff members), we regularly critique our approach to interacting with Learners and building community, as well as how the culture of Abrome is evolving. It was through this process, for example, that we recognized the benefits of working more closely with Agile Learning Centers. Attending their trainings and bringing some of their tools and practices into our community helped us improve our skills as Facilitators and enabled us to better cultivate and protect an inclusive, non-oppressive culture that was building within our growing community. 

However, we still face a variety of challenges that many other Self-Directed Education communities struggle with. For example, accessibility will always be a challenge due to an absence of public funding. We also have limited diversity (e.g., race, nationality, religion) in a society that insists that only those with privilege can risk opting out of oppressive systems. And of course, our so-called radical belief that young people should be treated as people and not coerced for their own good is just a bridge too far for most families. Another challenge that we had not previously considered was that Abrome Learners were not in the world in the ways that free people should be able to be in the world. 

What we saw as freedom to do whatever the Learners wanted to do at Abrome, we eventually realized was freedom that was severely restricted by time and place. Abrome is not in the urban center of Austin, and public transportation does not extend to our neighborhood (intentionally so, unfortunately, thanks to lawmakers). Our Learners cannot easily walk to a library, museums, or busy intersections where people from all segments of society come into contact with one another. And even though we frequently organized outings to go to the library, visit museums, or go into the city for any other reason, we were doing so with a destination and goal in mind that resulted in time-restricted outings—we did not allocate time for exploration, evolving interests, or emergent possibilities. So while they are free at Abrome in ways that schooled children are not, Abrome Learners were still missing out on leveraging that freedom in ways that would allow them to better develop their understanding of themselves as members of a broader society and as individuals who could influence that society. 

We decided that we would experiment with an unstructured day in the city that would give them the opportunity to assert their right to exist as full people in a city that does not fully honor young people, and allow their day to unfold in ways that were not limited by the Facilitators’ feelings of needing to transport the Learners back to our physical home base. 

I wrote the following letter to parents October 6, 2019:

While we love our planned outings we recognize that they have been limiting to the Learners because we typically have a goal to go somewhere and do something specific and time bounded, and then when it is over we come back to Abrome. We are concerned that the Learners are not being given the opportunity to simply exist in the city where they can allow their plans to evolve emergently based on the combined interests of the group. Further, we want to continually push back against the notion that learning is confined to any given space, that learning objectives must be clearly defined, or that children and adolescents should not exist in public spaces during the day. We brought this up as an awareness at Friday’s Check-in and Change-up and we decided that we would experiment with an unstructured full-day outing in Austin on Thursday. The idea is that we go into or meet at a location in Austin, and then check in with the Learners and Facilitators to see how they want to collectively spend their time that day. . . . If this practice goes well we anticipate doing this once per week.

Jennifer was the Facilitator who joined four adolescent Learners on that first “Get Lost Day,” and it went fabulously well. We decided as a community that we would continue with our Get Lost Days, which have been a wonderful change of pace for older and younger Learners. These days have stretched us in terms of finding consensus and building community outside of our physical space and away from the tools that we regularly use at our physical home base. 

Soon after starting our Get Lost Days, we learned about Flying Squads. Similar to our experience finding Agile Learning Centers, we found that our beliefs and intentions lined up very well with what Flying Squads was doing. I was particularly moved by this statement on their homepage:

Even in the most caring of school and homeschooling coop spaces, a definitive line is drawn on where children learn and what space and materials are and are not for them. By intentionally not using a learning space or having predetermined tools and materials, Flying Squad participants learn the important value of abolishing these distinctions as the young people involved interact with the world outside on a regular basis, carving out a space for themselves in their city. And as they do so, they learn perhaps one of life’s most important lessons: how to find self-identity while caring for and developing a community with others.

An added bonus was that I already knew Alex (Brooklyn) and Bria (Portland) from their work advocating for children and Self-Directed Education, and I respected them greatly. After jumping on a call with them and discussing it with the other Abrome Facilitators, we decided that we would use Abrome as a vehicle for growing Flying Squads as the next step to extending greater freedom to participating young people, and in turn, helping to move society so that it begins to tolerate (and eventually embrace) free young people as full members of that society. Like the other projects, Austin Flying Squads will be operating two days per week, with one day more focused on learning through play, and the other day more focused on social justice and youth rights. We are excited to collaborate with the other Flying Squads, and we will be sharing some of our experiences and observations on the Flying Squads blog.

Taking up space is a political act

Navigating the city

Younger Learners searching nooks and crannies at a local bookstore

Antonio Buehler

Happy Birthday, Clearview!

Guest contributor Bruce Smith is a staff member at Austin’s Clearview Sudbury School. A former high school teacher with degrees in English, history, and education, Bruce co-founded the first Sudbury school in Illinois. He also staffed at Alpine Valley School in Colorado for fifteen years and is the founder and president of Friends of Sudbury Schooling. On the blog today he celebrates an important milestone in Clearview history.

Around here, people’s birthdays are kind of a big deal — especially when someone turns 10 (“Double digits!”). Well, when the school you brought into the world hits the same mark, that feels like a really big deal, too.

On November 9, 2009, Clearview Sudbury School opened with four students in two rooms rented from Genesis Presbyterian Church. Now, ten years later, 35 students enjoy nine rooms at the same location. That in itself speaks volumes for what we’ve learned about nurturing relationships and staying true to the Sudbury model of self-directed, democratic schooling. Thanks to our families and staff, as well as our friends at the church, we’re not only surviving but thriving.

Here are a few tidbits of what ten years have brought us:

• We’re the oldest existing/longest running Sudbury school in Texas.

• A total of 114 students have enrolled at Clearview, and we’ve employed ten staff members.

• One of our first-year students is still here, and nine current students have been enrolled at least six years.

• Tuition has gone up only $2,000 since 2009 (with minimum annual tuition now at $1,600), underscoring our commitment to making a Sudbury education as affordable as possible.

• We’ve brought internationally famous writer, researcher, and self-directed education advocate Peter Gray to Austin three times. (Good links to Peter’s work include his Psychology Today blog and his book Free to Learn.)

• Students and staff from more than half a dozen other Sudbury schools have visited Clearview.

• Clearview staff have attended Sudbury conferences in Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York.

• We’ve had five graduates in the past ten years.

To celebrate our big birthday this past November, we hosted an event with Jim Rietmulder, co-founder and staff since 1984 at The Circle School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on November 15th. Please check out the YouTube videos of Jim’s talk, and consider buying a copy of his great new book, When Kids Rule the School.

Whether it’s our regular potlucks, our annual family camping trip, or just the spontaneous fun, intense interactions and deep play of daily school life, there’s always lots going on at Clearview. But don’t just take our word for it — below you’ll find the perspective of a long-time teacher and administrator who visited us last Spring.

Happy 10th Birthday, Clearview Sudbury School!

Thank you for your invitation to visit Clearview. When we spoke about the Sudbury model several weeks ago, you really piqued my interest. From the vantage point of an educator/administrator in public education for nearly 25 years, I dove into the history and researched many stories, explanations, and testimonials on this educational framework. I must admit, I found it delightful to read about how children were free to learn at their own pace and investigate based on their own interests. However, I couldn’t wait to see it in action because I truly couldn’t imagine what children would do, if left on their own, to manage their time and learning experiences.

As I visited your campus, I saw exactly what I expected to see. Some children playing video games, some climbing trees, some reading, some doing art and writing, some visiting, some on computers, and some eating. I visited with one of the children who explained to me how she felt confident about knowing how to make good choices and how to respect others. I spoke with an adult on campus who attended a Sudbury school in California. Her story intrigued me as I listened to how she was able to navigate college and make solid decisions about her future.

Perhaps the most impressive part of my visit was listening in on the Judicial Committee. This was the moment I said, “I’m impressed!” There’s a huge push in public education to bring children to a place of higher-order thinking. Many programs and methods are used. Teachers are trained in techniques and design to promote deep thinking in their classrooms. What I saw in the Judicial Committee demonstrated so much more than a scripted or contrived lesson. Children were settling their personal disputes with authentic, natural consequences with little assistance from the adults on campus. The adults that were interjecting modeled perfectly how to carefully choose words for the written record and listened respectfully to children as they decided how best to maintain order in their school. The conversations were rich, vocabulary was robust, and social skills laced with respect and reasoning skills were at an all-time high.

The result of what children are experiencing at Clearview Sudbury School tells me what I wondered as I did my homework prior to my visit. While it may seem unconventional to some, it seems so natural to the children on campus. No one is testing to see if everyone is on track. Everyone feels supported. Best of all, these children have not been robbed of their curiosity by years of sitting in rows completing worksheets. I loved it!

I was pleasantly surprised to see what I saw at Clearview Sudbury School. Thank you for broadening my horizons!! Can’t wait to see what the future holds for your students and Clearview Sudbury School. Keep up the great work!!

Bruce Smith

Join us at the Festival of Learning 2019!

Looking for something fun, informative, and FREE to do with the kids this weekend? Head over to the historic Browning Hangar in the Mueller neighborhood on Saturday between 10am and 1pm for Alt Ed Austin’s second annual Festival of Learning! There will be activities for children, performances by talented teens, and loads of empowering information for parents and other lifelong learners.

With 30 unusual schools, preschools, enrichment programs, and adult learning opportunities on display, there’s something for everyone. You’ll have a chance to learn about many different learner-centered approaches to education, and you’ll meet some of the most creative, effective, and beloved educators around. Check out the official Festival webpage, where you’ll find a list of participating programs.

Visit our Facebook Event page to let us know you’re coming and share the news with friends. We’ll also be posting previews and updates there and on Instagram. And here’s a short and sweet promo video created in one day by the Marketing Immersive students at the Academy of Thought and Industry, featuring some scenes from alt ed programs here in Austin:

Rest assured, the show will go on rain or shine, as we’ll be protected under that big ol’ roof. And don’t go away hungry or thirsty; there’s plenty to eat and drink right across the parking lot at the Mueller Trailer Eats food park.

When you arrive on Saturday, look for me at the Alt Ed Austin booth, front and center. I'd be happy to answer your questions, help you find the programs of most interest to your family, and guide your kids to fun, hands-on activities they’ll love. I look forward to meeting you and helping you find the right fit for your kid—or you!

Teri

The IB approach to education

We invited Eleanor Mitchell to explain what the increasingly popular International Baccalaureate (IB) model of education is all about. As the Deputy Head of School and IB-PYP Coordinator at the International School of Texas, Eleanor knows her stuff, and her overview in this guest post will be helpful to anyone interested in nontraditional schooling.


Think back for a moment to your experiences of school. What were those days like for you? Do you hold fond memories of your time? Or perhaps they were not times that you reflect upon positively. However you feel about your primary school experiences, I would like you to consider how well they prepared you for your life ahead.

More than ever before, as educators, we are preparing children for a vastly changing and unknown future. Technological advancements, the changing face of the workplace, simmering political tensions, and scientific progression all contribute to an ever-changing expectation of what and who our students will become. The bottom line is that we do not know who they will become or what options will be available to them at that time; therefore, we must formulate an educational path for them that produces highly adaptable and capable adults, ready for whatever life has in store.

Traditional and conventional methods of education are rendering themselves obsolete in preparing children for the challenges that lie ahead: their schooling, career paths, and life experiences. As the world’s expectations and “goal posts” shift, so too must education’s responsibility to prepare children for future life. Rote learning, fact-based studies, sterile classroom environments, educators regurgitating curricula to impassive students, and pressurized, assessment-driven studies are counter-intuitive to this aim.

An IB education seeks to offer a solution.

The aim of all IB programmes is to develop internationally minded people who, recognizing their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help to create a better and more peaceful world.
—International Baccalaureate Organization, 2013

It is a holistic and inquiry-based approach to learning, founded within a philosophy of creativity, imagination, and independence. Through inquiry, action, and reflection, the programme aims to develop students’ abilities to think, self-manage, research, communicate, and collaborate effectively and efficiently. An IB education seeks to guide and nurture students toward being knowledgeable, conscientious, proactive, and free-thinking citizens who are globally aware and culturally tolerant.

Through “units of inquiry,” an IB student’s studies fall within 6 themes, which transcend the conventional boundaries of discrete, individually taught, subject areas. These themes—Who We Are, Where We Are in Place and Time, How We Organize Ourselves, How the World Works, How We Express Ourselves, and Sharing the Planet—encourage students to delve deeper, become immersed in their areas of focus, and make connections between their learning and the real world around them. Traditional subject areas are immersed within each of these themes, so that students can see the interconnectivity of everything that they are learning.

In addition, a large focus is placed on the pastoral, social, and emotional development of students, with the understanding that by acquiring and effectively applying the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, students will be able to set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

In a world of unknowns, an IB education creates students who are ready, confident, and able. IB students are motivated, globally minded, and socially conscious citizens, primed and inspired to take thoughtful action for the betterment of the world around them. They are the leaders and learners of tomorrow, and I know that they will be the ones who will make a positive difference in the world in the years to come.

Eleanor Mitchell

Why we love to play

​“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” —Fred Rogers

Morna Harnden’s guest post below beautifully explains the importance of play to early childhood development and learning. Morna directs Austin Children’s Garden, which offers preschool programs as well as homeschool classes in South Austin.

This summer I had the absolute delight of volunteering in Teacher Tom's classroom at the Woodland Park Cooperative School in Seattle, Washington. Teacher Tom has long been one of my early childhood heroes (he even wears a cape!) through his insightful blog Teacher Tom and various trainings he has led with the Pedagogy of Play conference.

I wish the majority of parents and educators already understood the huge value of a play-based curriculum, but as the co-founder and co-teacher at Austin Children's Garden (an experiential and play-based learning community), I regularly find myself defending children's play to adults who are concerned about their child's education by explaining how and why we learn through play. As Teacher Tom says, “The idea that play is the opposite of learning is just too well embedded in our collective psyche.”

Questions that often come up are:

• So, what does a “play-based curriculum” even mean?

• Does that mean the children just play all day with no structure or learning? How will they transition to traditional school?

• What is my child actually learning when they play?

After spending my childhood attending various Montessori, Steiner, and Democratic schools in the 1970s and 1980s (thanks Mom and Dad!), I have devoted my adult life to understanding early childhood growth and development (birth through age 8) from an integrated and holistic perspective. I am fascinated with how children learn and feel grateful for the calling to co-create the most healthy and joyful learning environment I can with the local community around me, as well as the global community of inspiring educators around the world.

“We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions—if they have any—and helping them to explore the things they are most interested in.” —John Holt

Having been an educator in many types of schools, there are a few principles that I have seen as integral in supporting young children's growth and learning across the board:

• Longer stretches of time with the freedom to play, explore, and discover in a natural yet stimulating learning environment that engages all the senses, alternated with an offering of shorter segments of meaningful hands-on, experiential projects that foster new skills and encourage mastery.

• A small group size of mixed-age children, more like an extended family than a large classroom, to play with and learn together.

• Fun, inspired, and loving adults who focus on empowering the child with inquiry-based learning, modeling self-regulation tools, and creating a physically and emotionally safe environment.

• Ample outdoor play and exploration that allows nature to be a powerful learning experience filled with wonder and reverence.

• Open-ended and natural play materials that encourage creative imagination and the discovery of innovative solutions.

• Open-ended, process-based art and creative activities that are set up as an invitation to explore and express.

• Predictable rhythms through the day, week, and year that create a natural structure and provide security with a sense of the interrelationships and wholeness of life.

All of these principles can be woven together to create a strong foundation and love of learning in a healthy, balanced, and experiential play-based environment. There is argument among some educators that to be truly play-based there would be no adult-guided projects. However, in my experience, as long as they are offered as a creative invitation with freedom of choice rather than a demand for every child to sit down and perform an activity only in the way the teacher dictates, and when these guided activities are sandwiched with longer times of free play, then meaningful hands-on projects are a wonderful inclusion in a play-based curriculum!

“Play is the highest form of research.” —Albert Einstein

One of the most fascinating aspects of children's play I have observed is how much they are naturally learning about language, reading, math, science, culture, social skills, and more. I encourage parents to read the research about all the educational benefits and the foundation for healthy learning that play provides, from Harvard University to the high academic performance of play-based schools in Finland, to the most current studies by the NAEYC. All of this is important information, but as an educator and parent myself, what I am most inspired by is the growth and development of the whole child, not the ability to regurgitate information and perform on current academic testing methods.

Children are born to learn. The human experience is designed to learn about life in a natural unfolding rather than a rote exposure to dry activities that lack a sense of meaning or connection to them. Children love to play because it’s fun and it feels natural to them! Play is their true state of flow. When children are allowed ample time to play, they intrinsically make the connection that learning is fun, they discover what truly makes their hearts sing, and they develop the power and inspiration to follow their bliss.

“Creative people are curious, flexible, and independent with a tremendous spirit of adventure and a love of play.” —Henri Matisse

It’s an exciting time for education! Old paradigms are shifting. To be a part of this positive shift for whole-child education, here are a few ideas for parents of young children to consider:

• Ask your child’s school how much time your child spends in free play a day. Many schools claim to be play-based but often only provide 30 minutes of outside play and/or 30 minutes of guided indoor play. Children thrive with hours of play! Advocate for more free play and more outside play. Create parent alliances in your schools and make your preferences clear to the teachers and administration as well as the local and national government.

• Do the research and trust that you are giving your child the best opportunity possible by allowing them the opportunity to spend hours every day in play.

• Support children’s outside play—host backyard play dates, spend the day in the woods, get friends together and go camping, check out so many of our awesome local programs like the Free Forest School and Earth Native Wilderness School to supplement more play in nature.

• Limit or eliminate screen time and observe the quality of play that arises when ample time and space allow for it.

• Provide open-ended toys like blocks, silk scarves, magna-tiles, simple figures, and natural objects like sand, shells, and pinecones that allow children to use their creative imagination.

“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.” —Abraham Maslow

Teacher Tom says it beautifully; “I invite you to imagine for a moment” schools “in which children are free to discover and pursue their passions while marinated in community. Imagine that transformation, then imagine how all those free and motivated minds will transform their world.”

In the alternative education community of Austin, this transformation is a reality, with a growing number of holistic and experiential play-based learning environments. It is a profound honor to be a part of that transformation and the lives of the thriving children in our community.
​

To learn more about the benefits of play and how parents can play with their children to help develop their brains, bodies, and hearts, please come to our free talk by play therapist and parent educator Chelsea Vail before our Open House at Austin Children’s Garden on November 16th at 1pm.

Morna Harnden