St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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FREE SGHOOLS A Time for Cando1 34 F.. the past six years free schools have almost been pets of the media. Too little of this coverage, however, has focused on the deep and often overwhelming problems that confront some of these schools: the terrible anguish about power and the paralyzing inhibition about the functions of the teacher. . . It is time for us to come right out and make some straightforward statements on the misleading and deceptive character of certain slogans that are now unthinkingly received as gospel. It is just not true that the best teacher is the one who most successfully pretends that he knows nothing. Nor is it true that the best answer to the blustering windbag of the old-time public school is the free-school teacher who attempts to turn himself into a human inductive fan. . . The challenge ... is to define ourselves with absolutely implacable precision—and to do so even in the face of economic danger, even in the certain knowledge of the loss of possible allies. “This is what we are like, and this is the kind of place that we are going to create. This is the kind of thing we mean by freedom, and this is the sort of thing we have in mind by words like ‘teach’ and ‘learn.’ This is the sort of thing we mean by competence, effectiveness, survival. If you like it, join us. If you don’t, go someplace else and start a good school of your own.” Such precision and directness are often the rarest commodities within free schools. Too many of us are frightened of the accusation of being headstrong, tough, authoritarian, and, resultingly, we have tried too hard to be all things to all potential friends. . . The issue comes into focus in the choice of teachers and in the substance of curriculum. In an effort to avoid the standard brand of classroom tyranny that is identified so often with the domi- neering figure of the professional in the public system, innovative free-school teachers often make the grave mistake of n ducing themselves to ethical and pedagogic: neuters. The teacher too often takes the rol of one who has no power: The myth of this familiar pretense | that the teacher, by concealing his ow views, can avoid making his influence felti the classroom. This is not the case. N teacher, no matter what he does or does no say, Can ever manage not to advertise hi biases to the children. A teacher “teaches” not only or evel primarily by what he says. At least in part he teaches by what he is, by what he does by what he seems to wish to be... It is particularly disabling when a stron, and serious free school begun by parents 0 poor children in an urban situation find itself bombarded by young teachers wh« adhere without restraint or self-examinatior to these values. Not only does such behavioi advertise gutlessness and weakness to the children, it also represents a good deal o! deception and direct bamboozlement. The willingness of the highly skilled white teacher to blur and disguise his owr effectiveness and to behave as if he were less competent and effective than he really is provides the basis for a false democracy between himself and the young poor children he works with. The children, in all honesty, can’t do nothing. The young man from Princeton only acts as if he can’t. The consequence of this is a spurious level of egalitarian experience from which one party is always able to escape, but from which the other has no realistic exit. [ believe, for these reasons, in the kind of free school in which adults do not try to seem less vigorous or effective than they are. I believe in a school in which real power, leverage, and at least a certain degree of undisguised adult direction are not viewed with automatic condescension or disdain. | believe in a school in which the teacher does not strive to simulate the status or condition of either an accidental “resource-person,” wandering mystic, or movable reading lab, but comes right out, in full view of the

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‘neifist views with political and sometines Mientific ostracization. After the war “'ppenheimer spent ten years as a rancher in ‘blorado before returning to the classroom I d the laboratory. He came to San Hancisco in 1968 to put together the ‘xploratorium as a science museum at the | ’s Palace of Fine Arts—a forbidding U ezoleum that was erected in 1919. The side of the structure has hardly been ‘juched since it was a garage for army trucks ring the war... It is essential to the Exploratorium’s rpose that visitors can experiment and play” with the exhibits. Oppenheimer imself is concerned that the knowledge gap ptween scientists and nonscientists is icreasing. Most science museums, he says, ‘prify the past and the present but do little | make the wonders of science accessible to ue general public. In fact, Oppenheimer lieves that places like the Exploratorium ‘‘Yntaged” children with the rich environ- ‘‘Jent they need in order to escape the jstrictions of city life and to begin the jocess of discovery. This kind of compensa- ‘Jom or on TV. Trying to open the world to ‘“Vildren without authentic props is like | The Exploratorium has big plans for the ture. They include 800 new exhibits, | pansion into biological and other sciences, “id a library of portable exhibits that students could take to school and share with their classmates. But already, using only natural phenomena, Oppenheimer and his staff have created an experience that bends the mind in a way that few institutions can match. And turning kids on is, after all, what good teaching is all about. K.C. Cole, October 14, 1972. Copyright, Saturday Review, Inc. “Teaching science in a classroom takes the speculation and imagination out of learning. There's always a right and a wrong answer. Actually, scientists base what they do largely on esthetics. Frank Oppenheimer Exploratorium director 33

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SS i ‘hildren, with all of the richness, humor, “ Jesperation, rage, self-contradiction, “trength, and pathos that he would reveal to ther grownups . . . “)) In the face of many intelligent and ; Jespected statements on the subject’ of . “spontaneous” and “ecstatic” education, the 4 mple truth is that you do not learn | ‘alculus, biochemistry, physics, Latin -ammar, mathematical logic, Constitutional jiw, brain surgery, or hydraulic engineering ‘1 the same organic fashion that you learn to | valk and talk and breathe and make love. Tonths and years of long, involved, and—let 4 s be quite honest—sometimes nonutopian ‘ibor in the acquisition of a single unit of : ‘omplex and intricate knowledge go into the xpertise that makes for power in this vation. The poor and black cannot survive “ne technological nightmare of next ten ella | ears if they do not have this expertise. oe There is no more terrifying evidence of : nae culf of race and class that now separates ‘ppressor and oppressed within this nation aan that so many of those people who are Ich and strong should toil with all their Heart to simulate the hesitation, stammer, I awkward indirection of impotence, hile blacks in Roxbury, in Harlem, and in vast St. Louis must labor with all their soul win one-tenth of the real effectiveness ) jnat those white people conspire to deny. If Jhere is a need for some men and women to ‘ontinue in that manner of existence and hat frame of mind, and if it is a need that annot be transcended, then let there be two jery different kinds of free schools and two ery different kinds of human ‘ ransformation and human struggle. But, at )“ yeast within the urban free schools that we ‘ }uild and labor to sustain, let us be willing Jo say who we are and what we think and ie there we stand, and let us also say what wi Ihings we do not want. ce Those who fear power in themselves lear it still more in those whom they select ll) ly lead them... and boring people. Fear of power places a premium on mediocrity, nonvital leadership, insipid character, and unremarkable life-style. An organization, of whatever kind, that identifies real excellence, effectiveness, or compelling life-style with the terrifying risk of despotism and authoritarian manipulation will, little by little, drive away all interesting, brilliant, and exhilarating people and will establish in their stead norms of command mediocrity. The label reserved for those who do not learn to respect these norms is ““ego-tripper.”” Without question, there is a need for realistic caution, but not The perfect way to avoid an ego trip is to create a community of utterly alienated, dull, Free schools must separate -| the fear of domination from the fear of excellence. every straightforward, unequivocal statement of position can be construed as an instance. of ego-tripping. The perfect way to avoid an ego trip, of course, is to create a community of utterly alienated, dull, and boring people. There is no risk of ego-tripping if there is no ego. But there isn’t any life or strength or truth or passion either. Free schools, if they wish to stay alive and vital, must learn to separate the fear of domination from the fear of excellence. Jonathan Kozol, March 4, 1972 Copyright, Saturday Review, Inc. 35