Tallahassee and the Grassroots Free School

Also in January I had the opportunity to visit the Grassroots Free School in Tallahassee, and spend some time speaking with Pat Seary, the school's founder. Never heard of the Grassroots Free School? It has been in operation in Tallahassee for 37 years!!!

The school is situated on the land of an intentional community(Grassroots Community), just a jog outside Tallahassee. They have quite a bit of space, on which they've situated two reclaimed/transplanted buildings (one an old black church) a huge playground with homemade structures and half buried tires, a garden and fruit/vegetable stand and a large open space for play.




Pat has provided tremendous foundational support for the school over the years. Before opening the school, he traveled to Summerhill to visit with A.S. Neill and learned about the operation of a free school firsthand. He allowed homeschooling families in Florida to indicate enrollment in Grassroots to protect them from the Compulsory Attendance law before they gained the legal right to homeschool in the 1980s. He has coaxed his spirit to jump through every bureaucratic hoop the state has created in order to protect the existence of the school: from hard labor to prepare the buildings to be used for a school, to testing the water of the onsite well daily ("Because," as he explained to me, "a well with more than 25 mouths drinking from it is considered a municipal water source... and we have 30 kids.")

It was a very cold couple of days that I spent there, warmed at times by a fickle sun and constantly by the activity of the students. We played Clue and Monopoly, I witnessed a very dramatic creation of a television show set in a family law courtroom,tried my hand at geometric puzzles, wandered outside to look at the cows in a neighboring field, enjoyed lunch in the soft grass and sunshine. Here's a look at some of the fun they have:



While I didn't get a chance to witness a meeting, I did get to observe a math class: students voluntarily approached the teacher with different problems ranging from rudimentary division to pre-algebra. It is interesting to note that every week Grassroots produces a newsletter with the school's daily "real life" (subject to change) schedule of events at the bottom: for each day, the school lists the teachers who will be on site, and the type of activities for which they are available to provide assistance. So, for example, there is a teacher's name under Wednesday, and next to that teacher's name is EVERYTHING they like to do (arts & crafts, dance, storytelling, projects). It is a neat method for offering instruction without coercion. And the students utilize these resources at their leisure, very appreciative of the relationship they have with their teachers.




Before leaving the school, I was able to pick up a book they put together detailing impressions of the Grassroots experience from former students, parents and teachers. WHAT A GREAT WORK. Each questionnaire is reprinted just as it was received, no editing, handwriting and all. One of my favorite responses was from a former student who had been frustrated with the comparative lack of structure he experienced at the school. To quote him roughly (in his impression of the experience, not a racial determination)"I guess the Grassroots Free School was too white, public schools are too black, but the world is a shade of gray." I wish I had the opportunity to read similar responses of alums from other free schools... I think it is a tremendous resource to have and share.

While in Tally, I stayed with an old friend from New College, Eric, whose roommate just so happens to know some of my former colleagues in the acting department at G-Star... SMALL WORLD.

Additionally, I had the grand opportunity to reconnect with G-Star alums, currently at FSU. A group of them organized a big dinner one night at an adorable Thai restaurant, where we sang karaoke until they closed the place down! We then huddled in the parking lot for another while, unable to just say "bye!" I think there's always more to say, more to share with friends. Eventually, time and the cold got the better of us, but not before I found my camera!



Sorry Alaina! I would have loved a picture at the table with all of us! I also had lunch with another budding genius, Crystal, at a cute cafe just before heading back to Gainesville. It is SUCH A JOY to see these intelligent, passionate young people thriving amidst new communities and challenges. AND YOU ALL INSPIRE ME!!! I'm honored to know you.

On my last day in Tallahassee, I stopped by SAIL High School to meet briefly with the assistant principal and ask some questions about their program. I was not the honored guest that day, however: a group of Tibetan monks payed the school a visit as well, before returning to the museum downtown where they painstakingly continued the creation of a sand mandala... we can not allow ourselves to attach to transitory, illusory images of this world, for attachment brings much suffering. We can rise above!