First Day

My roommates finally moved in last night. We made dinner together and talked into the evening. The three of us have been meshing nicely so far. We all seem to have an interest in cleanliness (not to mention education). I was kind of feeling an edge of competitiveness and insecurity, also regarding the interns from last year and I decided to check that at the door. I feel comfortable in the house, and it feels more homely now that two other people are here with me.

We had our first day of school today. The entire next two weeks are teacher training/inservice. We started off with introductions. They took an hour and a half, which was nice to really get a chance to hear from everyone. There were three teachers there that I hadn't even met before, and everyone else I have known for under a week. There was a wide range of experience, and interesting stories of how people got involved in the Free School. Institutionalized "higher ed" isn't a prerequisite for working here so people had lots of different backgrounds. I found out all the teachers get paid the same, despite years at the school, degrees, etc. They all share in the school administration duties, as there is no administration or higher ups.

Then we talked about the background and history of the Albany Free School. Most of that discussion was dedicated to recent history, as the school has gone through many changes in the past year. Last February they hosted a weekend long anti-oppression training. This is my understanding of the situation, as having heard about it second hand. At the meeting were teachers, parents, former students, interns, elders, neighborhood folx. The meeting was a culmination of years of people saying: we have issues we need to deal with regarding race and gender and it finally coming to a head at this meeting. One of the biggest issues was this school being in a predominantly black neighborhood and most of the students being white, and all but one of the teachers being white. Behind that issue were the questions who are we serving? are we institutionally or culturally isolating ourselves or excluding others? Another issue regarded gender: there was a predominance of male voices in teachers circles, as well as male dominance in student settings. How can we foster better relations and a better understanding of how society affects our expression of gender in our relationships with each other and the younger people in the school? This workshop caused a lot of tension among teachers and Free School community members between people who saw room for change and those who saw change as compromising the core values or other community functionality. It resulted in a more democratically run "administration" and trying to create a more accessible Board of Directors meeting. New staff were hired. Also, a white identity group has since started meeting, as well as a people of color identity group. I am really excited to be entering the school at this point of critical self-examination. I asked why those two oppressions were focused on and what sort of class issues they felt they had. They said they focused on race and gender because those were to oppressions that had come up as serious issues. They said that since the inception of the school class oppression has been openly discussed and the struggle to make the school financially affordable has always been dealt with in ways like sliding scale tuition and scholarships, whereas race and gender oppression had not been addressed to that extent.

That was the most notable part of our discussion. Another part that I really appreciated was just watching the staff interact. Surely (perhaps) there are nuances and interpersonal conflicts that I am not aware of, but I really see a leadership team among them, with different people taking on different areas and an understanding of people's personal lives and personalities.

I think school will be an exciting adventure. I feel at a bit of a disadvantage (or something) that I am the only intern who didn't visit before coming so I haven't heard the roar of music and voices that IS the free school, or witnessed the common interactions between people, but I am sure that I will quickly become acclimated.

Here I go!