FREE
FOR ALL
“I don’t accept,” she said
immediately.
Eventually an upper school girl
in a beanie and canvas jacket, Lee,
won the nomination by a show of
hands. The first order of business
is introducing a reporter from The
Huffington Post. There is a buzz,
but Lee called “order,” and everyone mostly quiets. Throughout
the meeting, some kids would not
speak, and many chose to read or
stare off into space rather than
participate. “Order” was yelled often, over a rush of voices. A group
of girls in a corner drew giant
televisions with highlighters.
The first order of business is
that the Turtles, AKA the 8- to
11-year-olds, have raised the necessary funds to create the Turtle
Times magazine. Forty percent of
the proceeds from the magazine
will go to staging the all-school
play. At the Brooklyn Free School,
Berger said, everyone gets a role in
the annual all-school play.
One lower school girl, Sasha,
small with big eyes and a giant,
frizzy winter hat, brought up
the issue of “wheels,” basically
whether lower school kids could
bring skateboards, skates, or bikes
to the park for recess.
“I have the proposal you are al-
HUFFINGTON
01.13.13
lowed to bring a skateboard there,
but only on the basketball court
and you can’t use it other places,”
she said. The issue was that many
kids without “wheels” were getting left behind.
One of the advisors, David,
made an amendment to Sasha’s
proposal. He asked if she’d be
“THERE ARE
NO TESTS,
NO MANDATORY
HOMEWORK,
NO GRADES ON
A TRANSCRIPT.”
willing to have one “wheels at
the park” day, where kids can
bring wheels of their choosing
one day a week.
“Yeah, I guess,” she replied.
“Sure.”
“And would you add that people
need to have helmets?”
“Well that’s a school rule,” Sasha said. “So yeah.”
“Can I propose something?” an
upper school girl chimed in. “A
pajama day.”
“Wait, can we finish talking