FREE
FOR ALL
schools,” but some larger ones
weren’t always responsive.
Still, transcripts are worked
on extensively by certain upper school students with college
hopes. Walter, a lower school kid
with shaggy brown hair, said he
thinks it “isn’t fair” that upper
school kids can use screens whenever they want. If upper school
is allowed screens, he said, then
lower school should, too.
“Do you want to use screens
all the time?” An upper school
girl asks him. “Like any time
you want?”
“Yeah,” Walter said. “Or upper
school doesn’t get to use them
at all.”
“The upper and lower should
have the same sort of rules,
yes,” Sarah, a fast-talking upper school girl countered. “But if
someone’s watching a lecture or
typing a transcript, that’s very
different than someone playing
that dots game. Screens are not
just screens.”
The issue is not exactly resolved. It will likely come up again
the following week.
An hour later, the meeting ends.
One advisor said he wishes there
could be some sort of fight, just so
I could see how it was resolved at
HUFFINGTON
01.13.13
one of these meetings.
“The wisdom that comes out of
them figuring out what to do,” he
said. “Why did you do this? What’s
underlying this? The whole school
gets together. It’s amazing.”
Past arguments have been over
gay slurs, name-calling and bullying, and were resolved through
“NOBODY TOLD US
TO LEARN ABOUT
THESE THINGS.
WE WANTED TO.”
lengthy negotiations. Suffice it to
say, some weeks a lot of meetings
are called.
But all the kids seem used to
it, even th e ones who have only
been there for a few months. Upper school student Sarah, a student
at Brooklyn Free School for three
months, said this is the first school
where she’s felt fully comfortable to
be herself. Like Graves, the former
Albany Free School student, she
said being able to choose your own
classes and way of doing things just
made more sense to her.
“The biggest different is choice,
and not being confined to 15 minutes of socialization a day,” Sarah