And now for something completely different....

While I have interesting stories to tell about second grade, they are mostly stories about my own somewhat twisted psychology and have little to do with the history of American Educational Movements. Just know that I stayed at #2 school and was still a part of the voluntary integration program and that it was still harmonious .

However, for reasons I won't go into here, I decided that I absolutely needed to go elsewhere for grade 3. So I convinced my parents that I should switch schools.

My mother was an educator, and had been rather intrigued with Summer Hill and the Free School Movement. The basis premise of these schools was that children are naturally motivated and good, and when the restraints of a classroom are removed, they will blossom and learn through their own volition. Unfortunately, she hadn't read Lord of the Flies, a novel which also looks at the core of children and what happens when children are not supervised and directed. The truth about children is probably somewhat in the middle of these two extremes, but my experience at a bonafide 1970s Free School was more on the Lord of the Flies side.

The Atkinson School, a private Free school, was just opening when I was in the third grade. It was housed at the local Unitarian Church. The portrait of Mao Tse Tung on the wall could have belonged to the church, or the school. An accurate accounting of the Cultural Revolution was not yet part of the news. The school was run by Hippie teachers. It was pure chaos.

While there were teachers at the school, you had to round one up to actually learn anything. The day began with a morning meeting at which they talked about the trials of draft dodgers and other topics beyond a third grader's comprehension. The rest of the day was just wide open space and time. The math area had cuisinaire rods. Never got a sense of what one was supposed to do with them. An ELA section had books and some paper. At one point I remember asking someone to teach me cursive handwriting as my friends were learning how to do it. They obliged and I did learn my basic letters, although there was no practice after the initial demonstration. My favorite area was the art area, where a British lady named Denny would let me make all kinds of things. Kids also ran around in the field surrounding the school. Third graders were smoking cigarettes.

In fact kids of all ages were doing all sorts of things, sometimes in the presence of teachers and sometimes not. This was the first place that I experienced racial tension. An older black girl told a black boy my age to slap me--and he did. I don't remember what happened next--or even what had happened before. I do remember a teacher giving me ice for my face and sitting with me.

Quite honestly, the things going on defied description. I'm actually not comfortable sharing several incidents. And there was next to nothing of educational value. It was actually very, very, very scary. I finally used the skills I had used to get out of #2 school to get the heck out of the Atkinson school. The only option was school #46, my old neighborhood school.

I though I'd died and gone to heaven. Structure! Spelling sentences! Math exercises! Sit in your seat and do your work! If you finish early, you may read a Happy Hollister Book! Miss Bisky, an energetic older lady, seemed happy to have me--and now that I know what it means for a teacher to receive a student mid-year, especially one who was now officially behind, I appreciate her all the more. I needed structure and routines and was thrilled. I felt safe and I was learning again. Just in time for the City of Rochester to institute Reorganization with a capital R the next year.