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    The Alternative: School Within a School
    The Alternative: School Within a School
    The Alternative: School Within a School
    Ebook178 pages2 hours

    The Alternative: School Within a School

    By The students of SWAS and Martha Allen

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    Excerpts from The Alternative: School Within a School:

    Whoever thought it was a good idea to let squirrelly adolescents design their own curriculum wasnt completely nuts.

    Much to everyones surprise at Drake, some of us managed to get rather conventional educations at SWAS. I studied Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry [which] taught me enough Calculus to pass the AP math test.

    I no longer wanted to stand out in a crowd; I needed to belong to one. SWAS was exactly that a crowd of unique people.



    There is no doubt that the project trips provided the most important teaching/learning experiences - and not always in lessons we intended.

    Yet it somehow never occurred to me at the timethe teachers not only put up with it but seemed to enjoy it. The tap dancing, the hammering, the constant painting, the tree-climbing: they didnt just put up with it, it seems they encouraged and delighted in it. They believed our energy and enthusiasm were essential to our learning.

    Perhaps the most remarkable thing about SWAS was the ability of the program to teach at once the importance and value of community, while at the same time helping students gain the personal strength to be individuals.

    Before there was Restorative Justice, SWAS had the Grievance Committee; before anyone ever spoke the word Mindfulness, Paul Ehrlich and I taught yoga to the whole school; before anyone touted Project-Based Learning, we had semester-long project groups; before the emphasis on building students self-esteem, we had weekly Support Groups; and before any focus on Academies or the Small Schools Movement, we had ... SWAS.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBalboa Press
    Release dateJul 20, 2016
    ISBN9781504361866
    The Alternative: School Within a School
    Author

    The students of SWAS

    Martha Allen taught for over 36 years in Marin County at Sir Francis Drake High School, Redwood High School and Dominican University. Named Marin County Teacher of the Year, she continues to volunteer after retirement at her local elementary school.

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      Book preview

      The Alternative - The students of SWAS

      THE

      ALTERNATIVE

      SCHOOL WITHIN A SCHOOL

      Picture_1.jpg

      Martha Allen

      and the students of Drake High School’s

      SWAS program, 1971-84

      39204.png

      Copyright © 2016 Martha Allen.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Balboa Press

      A Division of Hay House

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.balboapress.com

      1 (877) 407-4847

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-5043-6185-9 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-5043-6186-6 (e)

      Balboa Press rev. date: 07/19/2016

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Chapter 1: Christmas School/Beginnings

      Chapter 2: The First Year: Chris Fulmer and Bob Morgen

      Chapter 3: Question-Centered Curriculum and the Block Schedule

      Chapter 4: The Second Year: Juli Gicker

      Chapter 5: Scheduling and Evaluations

      Chapter 6: SWAS Finds Its Stride: Meegan Ochs

      Chapter 7: Course Offerings

      Chapter 8: Reaching to the Community: Laurel Headley

      Chapter 9: Tribes and Projects

      Chapter 10: Looking Back: Martin Sirk

      Chapter 11: The Staff

      Chapter 12: Staff Perspective: Martha Allen

      Chapter 13: The Students

      Chapter 14: In Memory: Eben Twombly

      Chapter 15: Student Government and Discipline Policy

      Chapter 16: The Last Years: James Graham

      Chapter 17: Closing Our Doors

      Chapter 18: Last General Meeting: Kate Blickhahn

      Chapter 19: What’s Old is New Again

      INTRODUCTION

      This book has been a long time in the making. In June of 2003 I attended a reunion of over a hundred graduates from the alternative high school called SWAS in which I had taught from 1971 to 1984. These former students were now considerably older than I had been when I was their English teacher, but our conversations ignited, and connections were reestablished almost as if no time had passed. Hearing from so many students that day, I came away almost overwhelmed, both by how articulate and successful they were, and also by the realization of just how much their high school experience had shaped their lives and their attitudes. I was the only one of the original teachers still in the classroom, but everyone, former teachers and students alike, voiced strong feelings about the value of the SWAS experience. Two students and I decided we would try to write about our school, and made halting first steps in that direction.

      When I turned to the Internet to contact former students five years later, it took only minutes before several dozen had contacted me, wanting to add their voice about what SWAS had meant to them. This book speaks of our experience and of what it can teach us about education today, forty some years later. Organizers of another reunion in the summer of 2010 also used the Internet, with a Facebook page dedicated to SWASies that is still in use. That reunion - and a few, very sad SWAS funerals - brought for me a renewed commitment to this project. Now, we are looking forward to yet another reunion in the summer of 2016.

      It was when my daughter just two, just learning to articulate in sentences what she knew of the world around her - My house is green; Kitty licked me; my Daddy is strong; my Mommy is a teacher - that I realized how very proud I was of that title: My Mommy is a teacher. Hearing those words from her made me process that part of my identity in a new way. I was a teacher. I am a teacher. I sometimes think there is no other profession that could possibly satisfy me completely or feel so clearly like right livelihood. I am a teacher and I love it. I love it still after 36 years of teaching high school English, eight years teaching in a university teaching credential program, and now volunteering at my local elementary school.

      I am a good teacher, but there are thousands of excellent teachers in our public schools today. My classroom techniques, my teaching strategies, my command of the curriculum and my rapport with students are no better than countless others’. I am under no illusion that I have anything unique to share in terms of my own teaching. I am writing this book because I believe that I - and my students - do have something to say for we were part of a beautiful and unique educational experiment with many lessons relevant in today’s efforts in restructuring schools.

      The statistics we see about the realities of our public schools are often disheartening. No Child Left Behind seemed more of a cruel joke than a reality. No teacher left standing is what many professionals feel. The gap between wealthy and poorer districts grows wider as budget cuts are made. The new Common Core presents new possibilities for curriculum design, but also real frustration for many teachers.

      Teen bullying also appears to have reached epidemic proportions. Gone are the days when it was merely matter of hurt feelings. In Florida, for example, two teens were set on fire by peers over ridiculously minor issues. In another state, a girl was beaten into a coma over a text she sent to another girl that angered that girl’s boyfriend. The boyfriend repeatedly kicked the victim in the head, causing brain damage. Cyber-bullying is the high-tech craze, where kids gang up on others using Facebook or other social networks, leading to a number of suicides. Some schools are trying to address the issue, but most schools don’t know how to deal with it and, as we’ve seen all too often in the news, don’t react when kids and parents reach out for help.

      All of this has an emotional effect on everyone involved. Colleagues talk convincingly about both the lack of professionalism and the lack of respect granted teachers. They lament changing attitudes among students, eroding support from administrators and blatant rudeness from parents frustrated with the system. In addition, teachers simply cannot afford to live in the communities in which they teach, much less think of owning a home. Young, able teachers are leaving the profession for higher paying work. Older, weary teachers talk longingly of retirement.

      I do not think it is simple denial or naiveté that makes it impossible for me to embrace this despair. I think I learned something in the thirteen years that I spent teaching in SWAS (School Within a School at Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, California) that has given me strength, comfort, support and faith - or perhaps stamina is the right word - to go into the classroom with genuine joy every morning.

      In addition, current trends in education such as Small Learning Communities, Inquiry-Based Learning, Question-Centered Curriculum, Project-Based Learning, and Problem-Based Learning, all find roots in our SWAS program and other school-within-a-school settings. The Common Core’s emphasis on critical thinking and real-world application rings very true to me. My experience in SWAS and primarily with my students during those years has taught me lessons I am certain are important. It is that certainty that leads me to write here, for there are lessons to be found in both our successes and our failures.

      In the true spirit of SWAS, no story of our school would be complete without the voices of the students themselves. Therefore, this book is arranged in alternating chapters, the odd numbered ones giving a fairly objective account of the history, the philosophy and the practical structure of our school, but the even numbered ones presenting personal narratives from former SWASies.

      Picture_2.jpg

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHRISTMAS SCHOOL/BEGINNINGS

      The teachers agreed that many students were turned off

      by school, finding it uninteresting and unrelated to their lives.

      Further, they agreed that learning could and should

      be an exciting and joyful experience.

      S WAS STARTED, ALONG WITH many other alternative schools, in the expansive era of the late 1960’s when traditional approaches to education were being tested and questioned, and when new priorities and values in education were being set forth. The main difference between SWAS and so many others is that it lasted through the 1970’s and well into the 1980’s when it found itself with a longer waiting list of students and stronger community support than ever. There were probably two main reasons for this: our willingness to incorporate change into our curriculum, and the closeness and openness with which the staff was able to work. If the school became a family, then the staff was modeling, if not perfect parenting, at least the willingness to listen and to change and a commitment to staying in it for the long run.

      Sir Francis Drake High School is a small public school in San Anselmo, California, an upper-middle class town of about 12,000 in Marin County, north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Drake was, and is still, a fine school, with dedicated teachers and a supportive administration in a community that values education. Throughout the McCarthy Era and into the turbulent times of the 60’s, the district prided itself of its levelheaded, thoughtful response to controversy. When in 1954, Anne Smart offered the press and the Tam Board of Trustees a list of books she considered subversive, the district refused to cave in to her demand that they be removed. Even after she convinced the Grand Jury that someone at a higher level had deliberately recommended these books to plant seeds of Communism in the minds of the district’s children, the Board of Education insisted that they examine each book in detail and concluded that each one should remain on the curriculum. (Louise S. Robbins: Censorship and the American Library)

      By the time of the late 60’s, the same rebellious spirit that had ignited the Berkeley campus just across the bay had found expression within the Tam District as well. One boy whose Fuck the Draft button had gotten him expelled took his case all the way to the state’s highest court.

      Surprisingly perhaps, most controversial of all was the debate about the length of hair allowed on school athletes. Athletic director Bob Troppman suggested a rule requiring that hair shouldn’t come over the collar or the ears. According to Troppmann, there was an overwhelming vote in favor of the restriction. Then came track season, when several students didn’t want to get haircuts. According to Doug Basham, track and cross-country coach

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