@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix dc: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Education, Faculty of"@en, "Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "Rothstein, Harley S."@en ; dcterms:issued "2008-09-10T23:35:50Z"@en, "1992"@en ; vivo:relatedDegree "Master of Arts - MA"@en ; ns0:degreeGrantor "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:description """The New School was an alternative progressive school founded by a group of Vancouver parents in 1962. They were dissatisfied with what they knew of the public school system and desired a “child-centred” education to encourage their children in exploration of the social world, of the arts, and of critical thinking. They were influenced by progressive ideas including those of John Dewey and A. S. Neill. They were participatory egalitarians and created a parent co-operative administrative structure. School fees were determined by a sliding scale based on family income. Parents controlled all school decisions and contributed a great deal of time and money to the project. The school evolved through three distinct periods during its fifteen year history, each closely aligned to social and ideological developments in North America. The original progressivism gave way to "free school" practices by 1967 when the school came to be influenced by the counter-culture of the late 1960s. By 1973 the school's clientele shifted to become more marginal and less middle class and to include large numbers of special needs children. The school adopted amore "therapeutic" and more openly political curriculum which remained in place until the school closed in 1977. The parents never agreed on a uniform educational direction or an effective decision making style. They argued constantly, particularly over supervision and evaluation of teachers, and teaching styles varied widely from year to year. In 1968 the teachers took over the school running it as a teacher co-operative until 1977. The school community was a kind of extended family for many participants. The political and social agenda of the adults took precedence over educational considerations throughout the life of the school. Students were encouraged to pursue their interests in a non-competitive manner. Many former students claim that the New School helped them develop problem solving, critical thinking, and verbal skills and to learn from the community. Many have followed career paths in the creative arts. However, many students also did not acquire basic academic skills. Most students from the 1968-77 period went on to alternative secondary schools and few attended university. The school ultimately failed because parents and teachers did not develop a clear enough idea of the kind of education they were offering and why. All they had in common was dissatisfaction with public schools and, more generally, with society. The school lacked a strong professional foundation as unqualified parents directed many functions. Later, any pretention to professionalism was discarded and few teachers had certificates after 1973. The lack of attention to academic skills caused the professional families to leave, weakening the school’s financial base and reducing its clientele to single mothers on welfare and to parents of children with learning and emotional problems. By the mid-1970s many parents wanting moderate alternatives could find them in the public school system. These factors help to show why the New School ceased operation."""@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/1847?expand=metadata"@en ; dcterms:extent "9251931 bytes"@en ; dc:format "application/pdf"@en ; skos:note "THE NEW SCHOOL, 1962-1977byHARLEY S. ROTHSTEINB. A., The University of British Columbia, 1969A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFMASTER OF ARTSinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES(Department of Social and Educational Studies)We accept this thesis as conformingto the required standardTHE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIAJanuary 1992©Harley S. Rothstein, 1992In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanceddegree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make itfreely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensivecopying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of mydepartment or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying orpublication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writtenpermission.(Signature)Department of 500.4t 4Q aill-fra'Abfl- UNE 5-The University of British ColumbiaVancouver, CanadaDate APA/C DE-6 (2/88)ABSTRACTThe New School was an alternative progressive school founded by agroup of Vancouver parents in 1962. They were dissatisfied with whatthey knew of the public school system and desired a \"child-centred'education to encourage their children in exploration of the socialworld, of the arts, and of critical thinking. They were influenced byprogressive ideas including those of John Dewey and A. S. Neill. Theywere participatory egalitarians and created a parent co-operativeadministrative structure. School fees were determined by a slidingscale based on family income. Parents controlled all school decisionsand contributed a great deal of time and money to the project.The school evolved through three distinct periods during itsfifteen year history, each closely aligned to social and ideologicaldevelopments in North America. The original progressivism gave way to\"free school\" practices by 1967 when the school came to be influencedby the counter-culture of the late 1960s. By 1973 the school'sclientele shifted to become more marginal and less middle class and toinclude large numbers of special needs children. The school adopted amore \"therapeutic\" and more openly political curriculum which remainedin place until the school closed in 1977.The parents never agreed on a uniform educational direction or aneffective decision making style. They argued constantly, particularlyover supervision and evaluation of teachers, and teaching styles variedwidely from year to year. In 1968 the teachers took over the schoolrunning it as a teacher co-operative until 1977. The school communityiiwas a kind of extended family for many participants. The political andsocial agenda of the adults took precedence over educationalconsiderations throughout the life of the school.Students were encouraged to pursue their interests in a non-competitive manner. Many former students claim that the New Schoolhelped them develop problem solving, critical thinking, and verbalskills and to learn from the community. Many have followed careerpaths in the creative arts. However, many students also did notacquire basic academic skills. Most students from the 1968-77 periodwent on to alternative secondary schools and few attended university.The school ultimately failed because parents and teachers did notdevelop a clear enough idea of the kind of education they were offeringand why. All they had in common was dissatifaction with public schoolsand, more generally, with society. The school lacked a strongprofessional foundation as unqualified parents directed many functions.Later, any pretention to professionalism was discarded and few teachershad certificates after 1973. The lack of attention to academic skillscaused the professional families to leave, weakening the school'sfinancial base and reducing its clientele to single mothers on welfareand to parents of children with learning and emotional problems. Bythe mid-1970s many parents wanting moderate alternatives could findthem in the public school system. These factors help to show why theNew School ceased operation.iiiTABLE OF CONTENTSABSTRACT^ iiACKNOWLEDGEMENTSCHAPTER ONE^THEMES, SOURCES, AND BACKGROUND^1CHAPTER TWO^THE PROGRESSIVE SCHOOL: 1962-1964^26CHAPTER THREE THE PROGRESSIVE SCHOOL: 1964-1967^70CHAPTER FOUR^THE FREE SCHOOL: 1967-1973^ 129CHAPTER FIVE^THE THERAPEUTIC SCHOOL: 1973-1977^194CHAPTER SIX^CONCLUSIONS^ 234BIBLIOGRAPHY 249APPENDICES:1. New School Teachers^ 2642. Parent Boards^ 2653. Interview Questions^ 2664. New School Parents and Students 268First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. WilliamBruneau for his tireless editing, depth of knowledge, patience, andfriendship. Without his guidance it is unlikely this project wouldhave been completed. To my committee members Dr. J. Donald Wilson andDr. Jean Barman, my appreciation for their unfailing encouragement andtheir careful and valuable reading of earlier drafts. To Dr. Wilsonand Dr. Neil Sutherland, my thanks for their confidence at the outsetthat this was a worthwhile topic. Thank you to Dr. Barman for herinsightful ideas about the importance of American influence at the NewSchool and to Dr. Peter Seixas for his views on the significance of thecounter-culture. I would like to thank the eighty former New Schoolparents, students, and teachers who generously gave of their time toshare experiences, memories, and documents with me. Their interest andenthusiasm made my task much easier. Finally, I dedicate this work tothe memory of my father, Norman Rothstein. His constant encouragement,support, and inspiration made the completion of this project possible.CEAFTER 1: TERMS, SOURCES, AND NACKONOUNDIntroductionThe New School was a progressive elementary school founded by asmall group of Vancouver families in 1962. Many parents were from theacademic community, and wanted an education less structured, morecreative, and more child-centred than what was available in the publicschools. This was to be a radical experiment. Besides developing aprogressive curriculum, the school adopted egalitarian, co-operative,and democratic principles for its administration. The first school ofits type in British Columbia, it evolved through several periods fromprogressivism to a romantic radicalism characteristic of many Canadianfree schools. During its fifteen years the school moved from astandard progressivism to a free school curriculum, and from governancethrough a parent co-operative to a teacher co-operative administration.Further, the clientele and atmosphere of the school changed under theinfluence of the cultural, political, and intellectual upheavals of thelate 1960s and early 1970s.New School participants often differed in their pedagogical andphilosophical aspirations, but shared a commitment to educationalhumanism, participatory democracy, and egalitarianism. Their struggleto sustain these values, all the while administering an effective andefficient organization illustrates the challenge of maintaining asuccessful co-operative enterprise. Parents were deeply involved inall aspects of school life including the setting of educational goals,1hiring teaching staff, and looking after such administrative matters asfinance and building maintenance. It was a close knit community andfor a time nearly consumed the lives of many of its principal players.A major turning point occured in 1968 when the parent co-operativedisbanded and the teachers assumed direct responsibility for theschool's operation. The New School continued to operate in this mannerfor almost ten years, but experienced gradual educational and financialdecline throughout the mid-1970s until its eventual closure in 1977.Almost twenty years have passed since the heyday of the free schoolmovement and, although much was written about it between 1968 and 1976,very few historical assessments have appeared since. A study of theNew School offers a suitable point of departure for such an assessment.This account will deal with the school's ideological underpinnings,curriculum, and administrative structures. It will also place the NewSchool in the context of the period, particularly its rapid evolutionin tandem with contemporary intellectual, political, and socialdevelopments. Teachers, parents, and students were bound together bycommonly held educational theories, and were inspired by many of theromantic, social, and political expectations of the 1960s. The schoolattracted innovative and socially involved thinkers to its parent body.To study the New School is, in part, to study the period as a whole.ThemesThe New School moved through three different periods. In thefirst, from 1962 to 1967, it was a progressive school in the Deweyan2tradition and was organized as a parent co-operative. In the second,1967 to 1973, the school became a \"free school\" similar to many othersacross North America at this time, and was re-organized as a teacherco-operative. During its final period, 1973 to 1977, the school becameprimarily a therapeutic institution concerned with helping students whowere unable to cope in the public school system, and providing supportto families on the margins of society.The ideological foundation of the New School embraced a range ofworld views. In general the parent community can be described ashaving been activist, idealistic, participatory, egalitarian, anddemocratic. They valued intellectual discourse, creative expression,and critical thinking. A few parents were socialists while others wereromantics, liberals, and anarchists, but they all shared a strongintellectual and political dissatisfaction with the public schoolsystem and with many features of North American society itself. Manyof the individuals were \"seekers\" and participated in the social andcultural movements of the day. Later in the school's history theintellectual orientation came to count for less than personal freedomand exploration in harmony with the values of the late 1960s counter-culture. By the end of the school's life, participants had become morepolitically extreme and socially marginal.The curriculum underwent a rapid evolution during the school'sshort fifteen year history. The New School began as a progressiveschool catering primarily to academic families and following the ideasof John Dewey. But within six years it had developed a free schoolcurriculum more in sympathy with the views of the well known British3educator, A. S. Neill, founder of Summerhill. As the school enteredits last few years the curriculum became more overtly therapeutic andpolitical as the clientele shifted dramatically to students requiringspecial educational help, and whose families lacked adequate income andsupport networks.From an administrative standpoint, the New School was organized asa participatory and democratic parent co-operative which consumed itsmembers' energy and commitment to the point of exhaustion. Parentsfound it particularly difficult to make decisions on ideological andpersonnel issues. Six years later the school was reorganized as ateacher co-operative and governance became less stressful for theparents but less participatory as well.This study does not analyze quantitatively the socio-economicorigins of New School students or their later educational and careerattainments. This would be a rewarding undertaking, but beyond thescope of this work. Still, some impressionistic or intuitivestatements about socio-economic composition and subsequent careers arewarranted and may encourage a future social study that would be bothuseful and historically revealing.SourcesHistorical evidence for this study comes from a number of sources.Two important and active parents during New School's first five years(1962-1967), Norman Epstein and Norman Levi, and one teacher, PhilThomas, maintained files of school records. These include enrolment4lists for three of those years, budgets and financial statements,school newsletters, tuition schedules, teachers' reports, schoolconstitution and prospectus, \"philosophical\" and curriculum statements,personal correspondence, and numerous minutes of board, committee,curriculum, personnel, and general meetings. Nora Randall, a parent,and Sharon Van Volkingburgh, a teacher later in the school's history,kept extensive records from the 1968-1977 period. These include threeenrolment lists, financial and legal documents, newsletters, the 1972prospectus, numerous minutes of staff and general meetings from 1969 to1977, and individual student files. These will be referred to as theEpstein, Levi, Thomas, Randall, and Van Volkingburgh collections.'I had the benefit of portions of the personal journals of JuliaBrown, a founding parent active in school affairs from 1961 to 1965,Daniel Wood, a teacher at the school from 1971 to 1973, and MarySchendlinger, a New School parent from 1975 to 1977. These journalentries provided both chronological information and commentary. 2More than twenty-five stories on the New School appeared in theVancouver Sun and Vancouver Province newspapers between 1961 and 1976as well as numerous articles on related alternative schools. Most ofthese articles have individual by-lines and were based on the eye-witness accounts of the reporters making them a valuable documentarysource. Annual reports and financial statements registered under theSocieties Act were also useful. 3Other documentary materials include several magazine articles onalternative schools containing descriptions of the New School 4 , a tapedinterview broadcast on ofELG radio in 1972 with New School students and5teachers, and original photographs from the personal collections ofDaphne Trivett, Scott Robinson, and Margo Hansen. 5Several articles have been written by former New School teachersTom Durrie, Anne Long, and Daniel Wood. 6 Tom Durrie's articles areimportant for understanding the methods he implemented during his shorttenure as New School director in 1967/68. 7 Anne Long's \"The NewSchool—Vancouver\" provides a detailed account of the events leadingto the school's reorganization as a teacher co-operative in 1968.A second major source has been oral evidence from tape recordedinterviews with over seventy former New School parents, teachers, andstudents.9 Individuals spoke about any aspect of the school that theyremembered, although all interviewees were asked several key questionsat some point during the interview (see Appendix 3). All informationobtained from interviews was thoroughly cross-checked with the accountsof other individuals and with documentary sources to ensure accuracy.Details that could not be verified by at least one other source havenot been included in this study.On the advantages and pitfalls of oral evidence, I found especiallyhelpful Paul Thompson's The Voice of the Past l° and two 1988 articles,Neil Sutherland's \"'Listening to the Winds of Childhood:' The Role ofMemory in the History of Childhood\" 11 and Jean Barman's \"Accounting forGender and Class in Retrieving the History of Canadian Childhood.\" 12Although some say oral accounts of past events are less reliable thanwritten records, oral sources are little different from written recordsin their capacity for bias. Authors of newspaper accounts, memoirs,and other written documents have points of view. The historian must6examine every source, written or oral, for internal consistency,confirmation in other sources, and potential bias. 13 I have, as best Ican, analyzed the points of view of all interview subjects.Two problems particular to oral evidence are that memory of pastevents may be fallible, and that the events are seen in the perspectiveof hindsight, giving them meaning according to the subject's presentpoint of view. However, according to both Sutherland and Barman\"scripts\" of personal events and recurrent situations are generallyreliable. Furthermore, oral evidence may be valuable in its verysubjectivity since those interviewed recreate emotional and affectivecontexts of past events.I selected interview subjects in accordance with Sutherland'stechnique, \"chains of acquaintanceship,\" to explore \"common events,scripts, and structures through more than a single memory,\" relyinginstead on \"overlapping memories.\" 14 Although some individuals mayhave had difficulty accurately remembering events that took place morethan twenty years ago, two observations are important. First, takingpart in the New School project was a significant and formative event inparticipants' lives and their memories were extensive and vivid.Secondly, there was remarkable congruence among the personal accountsof these events regardless of individuals' role in the school or of thetime period in which they were active.During the course of my research on this subject I developedsympathy for those who took part. The former parents, teachers, andstudents I interviewed are by most standards bright and socially awareindividuals. Their enterprise, I am led to think, was a worthy one.7Background: The Progressive MovementProgressivism in the early decades of the twentieth century wasmost closely associated with the writings of John Dewey but meantdifferent things to different people. The movement embraced ahumanistic respect for the individual worth of each child, mindful ofnew discoveries in child development made at the turn of the twentiethcentury. In this sense it built directly on the philosophical notionsof Friedrich Froebel and Johann Basedow, and the \"new\" psychology ofG. Stanley Hal1. 15 Going further, some progressives stressed theuniqueness of each individual learner, the importance of consideringthe \"whole child,\" learning through activity, and teaching what wasrelevant to the child's interests. Progressives typically advocated abroader and more integrated curriculum than found in the public schoolsof the day, a stimulating classroom environment, the encouragement ofco-operation rather than competition, and the development of choicemaking and critical thinking skills.Dewey's methods were developed at the University of ChicagoLaboratory School, where he was director from 1896 to 1904, and atColumbia University Teachers' College during the first two decades ofthe twentieth century. Many progressive schools were established ineastern United States during that time. Dewey was opposed to \"heavy-handed discipline, memorization, and 'sugar-coating' material tofalsely arouse the child's interest.\" 16 Some of his key concepts werenot well understood even by many of his supporters.The child's \"interest\" was one often misunderstood concept. Dewey8thought it was not enough to try to make indifferent or irrelevantsubject material \"interesting.\" He believed instead that to encouragegenuine interest educators must recognize the differing capabilities,preferences, and attitudes of each individual. The way to bridge thegap between individual \"interest\" and the educational content ormaterial was to engage the learner at the point of active development,emotional inclination, and meaningful aim or purpose. The teacher whounderstands the value of interest in education varies methods ofapproach with \"the special appeal the same material makes\" through\"considering the specific capabilities and preferences of individualchildren.\" 17 The learner should be \"wholeheartedly involved with whatone is doing.\" 18Another key concept was \"learning through experience.\" For Deweythis was more than activity or learning by doing for \"mere activitydoes not consitute experience.\" Dewey believed that meaningfulexperience must involve change, connection, and control. He wrote inDemocracy and Education:To \"learn from experience\" is to make a backward and forwardconnection between what we do to things and what we enjoy orsuffer from things in consequence. Under such conditions,doing becomes a trying; an experiment with the world to findout what it is like; the undergoing becomes instruction—discovery of the connection of things.\"Dewey believed in the importance of traditional \"handed-down\" wisdomwithin a flexible curriculum. Brian Hendley explains that for Dewey\"education is a process of continuous reconstruction of the child'spresent experience by means of the accomplished results of adultexperience.\" 20 The subject matter is used to develop the learner'sindividual abilities through activities and experiences.9Another central principle in progressivist thought was Dewey'sconception of how to educate citizens for a democracy. It did not makesense to teach young people in an authoritarian, bureaucratic, andunstimulating atmosphere if they were to become the creative, critical,informed, and socially conscious adults necessary to make democracywork. Dewey believed that in a \"community-centred\" education childrenwould be active participants in the school community's life.Independent progressive schools flourished in the United Statesfrom the early part of the century to the 1960s particularly in thenortheast. Progressive teachers were trained throughout this period atthe University of Chicago, Columbia Teachers' College, and radicalinstitutions like Bank Street College in New York.Some progressive ideas also made their way into the public schoolsystem during the 1920s. However, by the 1930s and 1940s these ideasgradually gave way to a different stream of progressive thoughtemphasizing efficiency, expertise, psychological research andscientific testing. This set of emphases was the movement's mostnoticeable legacy in the public schools up to about 1960. These\"progressives,\" exemplified by Edward Thorndike, were in their impactessentially conservative, in contrast to the more radical progressivesconcerned with the full range of Dewey's ideas and, in particular, thesocial and political implications of those ideas. 21Although progressivism as a formed theory began in the UnitedStates, it had Canadian proponents as early as the 1890s. TheCanadians were interested in an expanded curriculum known as the \"NewEducation,\" a movement Neil Sutherland describes as a coalition of10child-centred and practical reformers. 22 Their innovations includedkindergartens, manual training, school gardens, domestic science, andphysical education. More generally, they paid increased attention tochild and family welfare and sought to eliminate traditional nineteenthcentury teaching styles.Between 1920 and 1940 progressive thought dominated Canadianeducational debate, particularly in western Canada. The 1925 Putman-Weir Report in British Columbia endorsed progressivist principles.\"The fact that J. H. Putman, inspector for Ottawa schools and a wellknown proponent of progressive education, 24 was invited to co-authorthis important report indicates how deeply rooted progressive ideasalready were in British Columbia. In Saskatchewan a modest curriculumrevision along progressive lines was begun in 1931. The AlbertaDepartment of Education went further and under the leadership of HubertNewland, 25 the enterprise system, 26 a curriculum organized on thematicprinciples, was implemented in 1936. 27 During the 1940s and 1950sother progressive educators, such as Watson Thomson in Saskatchewan,combined progressive educational theory with socialist communal valuesin an effort to encourage social change based on principles ofparticipation, democracy, and egalitarianism. 28 The contemporarydevelopment of democratic socialist politics in western Canada was acorresponding element in the acceptance of progressive educationaltheory.\"Although several influential New School founders were Americansraised in the American progressive tradition, the parallel legacy ofCanadian educational progressivism was a contributing factor in the11overall context that gave energy to the project. The politics andculture of the 1960s and 1970s was no less explanatory of the movementson which the New School was to draw. New School parents wereundoubtedly influenced by this context.Both Sutherland and R. S. Patterson\" show that even if there was abroad progressivist \"consensus\" among some educational thinkers, inpractice the ideas were rarely implemented at the school level.Sutherland describes:a system that put its rigour into rote learning of the timestables, the spelling words, and the capes and bays, a systemthat discouraged independent thought, a system that provided noopportunity to be creative, a system that blamed rather thanpraised, a system that made no direct or purposeful effort tobuild a sense of self-worth. 31Despite the efforts of radical progressive educators in western Canadasuch as Newland and Thomson, the public school system remained much asSutherland described it well into the 1960s. New School parents hadstrong negative reactions to these aspects of the public schools.Background: The Romantic ReverentNew School parents were also influenced by the \"Romantic Movement\"in education, a long standing tradition that can be traced back to thepublication of J. J. Rousseau's Emile in 1762. 32 Rousseau believed ina naturalistic education that would leave children free to follow theirdesires, curiosity, and instincts with little adult direction. Hisideas found a particularly eager audience among English romantics andpolitical radicals and Rousseau became a cult figure in certain Englishcircles up to 1790 and again after 1815. Many notable intellectuals,12poets, and educators of the period were ardent Rousseau followers amongthem Erasmus Darwin, Richard Edgeworth, Thomas Day, Joseph Priestley,David Williams, Josiah Wedgworth, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth,Percy Shelley, and William Godwin. 33 They often discussed Rousseau'seducational ideas and several even attempted to raise their childrenaccording to the principles set out in Emile. 34 Rousseau also hadinfluence on the continent where his ideas were developed and appliedby Johann Pestalozzi and Friedrich Froebel.Some British educators continued to be influenced by romanticideals during the first few decades of the nineteenth century, but by1850 the movement had gone largely underground. It resurfaced in theearly twentieth century just as Dewey's ideas were gaining prominencein the United States. Homer Lane, an American educator brought toEngland by the Earl of Sandwich, pioneered the idea of self-governmentfor children while headmaster at the Little Commonwealth, a residentialschool for delinquent teenagers in Dorset, England, from 1913 to 1918.Under this system school rules were made at meetings of the entireschool community where everyone had one vote whether small child orheadmaster. 35Bertrand and Dora Russell founded Beacon Hill School in 1927 wherethe questioning of tradition, learning by doing, and experimentalinquiry were emphasized. Academic study was encouraged but not forced.Day-to-day decisions were made at school council meetings (similar tothe Little Commonwealth), although the Russells were not adverse tousing disciplinary measures when necessary. Beacon Hill was criticizedfor the underlying socialist, pacifist, and agnostic views of its13founders as well as Russell's policy of permitting public nudity amongthe children and sexual freedom among the adults. 36 Financial andadministrative problems led to the school's closure in 1943.Dartington, another rural school, was founded by Leonard andDorothy Elmhirst in 1932 as part of an experimental self-sustainingcommunity. 37 The school, under headmaster J. B. Curry, emphasizededucation in the arts and allowed students to set many of their ownrules under a partial system of self-governemnt. The school's solidfinancial base helped make it successful for many years. 38 In additionto their romantic leanings both Curry and Russell were influenced byDewey's methods, Curry during five years as headmaster of theprogressive Oak Lane County Day School in Philadelphia 39 in the late1920s, and Russell through personal correspondence with Dewey. BeaconHill and Dartington had elements of both progressivism and romanticism,stopping just short of the complete freedom allowed in Summerhill andwhat later came to be called free schools in North America.A. S. Neill, influenced by Lane and Freud, left the public schoolsystem in 1924 to found Summerhill, the most famous of the freeschools, located in Leiston, Suffolk, northeast of London. Throughouthis long career he developed and sustained several basic principles:that children would be allowed to pursue activities that interest them,that they would not be compelled to attend classes, and that schoolrules would be set by all members of the school community with one votefor each person whatever his or her age. The school's success waslargely due to Neill's personal genius in working with young people.His intuitive approach was based on his own experience and he did not14develop a comprehensive theoretical framework for his methods makingthem difficult to duplicate.\" This was particularly true of thepsychoanalytic techniques he used during \"private lessons.\" As well,Summerhillian methods could not be easily transferred from aresidential school setting to North American day schools.The publication of Neill's book, Summerhill, in 1960 was a timelyevent for those who were unhappy with the public school system in bothBritain and North America. 41 The widely read book was an inspirationto many dissatisfied parents and educators, and in conjunction with thegeneral ambiance of the decade, helped to initiate a new wave ofromanticism resulting in the free school movement of the late 1960s andearly 1970s. New School parents drew on all of these complextraditions. 4215Literature of the Alternative School MovementSummerhill ushered in a new era of thinking and writing aboutalternative education. Lawrence Cremin's authoritative history ofAmerican progressivism, The Transformation of the School, appeared thefollowing year in 1961. 43 After 1961 the many works published onalternative schooling can be divided into several types. A number ofbooks written in the United States in the early 1960s analyzed theproblems of public schooling and suggested directions for change. Wellknown examples are How Children Fail by John Holt and Compulsory Mis-education by Paul Goodman, both appearing in 1964, on problems of thebureaucratic organization and structure of the public schools resultingin fear for all students and failure for most. 44 Teacher by SylviaAshton-Warner, also published in 1964, dealt specifically with herinnovative methods of teaching reading developed while working withMaori children. 45These early works were followed by numerous books written between1966 and 1972 by educators attempting change within the system ortaking the radical step of forming alternative schools with lessrestrictive environments. Death at an Early Age by Jonathan Kozol(1967), 36 Children by Herbert Kohl (1967), and The Way it Spozed to Beby James Herndon (1968) were all accounts by teachers working insidethe public school system struggling against authoritarian structures inghetto schools.'\" Two early books about independent free schools wereThe Lives of Children by George Dennison (1969), an account of an urbanalternative school in New York City, and Herb Snitzer's Today Is For16Children (1972), the story of a rural free school in upstate New Yorkmodelled on Summerhill. 47 Other works were primarily instructive, suchas The Open Classroom by Herbert Rohl (1969), a \"survival guide\" forpublic school teachers wishing to introduce \"practices of freedom\"within their classrooms, and Free Schools by Jonathan Kozol (1972), thestory of an early parent run free school in Boston and a basic manualon how to organize a school from scratch. 48 Free The Children by AllenGraubard (1972) was the first comprehensive work on the accomplishmentsof the free school movement. 49 These books are examples of a widevariety of publications on alternative education. All supported freeschool theory and practice and were relatively uncritical.Other works advocating radical changes in school curriculum andorganization during this period were Teaching as a Subversive Activityby Postman and Weingartner (1969), Crisis in the Classroom by CharlesSilberman (1970), Schools Where Children Learn (1971) by JosephFeatherstone, and Deschoolinq Society by Ivan Illich (1971).50 Thesebooks, slightly more theoretical, would have been well regarded byopponents of the public school system.The first historical accounts dealing with the results of both theprogressive and romantic traditions in England were W. A. C. Stewart'sThe Educational Innovators: Progressive Schools 1881-1967 (1968) andRobert Skidelsky's English Progressive Schools (1969). 51 A recentbook, The Putney School: A Progressive Experiment by Susan Lloyd(1987) is a comprehensive recent account of an early progressive schoolin Vermont. 52By the mid-1970s, with the closure of many free schools and the17general waning of the movement, a number of individuals began to offera reflective and critical perspective. Jonathan Kozol, one of thestrongest proponents of free schools, had himself begun a reappraisalshortly after the publication of Free Schools. In a 1972 article,\"Free Schools: A Time for Candor,\" 53 he criticized teachers whopretend that they have nothing to teach children. Young people, hesaid, need strong adults willing to exercise leadership and teachskills so they can have control over their future. A similar Canadianreappraisal began with \"Where Have all the Free Schools Gone?,\" aconversation with several important educators, edited by DouglasMyers. 54The Retransformation of the School by Daniel Duke in the UnitedStates and Radical Education: A Critique of Freeschoolinq andDeschoolinq by Robin Barrow in Britain, both published in 1978, arelater books seeking to account for the successes and shortcomings offree schools and to assess their historical significance. 55 Many worksin the period after 1970 came from a Marxist perspective and paidlittle attention to curriculum matters at the school level, emphasizinginstead the inherent class bias of the education system. MichaelKatz's Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America (1971) argued that alternative educational practicewould not affect the lives of students unless the class bias of publicschooling was removed.\" Another study examining education from aclass perspective was Bowles and Gintis's Schooling in CapitalistAmerica (1976) arguing that only a serious restructuring of the socialand political system would humanize education in the United States. 5718The most important source of early writing on Canadian alternativeeducation is This Magazine Is About Schools, founded in 1966 by BobDavis, George Martell, and Satu Repo. 58 The editors were connectedwith several alternative schools in the Toronto area, most notablyEverdale Place, a rural free school northwest of the city, and PointBlank School in downtown Toronto. The magazine included accounts ofexperimental schools and educational communities, reflections on youthand alternative schooling, and practical suggestions for politicalorganizing on educational issues. Robert Stamp's About Schools (1975)was a useful summary of alternative education schemes then in placeacross the country. It included information for parents about how tobe more involved in setting public school policy and how to start theirown school. (Stamp helped found Saturday School, a private alternativeschool in Calgary, in 1972.) He also explored the relationship betweenalternative schools and public schools at a time when many alternateswere being absorbed into the public school system.\"A number of collections on Canadian alternatives in education werepublished in the early 1970's partly in response to the proliferationof free schools. Some examples of these are Must Schools Fail? editedby Byrne and Quarter (1972), The Best of Times, The Worst of Times,edited by Stevenson, Stamp, and Wilson (1972), and The Failure of Educational Reform in Canada edited by Douglas Myers (1973).60 ThisBook Is About Schools edited by Satu Repo (1970) was a collection ofarticles from the magazine. 61 George Martell's 1974 collection, ThePolitics of the Canadian Public School, 62 was more concerned with theclass bias of Canadian education than with alternative schooling.19There was a good deal of published and unpublished material onindividual alternative schools in British Columbia, all of whichprovide additional insight into the alternative school movement.Windsor House: A History, an unpublished manuscript by Helen Hughes,told the story of a parent run school in North Vancouver founded in theearly 1970s, similar to the New School but on a smaller scale.\" Ms.Hughes and the other founders were well aware of the New School andexperienced similar difficulties.Why This StudyThe New School was the first alternative school of its kind inBritish Columbia. It remained on the \"cutting edge\" of educationalchange in a turbulent political, cultural, and educational period. Itscurriculum and administration took three very different forms and itsintellectual and philosophical basis embodied almost every aspect ofthe political left and the late sixties/early seventies counterculture.Co-operative organizations are always difficult to operate. Thisone was even more so given the nature of the participants and that thestakes were high—the education of their children. The New School'ssuccesses and failures convey valuable lessons. The school spanned asignificant period of the twentieth century and was reflective of it.Lastly, the New School opened at a time when public schools were in theopinion of many contemporaries unstimulating, authoritarian, anduniform. By the time of its demise in 1977 this had changed somewhat.Innovative schools like the New School helped to produce this outcome.20NOTES1. These collections are in the possession of the author. Most of thedocuments will be offered to the UBC Library: Special Collections.2. Julia Brown, Daniel Wood, and Mary Schendlinger, Personal Journalsnow in their possession.3. \"The New School,\" 1962-1968, and \"The New School Teachers Society,\"1968 to the present, Annual Reports and financial statements,available from the Office of the Registrar of Companies, Ministryof Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Victoria, B.C.4. \"School's Out: A review of Free and Alternate Schools,\" in TheGrape, June 28. 1972;^Robert Stamp, \"Paying For Those FreeSchools,\" in Maclean's, May, 1973;^Audrey Grescoe, \"WorkingClassrooms (Alternate Education in Vancouver,\" in Vancouver,January, 1975.5. The original photographs are in the possession of the individualsand the author.6. Daniel Wood, \"The New School,\" Georgia Straight, 1972. Mr. Woodalso wrote \"The Fears of Public School Teachers\" in The B.C. Teacher, (February, 1974), 170-172, and Kids! Kids! Kids! andVancouver, (Vancouver: Fforbez Publications, 1975).7. Tom Durrie, \"Free Schools: The Answer of the Question,\" in Byrneand Quarter, ed., Must Schools Fail?^The Growing Debate inCanadian Education, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972) 33-44,and \"Free Schools:^Threat to the System or Harmless LunaticFringe,\" in Stevenson, Stamp, and Wilson, ed. The Best of Times/ The Worst of Times: Contemporary Issues in Canadian Education,(Toronto: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972): 474-479.8. Anne Long, \"The New School—Vancouver,\" in Gross and Gross, ed.Radical School Reform, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969): 273-276.9. For technical advice see Derek Reimer, ed., Voices: A Guide to OralHistory (Victoria: Provincial Archives of British Columbia, 1984).10. Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past, (Oxford, Oxford UniversityPress, 1978). A good example of the method in practice is PaulThompson, The Edwardians (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975),which was based on over five hundred interviews.11. Neil Sutherland, \"'Listening to the Winds of Childhood' The Role ofMemory in the History of Childhood,\" in Canadian History ofEducation Association Bulletin, 5, 1, (February, 1988): 5-29. Arevised version is to appear in Curriculum Inquiry in 1992.2112. Jean Barman, \"Accounting for Gender and Class in Retrieving theHistory of Canadian Childhood,\" in Canadian History of EducationAssociation Bulletin, 5, 2 (May, 1988): 5-27.13. Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: 102.14. Neil Sutherland, \"'Listening to the Winds of Childhood,' The Roleof Memory in the History of Childhood,\" 24.15. See W. A. C. Stewart and W. P. McCann, The Educational Innovators Volume 1 (London: MacMillan, 1957).16. Brian Hendley, Dewey, Russell, Whitehead: Philosophers as Educators(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986): 23.17. John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York: MacMillan, 1916):153. The concept of interest is discussed in chapter X, 146-162.18. Brian Hendley, Dewey, Russell, Whitehead: 23.19. John Dewey, Democracy and Education: 164.20. Brian Hendley, Dewey, Russell, Whitehead: 23.21. For more on this aspect of progressivism see Lawrence Cremin, TheTransformation of the School (New York:^Random House, 1961):chapters 4 and 6.22. Neil Sutherland, \"The New Education in Anglophone Canada\", in TheCurriculum in Canada in Historical Perspective, (CSSE Yearbook,1979).23. J. H. Putnam and G. M. Weir, Survey of the School System (Victoria,King's Printer, 1925).24. See Anne Wood, Idealism Transformed: The Making of a ProgressiveEducator (Kingston:^McGill-Queens University Press, 1985).^Itshould be noted that both Putman and Weir were \"conservative\" or\"scientific\" progressives of the kind described earlier. See alsoJean Mann, \"G. M. Weir and H. B. King: Progressive Education orEducation for the Progressive State\" in J. Donald Wilson and DavidJones, eds., Schooling and Society in 20th Century British Columbia(Calgary: Detselig, 1980): 91-118.25. For a short biography of Newland see \"Hubert C. Newland, Theoristof Progressive Education,\" in Patterson, Chalmers, and Friesen,eds., Profiles of Canadian Educators (Toronto: Heath, 1974). Alsoreprinted in Titley and Miller eds., Education In Canada (Calgary:Detselig, 1982): 151-167.26. See Donalda Dickie, The Enterprise in Theory and Practice (Toronto:Gage, 1941).2227. Robert Patterson, \"Progressive Education: Impetus to EducationalChange in Alberta and Saskatchewan,\" in Palmer and Smith ed. TheNew Provinces: Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1905-1980, (Vancouver:Tantalus, 1980).28. See Michael Welton, To Be and Build the Glorious World (Ph. D.Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1983) for a comprehensivestudy of Watson Thomson.29. Ormand McKague, Socialist Education in Saskatchewan (Oregon, 1981).30. Robert Patterson, \"The Implementation of Progressive Education inCanada 1930-1945,\" in Essays on Canadian Education (1986).31. Neil Sutherland, \"The Triumph of 'Formalism:' Elementary Schoolingin Vancouver from the 1920's to the 1960's,\" in McDonald and Barmaned. Vancouver Past:^Essays in Social History, B. C. Studies,number 69/70 (Spring/Summer, 1986): 182-183.32. Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile (London: Dent, 1911), trans. BarbaraFoxley.33. See Brian Simon, Studies in the History of Education 1780-1870(London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1960), W. A. C. Stewart and W. P.McCann The Educational Innovators 1750-1880 (London: Macmillan,1967), Maria and Richard Edgeworth, Essays on Practical Education,(London: 1822), Erasmus Darwin, A Plan for the Conduct of FemaleEducation in Boarding Schools (Derby:^1797), Joseph Priestley,\"Essay on Education\" in Ira Brown ed. Joseph Priestley: Selections from his Writings (University Park: Pennsylvania State UniversityPress, 1962), and Emile Legouis, The Early Life of WilliamWordsworth, trans. J. W. Matthews (New York: Dutton, 1918.)34. Edgeworth raised one of his sons according to the principlesexpounded in Emile, even travelling to France to present the six-year-old boy to Rousseau. Wedgwood adopted Rousseau's ideas forthe education of his children. Southey was raised according toRousseau's views and Wordsworth was strongly influenced by Rousseauin his youth. See John Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham(London: Oxford University Press, 1963), Edward Duffy, Rousseau inEngland (Berkeley:^University of California Press, 1979), andRichard Edgeworth, Memoirs, (London: 1844).35. Homer Lane, Talks to Parents and Teachers, (New York: Schoken,1928). Lane developed his ideas of student self-government at theFord Republic in Detroit. He was invited to England by the Earl ofSandwich to establish a similar school, The Little Commonwealth, atFlowers Farm in Dorset. The school remained in existence for fiveyears.2336. For more on Beacon Hill see Ronald Clark, The Life of BertrandRussell (London: Jonathan Cape, Weidenfelf and Nicolson, 1975):525-535, and Stewart, The Educational Innovators, Vol. 2: 147-153.37. Mrs. Elmhirst was American and her children by a former marriagehad been educated at Lincoln School, a New York Progressive schoolattached to Teachers' College.38. For more on Dartington see Stewart, The Educational Innovators,Vol. 2:^128-147, and V. Bonham-Carter, Dartington Hall (London:1958).39. W. A. C. Stewart, The Educational Innovators (London: MacMillan,1968): 140.40. See Robin Barrow, Radical Education (London: Martin Robertson,1978) for a critique of Neill's theoretical shortcomings.41. A. S. Neill, Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Childrearinq (NewYork: Hart, 1960). This publication incorporated material from anumber of earlier books in addition to new writings.42. For more on romanticism and education see John Willinsky, TheEducational Legacy of Romanticism (Waterloo:^Wilfred LaurierUniversity Press, 1991) and Kieran Egan, Educational Development(New York:^Oxford University Press, 1979). Romanticism impliedmore than mere utopianism indicating an attitude towards sentimentand feeling as well.43. Lawrence Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivismin American Education 1876-1957 (New York: Random House, 1961).44. Paul Goodman, Compulsary Mis-Education (New York: Knopf, 1964);John Holt, How Children Fail (New York: Pitman, 1964).45. Sylvia Ashton-Warner, Teacher (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1964).46. Jonathan Kozol, Death At An Early Age^z,ston: Houghton Miflin,1967); Herbert Kohl, 36 Children (New York: New American Library,1967); and James Herndon, The Wav It Spozed To Be (New York:Simon and Shuster, 1968).47. George Dennison, The Lives of Children: The Story of the FirstStreet School (New York: Random House, 1969) and Herb Snitzer,Today Is For Children (New York: Macmillan, 1972).48. Herbert Kohl, The Open Classroom (New York: New York Review, 1969)and Jonathan Kozol, Free Schools (Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1972).49. Allen Graubard, Free the Children (New York: Random House, 1972).2450. Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a SubversiveActivity (New York: Delacorte, 1969); Charles Silberman, Crisis inthe Classroom (New York: Random House, 1970); Joseph Featherstone,Schools Where Children Learn (New York: Liveright, 1971); and IvanIllich, De-Schooling Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1971).51. W. A. C. Stewart, The Educational Innovators: Progressive Schools 1881-1967 (London: Macmillan, 1968) and Robert Skidelsky, EnglishProgressive Schools (Middlesex, Penguin, 1969).52. Susan Lloyd, The Putney School: A Progressive Experiment (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1987.)53. Jonathan Kozol, \"Free Schools: A Time for Candor,\" in SaturdayReview, March 4, 1972: 51-54.54. This article, a conversation with Bob Davis, Satu Repo, and GeorgeMartell, appeared first in Canadian Forum (1972), then in This Magazine Is About Schools (Winter, 1972/73), and was reprinted inDouglas Myers, ed., The Failure of Educational Reform in Canada(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973).55. Daniel Duke, The Retransformation of the School (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1978) and Robin Barrow, Radical Education: A Critique ofFreeschoolinq and Deschoolinq (London: Martin Robertson, 1978).56. Michael Katz, Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools: The Illusion ofEducational Change in America (New York: Praeger, 1971).57. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America(New York: Basic Books, 1976).58. This Magazine is About Schools (Toronto 1966-1972).^It becameThis Magazine in 1973—a blend of politics, culture, and education.59. Robert Stamp, About Schools: What Every Canadian Parent ShouldKnow (Don Mills: new press, 1975).60. Byrne and Quarter, eds., Must Schools Fail? (Toronto: McClellandand Stewart, 1972); Stevenson, Stamp, and Wilson, eds., The Bestof Times/The Worst of Times (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston,1972); and Douglas Myers, ed., The Failure of Educational Reformin Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973).61. Satu Repo, ed. This Book Is About Schools (New York: Random House,1970).62. George Martell, ed., The Politics of the Canadian Public School (Toronto: James Lewis and Samuel, 1974).63. Helen Hughes, Windsor House: A History (unpublished, 1975).25CHAPTER 2: THE PROGRESSIVE SCHOOL: 1962-1964Conception and Ideolcol,The New School was conceived almost two years before it formallyopened its doors in September, 1962. During the fall of 1960, severalUniversity of British Columbia professors and their spouses beganinformal discussions about the possibility of developing an alternativeform of schooling for their children. At a New Year's Eve party thatyear five couples—Don and Julia Brown, Elliott and Kathy Gose, Normanand Marilyn Epstein, Werner and Rita Cohn, and Mac and Ruth McCarthy—decided to form a weekly planning group. During ensuing meetings theyexplored various aspects of progressive educational theory and of co-operative organizational structure. By the summer of 1961 the groupdecided there was enough agreement among participants to tackle thechallenge of operating an independent parent operated school.The timing was no coincidence. The founders of the New School werereacting directly to the Report of the Royal Commission on Education(the Chant Report) released December 29, 1960. 1 They objectedstrenuously to the report's traditionalist approach to the \"three R's\"and its relegation of the creative arts and self-expression to frillstatus. 2 These parents were frustrated by what they saw as a lack ofcreative teaching and meaningful enrichment in the public school systemand by the pervasive unstimulating atmosphere so vividly describedlater by Neil Sutherland. 3 They summed up their feelings succinctly,describing public school education as \"dull and disagreeable.\" 426These parents saw public school as a bureaucratic, lockstep, andconformist system which seemed incapable of responding to students asindividuals and lacked a basic respect for young people. The parentsbelieved discipline practices were inhumane. Rita Cohn described thepublic schools as \"uptight and conventional\" places where her childrenhad no personal freedom to move around, not even to the bathroom. 5 DonBrown objected to the schools' curricular conservatism, their neglectof the arts, and their \"authoritarian stiffness.\" 6 Another foundingparent, Ellen Tallman, expressed her dissatisfaction with rigid andunimaginative schools simply: \"Karen hated school so much. Somethinghad to be done!\" 7New School parents held a number of common values, all heavilyinfluenced by progressive, romantic, and socialist ideas. Americanprogressive schools began to flourish in the early 1900s and continuedto thrive in the area around New York's Columbia University and at theUniversity of Chicago where research into John Dewey's philosophy andmethods carried on even into the 1960s. Cathy Gose, a key foundingparent, received her early schooling at Edgewood School, 8 a Deweyanprogressive school in Scarsdale, New York, connected with ColumbiaTeacher's College during the 1930s. These experiences left a deepimpression and she subsequently employed progressive methods herself asa teacher at a two room school in rural New York State. 9 Anotherfounding parent, Barbara Beach, attended City and Country School in NewYork City, a famous progressive school founded by Caroline Pratt in1914. 10 Rita Cohn, another founder who was also a teacher, had beentrai-ted in progressive methods at Columbia 11 and other members of the27inaugural parent group were familiar with Black Mountain College12 inNorth Carolina, and with The Putney School in Vermont, a pioneeringprogressive secondary school founded in 1936. 13Parents who had come to Vancouver from northeastern United Statesor the San Francisco Bay area were familiar with alternative schoolingelsewhere and Mrs. Beach describes being \"shocked by the lack ofalternative schools\" when she arrived in Vancouver. 14 Seven of thethirty-two inaugural families were American. 15 Although these parentsaccounted for only twenty-two percent of the total group (and neverexceeded that proportion in subsequent years), they were among the mostvocal and shaped the school's philosophy to a significant degree.Almost all were academics who had come to Vancouver to teach at U.B.C.and several had had direct experience with progressive education. Theyshared a liberal arts, intellectual, \"Ivy League\" ethos, valued thefine arts, and enjoyed arguing about abstract ideas. Several latertaught in the Arts I programme at U.B.C., an interdisciplinaryhumanities programme. Some were suspicious of Canadian as well aspublic education, an attitude reinforced by the recommendations of theChant commission.\" The Americans were individualists who haddiscarded \"competetive individualism\" in favour of a \"creativeindividualism\" believing that free individuals would produce a freesociety. 17 These attitudes affected curricular choice at the NewSchool—an emphasis on the arts, the encouragement of students toexplore at their own pace, and a valuing of critical thinking as wellas questioning of authority.New School parents favoured a \"child-centred\" education that built28on each child's interests, creativity, and individuality. They alsobelieved in the importance of \"learning by doing\" and \"learning throughexperience.\" They wanted their children to develop independent andcritical thinking skills and hoped the school would nurture attitudesof co-operation and self-discipline. Many parents termed themselvesprogressives; however, aside from those who had experienced progressiveeducation directly, only a few parents such as philosopher Don Brown (aCanadian), had studied Dewey's ideas carefully.There was also a distinctly utopian vision among some foundingparents who expressed a yearning for a closer community and hadromantic notions of the one room schoolhouse. 18 This coincided withRousseauian, naturalistic, and anarchistic ideas stressing freedom forchildren, natural growth, self expression, and education following thechild's own interests and motivation. This view was given a boost bythe publication of A. S. Neill's Summerhill in 1960 which was discussedfrequently and prompted a great deal of excitement among the parents. 19However, just how far they were prepared to go in this direction wasalways contentious because, despite their admiration for Neill, mostparents did not want a strictly Summerhillian free school. Althoughthe founders always referred to the New School as progressive, parentsin fact were divided and the progressives and romantics never resolvedtheir differences. These differences persisted throughout the life ofthe school causing repeated and serious disagreement.Dissatisfaction with the education system was an aspect of theparents' general social and political outlook. Although not allCanadians were critical of the school system, New School parents' views29were in keeping with the general intellectual and political climate ofthe early 1960s in Canada--a time of idealism and optimism about thefuture. Parents objected to competitive and anti-social values (suchas stereotyping of aboriginal children) they believed were transmittedthrough the public schools. The parents distrusted large institutions,governments, and strongly religious or nationalistic sentiments.\" Thesuspicion of nationalism was endorsed by both individualists, whobelieved unquestioning nationalism inhibited independent thinking, andsocialists, who equated nationalism with capitalism and war.A few New School parents were socialists and saw their involvementin the school as an act contributing to a broader movement allowingpeople to take control of their own lives and to transform society. 21However, although generally on the left of the political spectrum, mostparents were not Marxian socialists. It would be more accurate todescribe them as activists when faced with social problems, democratscommitted to resolving issues through participation, egalitarians, andquestioners of traditional institutions and social norms. Although intheory many parents were collectivists, they respected individualityand were primarily interested in developing the capacities andinterests of each individual. They shared many attitudes and valuesbut often for different reasons. Progressives and romantics frequentlyreferred to each other as \"socialists\" and \"anarchists.\" Althoughthese labels describe something of the style of the two competinggroups, they do not explain their ideology in a meaningful way.Some were active in the New Democratic Party while others wereinvolved in peace and disarmament issues or civil rights. A number of30participants had been influenced by politico-religious movements. Forexample, some parents had explored non-violence inspired by Quakerism,others were brought up with a Methodist social conscience, and severalJewish parents had been active in labour zionism. 22 There wascertainly something of the kibbutz spirit present in the New Schoolcommunity. 23 Several later parents and one influential teacher wereactive in the Unitarian Church. 24 Although the precise politicalorientations of the founding parents varied, the majority believed thatprogressive education would lead children to radical criticism of theirsociety,\" thus producing individuals who would help to bring aboutsocial change. 26New School parents believed strongly in a participatory democraticdecision making process and favoured co-operative forms ofadministrative organization. Several founding parents had originallymet at a parent co-operative pre-schoo1. 27 A number of others met atanother pre-school organization, the Child Study Centre at U.B.C. 28Several parents knew Mary Thomson, a consultant to Vancouver's parentco-operative pre-schools, as well as her husband Watson Thomson, apioneer of progressive, co-operative education in Canada.\" Mrs.Thomson was an important resource during the early planning stages.\"In keeping with socialist and egalitarian values, as they understoodthem, the planning group developed the idea of a sliding fee scalebased on each familiy's ability to pay. This would ensure that nofamilies were excluded for economic reasons and would replace thetraditional private school scholarship system. 31 The sliding scaleremained a central policy of the New School throughout its life.31Progressivism, romanticism, and socialism all strongly influencedthe ideology of the New School. But just because the parents wereagreed in their opposition to the public school system did not meanthat they could agree on what they wanted. Some wanted a Deweyanprogressive school, others wanted a Summerhillian free school, somefavoured an enriched curriculum, and a few wanted to make a politicalstatement. A few parents investigated other innovative modelsincluding the Montessori method and Rudolph Steiner's Waldorf Schools.Educational theories were not always clearly defined 32 and people meantdifferent things by terms such as structure, creativity, interests, andfreedom. One parent wondered by 1964 \"how many of us are in agreementin our use of the term progressive.\" 33 The founding community neveragreed on precisely what kind of school it was to be. This lack ofconsensus would cause many of the school's problems in the years tocome.A front-page article summarizing the goals and values of the NewSchool appeared in The Sun, on February 7, 1961, under the headline\"Four Profs Plan Own School.\" 34 The article reported that theprofessors were \"disenchanted with the Chant report.\" Their schoolwould follow the \"progressive\" system of education and classes would be\"informal, unregimented, non-competitive, and non-conformist.\"Teaching would be \"geared to the individual needs of each child\" withthe core assumption that \"learning is interesting and enjoyable.\" Thefine arts would be a central part of the curriculum. The school was tobe accessible to anyone who agreed with its aims and Elliott Gose wasquoted as saying: \"Fees will be worked out on the basis of ability to32pay.^We don't want it to be a school for university professors'children only.\"The entire planning process took two years. In the fall of 1961 anenlarged planning group began weekly meetings to discuss practicalmatters such as governance, finance, physical space, and recruitment.\"The New School\" was incorporated under the Societies Act on February22, 1962 to \"establish and maintain a non-profit co-operative school\"which would provide an \"experimental and progressive\" education onterms which \"minimize the exclusion of children on economic grounds.\" 35All parents or guardians of children admitted to the school becamemembers of the co-operative organization. Committees were formed todeal with admissions, teacher selection, finance, planning, and workco-ordination.The first Board was elected that winter with Elliott Gose aspresident and other board members Don Brown, Charles Christopherson,Gwen Creech, Norman Epstein, Pat Hanson, Ean Hay, Ken McFarland, andAlan Tolliday. 36 Three of the five founding families were representedon the board. Elliott Gose was a logical choice for president since hewas not strongly identified with any of the competing progressive,romantic, or socialist ideologies. Mr. MacFarland and Mr. Tollidayadded some badly needed practical and financial expertise. EllenTallman and Andy Johnston were elected to the board the following year.Although women played a key role in the school's evolution, the factthat only two women made it onto the board was indicative of the factthat feminist concerns were not yet on this group's agenda.After many hours of discussion, and numerous drafts and position33papers, a comprehensive prospectus was completed in June, 1962 thatexplained the New School's approach to progressive learning, co-operative administrative structure, admissions, and fees. Much of thecontent came from Dewey. The school's educational theory embodied theprinciple that each child would be respected for his or her individualnature and humanity. Students would progress through the curriculum attheir own rates and in their own ways. Activities would be structuredaround student interests and the prospectus stated that \"the child mustdo the work of learning, and that his activity is most satisfying andproductive when it stems from his own interests.\" 37 It followed, theythought, that the school would offer individualized instruction, aflexible curriculum, and small classes. The encouragement of artisticexpression was an essential goal: \"Through the arts a child learns toexpress and develop his personality more readily and to approach thebasic skills more creatively. The arts are not frills but a basic partof the curriculum.\" 38The development of critical thinking and problem solving skills wasa primary goal of the New School and each student would \"activelyexperience his education rather than passively accept it.\" Teacherswould encourage students' natural curiosity through an experimentalteaching approach. The prospectus stressed that \"the work of a teacherat any level is not only to communicate a body of knowledge but tocreate conditions under which the students will develop an ability tothink through problems and to be creative.\" 39 This would necessitatean informal classroom atmosphere with inter-disciplinary kinds oflearning, experimentation, and project work. Nevertheless, prospective34parents were assured that instruction in the basic subjects would be\"at least equivalent to that in the public schools over the longrun. \" 40 In this assertion the parents somewhat overestimated theircapacity to ensure that this would be carried out and had no way ofmeasuring it at any rate.A central goal of the New School was the promotion of co-operationrather than competition and the propectus stated that there would be noexaminations or grading systems. The parents believed that competition\"aside from demoralizing some and distorting relations among all,introduces irrelevant motives into children's work and confuses theirvalues.\"41 The school would encourage growth in self-discipline, self-reliance, and independence. Tolerance and respect for individualdifferences were highly valued and, true to the parents' humanistic andindividualist views, the prospectus stated that the school would notprovide religious training or promote a nationalistic bias. Lastly,New School parents were determined that school would be an enjoyableexperience for their children and that learning would be fun.The prospectus outlined the parent co-operative governing structureand stressed \"the high value we place on individuality, on mutualrespect, and on trust in democratic procedures\" including \"a fairdistribution of the burden\" of supporting the school. The prospectuscontinued: \"The school is for children, but their parents are alsoengaged in an educational experiment.\" 42 In the area of parentdecision making this was to prove all too true.Parents had to confront one difficult policy issue almostimmediately—whether the school would accept children with learning or35behavioural disabilities. These included children apparently unable todo certain kinds of academic work and emotionally disturbed children(by the definitions of the time)—students for whom regular teachingpractices would not suffice. For convenience I will borrow a term fromthe 1980s and refer to such children as \"special needs students\"acknowledging that New School parents did not use that term and usuallyreferred to them as \"problem students.\"Although many parents were socially conscious individuals who didnot want to turn away students they thought they could help, this wasto be a school for normal children. This required maintaining acareful \"balancing act.\" 43 From the beginning the school acceptedseveral students with reading disabilities and one autistic child, butthe number was kept deliberately low (below ten percent) so they couldbe absorbed without substantially altering the programme. However,this was perceived as a serious enough concern by the end of the secondyear that the revised prospectus of 1964 stated that the school wouldrefuse admission to children whose \"problems require special facilitieswhich the school cannot adequately provide.\" 44 Several parentscontinued to worry about \"problem children\" fearing that if the numberof special needs students rose, no matter how worthy an endeavour, thebasic nature of the school would change. 45The teachers had little expertise in treating reading disabilitiesand the school did not provide any diagnostic services. Nevertheless,one parent reported that her child was treated for mild dyslexia thatshe believes would not have been detected in the public system at thattime. Another parent, whose son had a reading disability, describes36how the teachers \"worked all the time with him and really brought himthrough.\" She believes he would have been in \"bad trouble\" in publicschool. 46 However, these early successes were exceptions. The issuewas never finally resolved, but after the fourth year the school beganto accept a much higher proportion of special needs students.New families were attracted primarily through word of mouth. Inaddition, some parents read about the school in newspaper articles andadvertisements describing a school organized by parents dissatisfiedwith the school system, and who desired a well-rounded and child-centred education favouring the philosophy of John Dewey. 47 Severalothers heard about the school through a television interview withElliot Gose, Don Brown, and Marilyn Epstein on the C.B.C. programme,\"Almanac.\" 48 Prospective parents were interviewed at their homes bytwo to four members of the admissions committee to ensure that theapplicants' educational goals and expectations were compatible withthose of the New School. Interviews continued until, by the spring of1962, thirty-two families had joined the school.Many of the parents in the inaugural group would play a significantrole in the administrative and ideological development of the school.Nine were university professors (28%) while six were teachers (19%).Seven worked in other professions (22%), four in business (13%), threein trades (9%), and three in the performing arts (9%). 49 Althoughalmost half of the parents worked in educational fields, the schoolsucceeded in attracting a few families from all walks of life. Duringthe first three years parental occupations included business, law,social work, psychology, science, management, architecture, carpentry,37theatre, music, and the ministry. Over 60% lived on the west side ofVancouver, a surprising 20% came all the way from West and NorthVancouver, and a few families came from Vancouver's east side, Burnaby,Richmond, and even Ladner.\" Despite this diversity, the school had astrong professional and middle class ambiance. This was not unusualfor progressive schools because, as Lawrence Cremin explains, \"thecostliness of private schools and the normal pedagogical conservatismof working-class parents tended to make independent progressive schoolsmiddle or upper class institutions.\" 51 The New School was noexception.The most important initial task of the new organization was to hireteaching staff. In April, 1962 the parents were excited by the hiringof Mr. Lloyd Arntzen, a highly respected West Vancouver elementaryteacher and musician, as head teacher. He had been suggested by boardmember Ean Hay, a good friend and fellow band leader. Mr. Arntzen wasattracted to the school because of its commitment to innovativeteaching and students progressing at their own rate, and he lookedforward to teaching in the New School's ungraded classes. He had beenfrustrated by the lack of a support system for students with readingproblems \"left by the wayside in the public system\" 52 and believedthat competitiveness in learning was counterproductive. Parents wereimpressed that he held the development of creativity to be an essentialgoal.However, Mr. Arntzen was not interested in pushing any particulareducational theory. He was more interested in practical considerationssuch as the New School's small classes and its emphasis on arts38education. He considered many different methods and tried to implementwhatever he thought would work in a given situation. He aimed todiscover the unique learning style of each student whether verbal,written, dramatic, introspective, creative, or analytical. Heintroduced activities that appealed to student interests but he was nota free school advocate and believed teachers should formulate thecurriculum. 53 Julia Brown, like many others, reports that Mr. Arntzenconveyed \"an excitement and enthusiasm about learning\" and \"waswonderful with kids.\" 54Mrs. Joyce Beck, another highly recommended teacher, was alsohired. She came to the New School with five years public schoolexperience in primary grades and believed in \"students going at theirown rate rather than some struggling to keep up while others sitbored.\" Her \"new found freedom was an exciting experience.\" 55 Parentsand students remember both teachers as dedicated individuals with agift for motivating young people while giving them the freedom to bethemselves. Both teachers had standard British Columbia teachingcredentials and neither had any special training in progressive orinnovative methods.The New School opened in September, 1962, with thirty-nine studentsin grades one through five.\" Students were organized in two multi-age groups; Mr. Arntzen taught the older class and Mrs. Beck workedwith the primary children. Attempts to locate suitable accommodationfor the school during the previous spring had been unsuccessful, andthe board decided to rent two rooms on a temporary basis from thePeretz School (a left leaning Jewish educational association) at West3945th Avenue and Ash Street. But the teachers had been unenthusiasticabout this arrangement from the beginning. Working in someone else'sspace created predictable problems. It was difficult to operate aschool that de-emphasized structure and stressed work with concretematerials when everything had to be dismantled and put away at the endof the day.Seeking to resolve the accomodation problem, Alan Tolliday and KenMacFarland combed the city for an appropriate space. One day inOctober they noticed a building for sale at 3070 Commercial Drive thatbelonged to King's College, a former Christian school. Mr. MacFarlandtook several parents to inspect the premises by flashlight that verynight. The parents had to act quickly for there was another schoolinterested in the site. They were also anxious to purchase thebuilding while it was still licensed for educational purposes. Thebuilding cost $33,000. The board asked all members to donate what theycould in the form of debentures to be redeemable when the family leftthe school. The campaign raised $6,500 within a matter of weeks,enough to secure a mortgage for $16,500 from a sympathetic individual 57and a bank loan for the additional $10,000. 58 The New School boughtthe building and moved in on November 1.Although the building needed a lot of work and the classrooms wereso small that a few walls had to be knocked out, the purchase generatedgreat excitement among the parents. Securing a physical space of theirown was the culmination of two years of planning and hard work. Themain floor consisted of two or three regular classrooms (depending onhow the walls were arranged) in addition to a science room, music room,40office, and lounge. The basement had a large concrete play area forrainy days, an art room, kitchen, storage space, and a stage withenough room for an audience. 59 There was no outside playground butstudents played at Clark Park across the street. The building, whichwas far from ideal, was expected to be a temporary home until theschool outgrew it. This never happened, however, and its deterioratingcondition caused the school serious problems in future years.The school population was quickly becoming a close community.Meetings, committees, school events, planning, and working together ontasks of all kinds kept families in constant communication. Becausestudents came from all over the lower mainland, carpools were organizedand visits to each other's homes were frequent. Students lookedforward to school each day much to the astonishment of their publicschool friends. The first year was so successful that a third classwas added in the fall of 1963 and Miss Carol Williams, a beginningteacher, was hired to teach grades three and four. Enrolment jumped tofifty-five students in grades one through six and the treasurerannounced that the school had broken even after one full year ofoperation. 60 The New School's initial success can be attributed to thededication of its participants in fulfilling a genuine desire for adifferent kind of education. It was not until the spring of the secondyear of operation that any serious problems arose.With the success of the first year behind them, parents resumeddeliberations about the future educational direction of the school.They discussed what they wanted their children to learn, and debatedhow much the teachers should shape the curriculum and how much should41come from the students themselves. Many circulated their views inwriting and their opinions were characteristically diverse. However,they were still unable to achieve a consensus.Gloria Levi wrote that the school should translate its primaryvalues (co-operation, learning through interest, and encouragement ofthe arts) into more concrete forms. She raised basic questions: \"Whatdo we want taught and why? How does it differ from a traditionalcurriculum? Are individual studies organized within a larger scheme?\"She advocated a flexible curriculum but believed it should be initiatedby the teachers. 61Charles Christopherson stated the romantic view. He argued against\"ivory towerism\" in favour of education deriving from \"values.\" Thiseducation would prepare young people to act in the world with practicalskills, life arts, and the powers of independent judgement. He thoughtthe curriculum must expand outside the formal classroom into thecommunity and into the home with a \"balanced interaction among allelements in a democratic society.\" He wrote that school should be \"aliving, organic, built-in participation in life as it is being livedwith infinite possibilities of discovery, diversity, individuality, andcreative improvisation.\" 62Pat Hanson hoped her children would be \"glad they are alive, andcapable of expressing their feelings and communicating their thoughts.\"She believed that an environment encouraging rational thought andexpression in speech, writing, and art forms was more important thanany particular content. She did not expect school to teach herchildren to fit into society:42If the education I want is successful, it will not make lifeeasy for my children. Often what they experience will bepainful, what they think disturbing, and what they expressmisunderstood. They will, however, be given the opportunity torealize their potentialities as human beings.\" 63Don Brown offered a comprehensive view of New School progressivismin his paper \"Are We A Progressive School?\" summarizing hisunderstanding of Dewey's ideas on interest, enquiry, and activity inthe learning process. In reaction to the more conservative strain ofprogressive thought, Dr. Brown believed psychology should play a minorpedagogical role in comparison to the practical experience of theprofessional teacher \"who finds it natural to relate material to thechild's own experience.\" He stressed the fundamental importance of thearts and hoped to give the curriculum \"an overall shape that is relatedto life, to equip children with the cultural resources for dealing withthe future.\"Dr. Brown also believed that \"a child whose many potentialitieshave been brought to maturity will be a force for greater democracy andsocial change.\" He saw progressive education as part of a way of lifeequally valued by parents as by children:Progressivism in education is more than another theory of howto do it. It is the working out in the school of an attitudeto life which demands expression in a person's family, job,social relations, politics, and religious commitments. Thereare live connections between our educational practice and ourvoluntary association as a group of parents. Willingness tothink and act independently; mutual respect and co-operativerelations; reliance on democratic procedures; a distribution ofthe financial burden which resists a class bias and attemptsfairness among ourselves—these seem to me to be characteristicof people who also want progressive education, and to implyresistance to some of the strongest influences producingconformity in our society. The school is important to bothchildren and parents as an oasis in which sounder values candevelop. 6443A Progressive CurriculumCurriculum discussions during the New School's first two years didnot produce any more agreement than had been achieved during theplanning period and by the third year the school was so absorbed bypersonnel matters that the curriculum debate was discontinued. Theprogressive parents were in the majority during these early years andeducation at the New School was child centred, individualized, andexperiential. Activities were geared to the interests of the students,but unlike later free schools, the teachers prescribed a curriculum,flexible though it was, and expected the students to learn.School started at 9:00 and followed a set timetable of subjectsincluding daily mathematics and reading periods with specific tasksevery day. But there were no bells, the schedule was flexible, andeach day began with one hour of free activity during which individualscould choose to work in any area of the curriculum.\" Students wereresponsible for completing assigned material at their level, but \"howyou did it was up to you.\" If a student was busy with a specialproject he or she could continue the entire day if necessary, althoughthe missed work had to be made up. One student remembers working on ascience experiment continuously for three days and doing researchinterviews during periods of time out of the school.\" But when he wasfinished, he caught up on the other subjects. The teachers encouragedthis kind of spontaneity and various areas of study often gave rise tounexpected projects. Students learned through their experiences andthrough what was meaningful to them.44The university community was already well aware of the New School.Neville Scarfe, Dean of Education at the University of BritishColumbia, visited the New School in October, 1963 and, in a letter ofsupport, described its curriculum as \"constructive, creative, andadventurous.\" 67Parents and teachers extensively discussed how much structure wouldcharacterize New School classes. Most agreed that the teachers shoulddevelop structured learning situations but in a gentle manner. LloydArntzen describes it this way:Basically I directed things. I brought stuff in and if I saw aglimmering of interest I would present the idea. I didn't goto a lot of work to get their ideas, I would just sort of payattention. I kind of knew what they were interested in.\"Teachers adjusted their expectations according to individual students'abilities and interests: \"ideally it would be a different programmefor every kid.\" 69 Mr. Arntzen and Mrs. Beck had definite goals for thestudents but developed a \"fluid kind of structure, almost invisible; itwas there but it wasn't, it was flexible.\" 7° One student remembers:I hardly remember any classes at the New School. I think timewas structured somewhat (it wasn't a free for all) but youdidn't have to tell anybody what you were doing and you seemedto be able to do whatever you felt like. So as a young kid Ijust followed and saw what looked interesting and would go anddo that. Maybe there was stuff we had to do but I don'tremember any sense of pressure. 71Class size varied between sixteen and twenty throughout the life of theschool which made individualized teaching more manageable.Students learned at their own pace. Textbooks were rarely used;for example, the senior class worked on an individualized mathematicsprogramme emphasizing understanding of the number system. Studentswere tested to determine their beginning level and then worked through45a systematic sequence of exercises that included hands-on activitiesand learning aids that were considered innovative in the early 1960s.\"We got bushels of Cuisinaire rods\" 72 and students, accustomed totraditional whole-class teaching, had to get used to doing mathematics\"out of file boxes.\" 73 Two students completed the grade eightmathematics course in grade six. 74 Students enjoyed extensive work ingeometry. They used geoboards, made their own protractors, and evenused triangulation to measure the height of trees. Don Brown recallsthe satisfaction he felt on seeing Mr. Arntzen and his students outsidesurveying the school building on the very first school day in 1962. 75The reading programme was also individualized and students chosetheir own literature, in consultation with the teacher, during weeklyclass trips to the public library. Although there was virtually noreading instruction for the older students, many read a great deal.Several older girls formed an informal reading club and at one pointread more than ten autobiographical accounts of the holocaust.Assisted by a knowledgeable parent, it became an intense emotionalexperience. Students read advanced and controversial books such asCatcher in the Rve that were not part of the public school curriculum,and one student remembers reading novels in secondary school that shehad read several years earlier at the New School. 76 Another studentrecalls the excitement of hearing The Hobbit read aloud in grade three,and then writing stories about it and making pictures, posters, andpuppets. Informal writing activities were fairly regular.Mrs. Beck provided individualized reading and mathematics in theprimary programme as well and ensured that every child would experience46success.77 Students learned to read when they were ready and mostcould not wait to get started. Julia Brown remembers her daughtercoming home from her first day in grade one excited because Mrs. Beckhad asked the students what they would like to learn; they all saidthey wanted to learn to read and write. Each child was then asked whatword they would like to learn to write. \"The kids wanted to learn andthey were allowed to learn.\" 78 Hands-on activities were emphasized;for example grade one students used popsickle sticks to help visualizemathematical concepts. Social studies, science, and art includedindividual and group projects emphasizing experience and observation.Students spent much time dramatizing stories, writing their own plays,and doing imaginative writing.\"The school emphasized creative teaching which parents and teachershoped would lead to more understanding. Rote skills such as phonicsand spelling were only taught on an individual basis when problemsarose, and basic skills were frequently missed. One student reportsthat she cannot spell to this day because spelling was ignored duringher early years at the New School and she was later taught according toan experimental alphabet. This caused her a great deal of difficultyin grade eight.\" Another student never learned her times tables,although she readily understood the concept of multiplication 81 andanother student reports being exposed to times tables for the firsttime when he entered public school in grade four. 82 Grammar andhandwriting were virtually ignored and, surprisingly, there was littleformal writing activity of any kind. One parent, Jim Winter, was atfirst concerned about the omission of such basic grammar as parts of47speech and sentence structure, but his son had no difficulty picking upthose things in secondary schoo1. 83 Most parents were not worriedabout academic subjects; Ellen Tallman, for example, was just happy herdaughter wanted to go to school. 84The teachers integrated individual subjects through themes, specialprojects, and group activities. One student remembers the excitementof building an entire Inca city and learning Inca mathematics, stories,weaving, and other aspects of Inca civilization for a period of severalweeks. Northwest Coast culture was similarly studied. Students splittheir own shakes and built cedar boxes, masks, and longhouses in theschool basement.\" Mr. Arntzen believed that learning ought to beinteresting and fun; one way to achieve this was to encourage studentsto build things. \"Whenever I teach history I always look for what Ithink will interest them about it; if you are going to teach historyyou must make it memorable.\" 86 These thematic and concrete activitieswere essentially Deweyan.Science emphasized inquiry, experimentation, observation, andunderstanding. Students spent several weeks investigating pendulumsusing frames they built with parental help and tested objects made fromdifferent substances in a variety of shapes, weights, and lengths ofstring. In another project, the group made hot air balloons out ofvacumn cleaner bags and alcohol burning lights, an activity thatcontinued for several days. 87 They built and flew kites, discussed themathematics involved, and wrote poetry about them. 88 When Trout Lakefroze over one winter the whole school dropped everything and spent anentire week building ice-boats. (Most of them didn't work!) In this48and other instances the teachers were flexible enough to discard theirschedule and to respond to students' sense of excitement. One youngerchild remembers helping an older student on individual chemistryprojects such as making hydrochloric acid (\"I don't know how he knewhow to do it\") and electrolysis. 89 Another student developed a greatknack for research and spent many hours outside the school gatheringinformation for projects. He interviewed experts and public figuresincluding the chief fire inspector and the mayor. He reports thatstudents were never \"spoonfed\" information:You were given questions but you had to find the answers.There was nothing to regurgitate back. We were taught how tofind the necessary tools to answer any question or solve anyproblem.\"The teachers encouraged students to develop an interest in worldevents. For example, there was a great deal of discussion about theCuban missile crisis and the significance of the events as they wereunfolding. Similarly, when Martin Luther King was assassinated severalyears later the students talked and wrote about it—\"it wasn't justsomething that they studied about, there was a lot of emotion that theyfelt and were able to express.\" 91Like their parents, many of the students were aware of socialissues. Students frequently discussed political issues such as theVietnam war among themselves 92 and one student remembers devoting anissue of the student newspaper to a discussion of racism in thesouthern United States, under the title \"Jim Crow Must Go.\" Somestudents formed a \"literature drop troop\" for the NDP during anelection campaign, 93 and on one occasion a group of future activistsorganized a sit-in, taking over the teachers' lounge. 94 A few parents49favoured formal education in socialist ideas, but they were in theminority and this was not pursued. 95Students were also interested in social trends and in the earlydays of Vancouver's counterculture a group of students undertook aproject to make \"a tape recorded study of the marijuana and LSD scenein Vancouver.\" 96 One student remembers hearing Bob Dylan for the firsttime at the New School in 1964 and feeling deeply moved by \"The TimesThey Are A-Changin'.\"Students have vivid memories of music and the other creative arts.Lloyd Arntzen was one of the earliest practitioners of the Orff methodin B.C. and both students and parents enjoyed his music classes andpresentations. Students learned to play xylophones which Mr. Arntzenand a group of parents had made themselves, since the school could notafford to buy them. He also taught rhythm through intricate clappingtechniques, forming a clapping orchestra, and rhythmic word patterns.Students liked this activity so much that they often sang and clappedthe rhythms on their way home in the car. 97 Mr. Arntzen introduced thestudents to folk songs and, being a great fisherman, taught sea songssuch as \"The Golden Vanity\" and \"Jack Was Every Inch A Sailor.\" Onestudent who went on to do a music education degree claims that this\"joy in her life was fostered by Lloyd Arntzen.\" 95Students engaged in a variety of painting and drawing activities.They also worked with clay and the school had its own kiln. Cookingwas another popular activity and students remember baking bread andmaking ice cream. One classroom was set up as a workshop, rare in anelementary school. One of the parents built workbenches, fitted them50out with tools, and Mr. Arntzen, a skilled carpenter, developed asuccessful woodworking programme. The shop became a refuge for severalstudents with reading difficulties. Cooking and woodworking activitieswere available to both boys and girls.New School parents believed strongly in the importance of self-expression and drama was a very popular activity. Students enjoyedwriting their own plays, and often performed them on the basement stagefor other students and for parents on theatre evenings. These studentwritten plays were often a spin off from other areas of study oractivities that were going on around the school. During the secondyear (1963/64) the students put on a play about Mrs. Beck (who waspregnant) giving birth to her baby that had the parents in stitches. 99A group of older boys organized at least one play per week, an activitythat enhanced acting, writing, directing, and social skills. Drama wasan activity at which students who did not enjoy academic work or werenot proficient in reading could excel. One boy turned out to be sotalented that he started getting parts at the CBC, prompting him tolearn to read. 11\" The younger students also wrote plays and onestudent recalls being part of a group that wrote and performed a threeact play about survival on an island. 101 Students did some film makingas well. In keeping with the goals of the New School, dramaticactivities encouraged creative work but de-emphasized performance.The school made use of community resources for physical education,including Clark Park for soccer, the community gymnasium at Trout Lakefor gymnastics and indoor games, and the local swimming pool andskating rink for weekly sessions. The parents purchased gymnastics51equipment for the basement. The school had a soccer team composed ofboys and girls and occasionally played games with nearby St. Joseph'sCatholic School. Clark Park across the street became the main studentplayground since the school grounds were very small. Students wouldcross the street in groups and were called back to the school by an oldfashioned hand held bell.Students participated in a number of field trips to locations likethe harbour, a bakery, the sewage plant, and other points of interest.The school invited professional artists, musicians, and actors to workwith the students from time to time and also had an arrangement withHoliday Theatre whereby classes in creative drama were offered at theschool in the late afternoons. The parents themselves constituted anextensive pool of talent and those who worked in interesting fieldswere often invited into the school to share their expertise with thestudents. For example, one father who was a printer brought in anantique printing machine with a heavy roller and boxes of type, andstudents put out a newspaper on an occasional basis. 1°2Day-to-day life at the New School was informal. Students worked attrapezoid shaped tables (built by parents shortly after the schoolopened) rather than desks, a radical innovation in the early 1960s, andwere free to move around the school. There were also some carrels inthe intermediate classroom that fulfilled some students' wishes for aprivate space \"like having their own house.\" 1\" Students and teachersdressed as they liked, another practice ahead of its time, and girlsenjoyed the freedom to wear pants. Strict dress codes were the norm inpublic schools and Clive Cocking, writing in The Sun in May, 1967,52wondered if the reader could imagine a school \"where a mop-headedyoungster can swagger around in a poncho embroidered with golden tigersand dragons\" and where a teacher \"can sport a beard and doesn't have towear a suit.\"'\" He was equally surprised that kids could fly kites inthe hall, carry around a transistor radio, and walk in and out of classanytime they wanted. He concluded that it was sometimes difficult fora stranger to tell \"when it is recess and when it is not.\"New School parents considered freedom in dress and mobility to beimportant in contributing to self-confidence and responsibility, andallowed the students to think about more important intellectual andsocial issues. 1°5 Parents also wanted their children to have fun whilethey were learning. Lloyd Arntzen recalls going to great lengths tosummarize for the first annual general meeting how much the studentshad learned, when one board member interrupted with \"I can see they arelearning things but are they enjoying themselves?\" 1\"Teachers respected student opinion and allowed them to participatein establishing rules of conduct at weekly meetings. The kinds ofissues students decided were methods of sharing equipment, organizationof sports day, and movement and noise in the school building. 107Students learned to negotiate and resolve conflicts; for example, ifsome children wanted to have water fights outside they would have tofind a way to do so without affecting those who wanted to stay dry. 108The school basement provided an area of considerable freedom for thestudents to do whatever they wanted within reason. They were permittedto alter the appearance of the basement and sometimes painted the wholearea black or a variety of wild colours in paisley or psychedelic53style. However, there was also an \"edge of formality\" at the NewSchoo1. 1\" Teachers designed the curriculum and made decisions aboutstudent safety. Teachers were addressed by their last names until the\"free school\" era beginning in 1967. The adults listened to studentsuggestions and discussion was open and free, but the New School didnot adopt a Summerhill model of student self-government during theearly period of the school's history.Teachers emphasized student responsibility and self-discipline andadministered no form of punishment. 11° A Vancouver Province reporter,visiting the school in June, 1963, noted that \"there's no strap in theschool and little formal discipline. .111 This was a significantdeparture from B. C. public schools where the strap was used foranother decade. There were few formal rules and students were taughthow to set their own limits in areas of personal safety and behaviourtoward others. Discipline was indeed gentle. One student remembers\"peeing in the waste basket in grade one and Lloyd coming down thestairs and simply saying 'Don't do that' and I said 'Oh, okay.'\"Instead of traditional methods of discipline such as detentions, theteachers could rely on genuine respect from students and constantcommunication with parents to deal effectively with almost allsituations. Nevertheless, teachers exercised their authority andintervened when necessary. One student remembers one sanction that wasavailable to control behaviour—he could be prohibited from going outof the school on individual research projects. He continues: \"we werenever a Summerhill. Breaking windows didn't go. But it was very muchour school.\" 11254The teachers wrote in their annual report that \"on the whole thestudents exhibited good sense and sensible behaviour at school.\" 113This view was echoed by Wilf Bennett, a Province reporter who observedthat \"the school was humming with activity. The discipline wasobviously good. Every youngster was busy doing something. There wasno sign of horsing around or idleness.\" In commenting on the widerange of activity, he continued, \"one group was busy performing anelectrolysis of water experiment; others were painting, reading,composing music, or woodworking. .114 Nevertheless, because theseenergetic individuals were not constrained, New School students couldbe a handful for the teachers to manage.Teachers expected that students would be motivated by their ownexcitement about learning and the wide choice of activities rather thanby examinations and grades. One parent recalls that driving the car-pool was a pleasure because \"the kids would be continuing their schoolexperience in the car, with activities such as mental arithmetic.\" 115The absence of exams, grades, and formal report cards was a source ofamazement to New School visitors. A 1963 article in the Province washeadlined \"Exams are passe for children at New School,\" and a similarstory titled \"No exams, reports, at New School\" appeared in The Sun three years later. 116Most teachers wrote extensive anecdotal comments on each studentcovering academic, artistic, and athletic achievement as well as socialand emotional growth. Mr. Arntzen believed in building on students'strengths and his comments were lengthy, honest, and positive. Forexample, in one report after briefly outlining a student's need for55remedial work in reading and arithmetic, he wrote an entire paragraphabout the student's leadership in creating and directing imaginativeplays with \"a motley crew of boys down in the basement.\" 117 Detailedanecdotal reporting was unusual in the public school system at thattime. In some classes students wrote their own reports at the end ofthe year in the form of summaries of what they had learned. Due to theschool's informality there was ample opportunity for teachers todiscuss student progress with parents but formal conferences werescheduled as wel1. 118The elimination of grades was part of the teachers' attempt to de-emphasize competition and to promote co-operation. Mr. Arntzen opposedcompetiveness in learning because \"the poor learner was in a race hecould not win.\" 119 The teachers wrote in their annual report thatstudents \"worked with interest and enthusiasm without the ulteriorstimulus\" of grades. They believed the absence of grades eliminatedfrustration and tension from learning and contributed towards a \"morefriendly, charitable, and helpful atmosphere among the students.\" 12°Students were fiercely competitive in team sports (Neill reports thesame thing at Summerhill) but individual competitions were discouragedin favour of co-operative races and games. This was to become afamiliar model for Sports Day in public elementary schools some yearslater.Students were encouraged to help each other with their work. Thedramatic writing and performing groups that functioned without anyadult assistance were an example of how students learned to co-operate.As one former student puts it, \"I think we learned how to co-operate56without being aware of it.\" 121 Students of all ages worked and playedtogether and the multi-age classes were conducive to co-operativelearning. 122 One student remembers hanging out a great deal with olderkids, doing what they were doing: \"The thing that strikes me the mostis how little I remember the presence of teachers. I don't rememberteachers showing us how to do things. I remember much more learningfrom older students.\" 123 Surprisingly, despite the strong value placedupon co-operation, the teachers did little team teaching during theearly years, as most felt more comfortable with independent classrooms.As for the playground, most students remember there being littlefighting, bullying, or scapegoating. They were encouraged to work outsocial problems among themselves without the intervention of theteachers and this became an important part of the everyday learningthat occurred at the school. In a small school conflicts could notremain unresolved for long.Girls and boys played together with little fanfare and, accordingto one former student, generally did \"the boys' types of things.\" 124Although gender equality was not a conscious component of schoolphilosophy, the New School was far ahead of its time in that activitieswere not segregated according to gender. Girls played on teams and didcarpentry, while boys were involved in weaving and sewing. One femalestudent describes how the girls expected to do the same things as theboys and expected to have the same futures, and was somewhat shockedwhen she found that this attitude did not exist in public schoo1. 125Another student says \"it was the natural thing; we never thoughtanything of it. \"12657The school had a relaxed attitude towards personal modesty andduring the second year an intense debate erupted over the concept ofunisex washrooms. Students took part in these discussions and as oneparent describes \"the girls didn't care about the philosophy—theywanted their own washroom!\" 127 Their wishes prevailed. The schoolprovided sex education evenings for the older students and theirparents, another practice not found in the public schools at that time.During these presentations the health officers had to be on their toeslest a sophisticated New School student accuse them of being tooembarrassed to discuss the subject fully. 128 At one general meetingparents discussed Neill's ideas of freer sexuality for young people,but most were uncomfortable with the issue and it was dropped.Respect for individuals and tolerance of differences were taken forgranted. One parent praised Mr. Arntzen for creating an \"acceptingatmosphere\" that helped her daughter learn to value people as theyare. 129 Another parent wrote that the school extended her son's \"humansympathies,\" particularly towards kids with disabilities.'\" However,most students questioned do not remember this aspect of their educationat the New School.Conformity was not a goal of parents or teachers and students wereencouraged to be different. 131 Several were extroverted actors andothers were gifted scholars. One student brought his typewriter toschool and used it continually from grade one. However, even thoughstudents came from tolerant families and the classes were small, Mr.Arntzen states that a pecking order did exist and teachers had to helpthe 'misfits' gain acceptance. 12258Several parents report that their children felt an anxiety andpressure in the school system that did not exist in the New School.One parent credits the New School with providing an environment inwhich his gifted son found it was acceptable to be bright and to dowell in school. Because of the fluid structure he could work with theolder students but still spend his social time with the youngergroup. 133 Another parent took his daughter out of grade one in publicschool when she developed a severe case of hives. She spent her entireelementary career at the New School and, according to her father,suffered no adverse effects. 134 One student remembers a public schoolfriend who \"had gotten the strap for sliding down a bannister. Itseemed barbaric and frightening.\" 135 Many parents believed the absenceof pressure helped their children become better adjusted individuals bythe time they returned to the school system. 136 In a particularlymoving statement one student reflects on his first year at the NewSchool after three unhappy years in public school:I just remember feeling that I liked school again. At the NewSchool I felt like a person. You could walk down the hall andnot be afraid. I felt stimulated and interested in what I wasdoing. I felt like I was learning a lot of things and notfeeling like I was failing all the time. I just felt happy.In some ways I think that first year saved my life. 137Many children had been similarly unhappy in the public systemthough most were bright, creative, and well motivated students. At theNew School they developed a high degree of confidence, independence,and sense of adventure encouraged by a positive teaching style thatrewarded initiative. Students produced their own newspapers regularly.Creative thinking was encouraged even if it didn't lead to tangibleresults. One student recalls:59Drew (another student) came in with a copy of Hamlet andthought we could do it. I thought it was a great idea--I readthe first few pages and there was a ghost and everything. Sothe big problem was how are we going to get scripts. So I gotout the carbon paper to type out this copy of Hamlet! I didn'tget very far. Another time I wanted to create a machine thatwould make marbles. I thought it wouldn't be difficult meltingthe glass and pouring it into a mold and getting the mold toopen. I don't think it ever materialized but I spent a lot oftime thinking about how this marble machine could be made. SoI think there was a lot of creative activity going on, some ofit materializing, and some of it just figuring. There werelots of schemes and ideas. 138One parent described New School kids as \"alive and exciting.\" 139 Ofcourse, many of these students had grown up in stimulating homeenvironments that encouraged independent thinking.Students rode the buses constantly and went all over town in groupsto places like Lost Lagoon and Spanish Banks, developing considerableindependence. One student recalls taking the bus down Dunbar Streeteach morning \"picking up New School kids along the way.. 140 Two otherstudents frequently rode the bus to school from Deep Cove at the age ofnine 141 and it was common for students in grade two or three to ridethe bus home. Instead of collecting baseball cards, New School kidscollected and traded bus transfers. Another remembers \"when we were onthe bus together people would ask what school do you go to and we wouldsay the New School and they would say which new school, and it got tobe quite a joke among us; it was like belonging to a club.\"'\" Thefeeling of independence that came from riding the buses is one of themost common memories of New School students.Students became very close. Because they came from all over themetropolitan area they often paid extended weekend visits to eachothers' homes. Most realized their school was unique and were proud of60it. One student remembers that \"we always had people coming in writingabout us\" and another recalls feeling more worldly than the other kidswhen she went back to public school. Still another remembers that theNew School gave her a \"sense of specialness.\"Because of the emphasis on thinking skills, it was not always easyto measure exactly how much pupils had learned but the majority of NewSchool students from this period had no trouble adapting later topublic school. Norman Epstein says: \"Our kids had no problem at alladjusting to the public schools. The freedom to operate at their ownpace, being on their own, was helpful. They didn't need to lean on usfor help in high school.\" 143 Rita Cohn maintains her four children\"must have learned all the essentials because they have all done verywell in school.\" 144 Other parents report similar observations. Manystudents were surprised at how little they had missed, caught upeasily, and achieved high marks. One student who \"didn't feel behindat all\" describes her New School activities as \"exercise for the mind.\"I realized what they had been teaching us was how to learn, howto teach ourselves. There were things that they had learned(in public school) that I hadn't learned, yet I didn't seem tohave missed anything. Whether we were learning what the otherkids had been learning didn't seem to make any difference.\" 145However, the reading programme was lacking. Most New Schoolstudents had already learned to read at public school or at home.1-eir parents valued education and students had many family resourcesto fall back on. One former student says, \"our parents were welleducated and that made up for anything we might have missed in theclassroom.\" 146 But there was no denying the reading programme washaphazard and at least four New School students did not learn effective61reading skills during this period. 147 One former student says: \"Idon't remember any reading instruction at all. If I hadn't known howto read already, I never would have bothered to learn.\" 148 Severalformer students report having difficulty with grammar and spellinglater in their school careers and Ellen Tallman began to worry by theend of her childrens' third year at the New School \"whether they weregoing to have to pay too high a price for our experiment.\"'\"Nevertheless, students believed they had real choices—what theywanted to learn, how they would organize their time—and most valuedthis experience in their further educational endeavours. One formerstudent says \"the most important thing you can learn in school is to beself-sufficient and independent and that the New School gave me.\" 158Another emphasized that she may have missed some skills but \"we learnedhow to motivate ourselves and regulate our own time.\" 151 Many NewSchool students believed they could do anything they set their mindsto. One student describes the feeling of empowerment as \"a sense ofbeing able to think of something and go and do it; having an idea andbeing able to follow through on it.\" He continues:The public school did not inspire me and once I realized that Icould get A's, it was just a matter of getting by on what wasrequired. There was much less of a sense of working formyself, whereas at the New School there didn't seem to beanybody else to work for. 152New School progressive theory had become roughly defined inpractice by the end of its second year in June, 1964. However, thenext four years would determine whether or not this practice would besustainable. Furthermore, the parents' ability to live up to theirideals of co-operative decision making would soon be severely tested.62NOTES1. Vancouver Sun, February 7, 1961, p. 1, reported by John Arnett.This was corroborated by several parent interviews.2. Gloria Levi, Marilyn Epstein, taped interviews, April 1987. Theencouragement of the creative arts was also a central goal for theparents who founded Saturday School in Calgary. See Robert Stamp,About Schools (Don Mills: new press, 1975): 144.3. Neil Sutherland, \"The Triumph of Formalism: Elementary Schoolingin Vancouver from the 1920s to the 1960s,\" B. C. Studies, 69/70(Spring/Summer 1986): 182-186.4. Vancouver Sun, February 7, 1961, p. 1, and Kathy Gose, interviewApril, 1987.5. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.6. Don Brown, tape recorded interview, January, 1991.7. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.8. Edgewood School was associated with Marietta Johnson, a leadingproponent of American progressivism.9. Kathy Gose, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.10. Barbara Beach, tape recorded interview, June, 1991. For more onCaroline Pratt, Marietta Johnson, and other progressive pioneerssee Lawrence Cremin, The Transformation of the School (New York:Random House, 1961): 147-152 and 202-207.11. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.12. Black Mountain College was one of several universities attemptingto incorporate progressive ideas into its undergraduate programmeduring the 1930s and 1940s. See Cremin, page 308.13. Reported by Jim Winter, tape recorded interview, April, 1987. SeeSusan Lloyd, The Putney School: A Progressive Experiment (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1987). The school was founded byCarmelita Hinton who had also taught at Shady Hill School, an earlyprogressive elementary school in Cambridge, Massachusetts.14. Barbara Beach, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.15. Americans among the inaugural group were the Beaches, Cohns, Goses,McCarthys, Tallmans, Winters, Marilyn Epstein, and Gloria Levi.6316. Jean Barman helped clarify the nature of American influence at theNew School.^The American emigre academic community were alsoinfluential in such U.B.C. programmes as Arts I and the historyundergraduate honours programme.17. I am indebted to Hilda Thomas for this idea, December, 1991.18. Jim Winter, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.19. A. S. Neill, Summerhill (London: Hart, 1960).20. In his study of alternative schools in the United States, DanielDuke found a common belief among parents that they had \"lostcontrol of their institutions.\" The Retransformation of the School (Chicago, Nelson-Hall, 1978): 115.21. Julia Brown, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.22. About 10% of New School families were Jewish. They were evenlydivided among those on the political left and those holding moretraditional business views. Their Jewishness alone does not yielda significant line of explanation. However, there was a perceptionamong some later participants that the school had been started by agroup of \"Jewish professors.\" There is no evidence that the factor later incorrect perceptions of the fact had any impact on thelife of the school.23. Jim Winter, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.24. Even the Unitarian minister, Reverand Philip Hewett was a NewSchool parent in the mid-1960s.25. Don Brown, tape recorded interview, January, 1991.26. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.27. Rita Cohn, Ellen Tallman, Julia Brown, interviews, April, 1987.28. Laura Jamieson, tape recorded interview, June, 1991;^ReverendPhilip Hewitt, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.29. Several founding parents knew Watson Thomson during the early 1960sand were familiar with his work, according to both Norman Epsteinand Hilda Thomas (tape recorded interviews). See Michael Welton'sbiography of Thomson, To Be and Build The Glorious World (Ph. D.Thesis, University of B. C., 1983).30. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.31. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.32. Barbara Beach, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.6433. Charles Christopherson, \"Re The New School,\" April 20, 1964.34. Vancouver Sun, February 7, 1961, p. 1, reported by John Arnett.Headlined \"Four Profs Plan Own School,\" it was actually five.35. New School Constitution, February 13, 1962.36. The New School Prospectus, 1962, page 3. Interestingly, ElliottGose became a Vancouver School Trustee ten years later.37. Prospectus, page 1.38. Prospectus, page 1.39. Prospectus, page 1. Many of these ideas are Deweyan.40. Prospectus, page 2.41. Prospectus, page 2.42. Prospectus, page 1.43. Gloria Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.44. The New School Prospectus, 1964, page 2.45. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987. Also CharlesChristopherson, \"Re The New School,\" April, 1964. Some fears wereexaggerated in 1964 but proved to be well founded five years later.46. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.47. Gloria Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.48. Alan and Elma Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.49. A few occupations are unknown (less than 20%). The percentagesgiven are approximations but nevertheless provide a useful pictureof the occupational backgrounds of New School parents. Only womenworking outside the home were included in the figures.50. New School enrolment and membership lists, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966.The figures for the first membership group of 32 families were:Vancouver, west of Cambie Street, 20; North Vancouver, 5; WestVancouver, 2; Vancouver, east of Cambie street, 2; Burnaby, 1;Richmond, 1; Ladner, 1.51. Lawrence Cremin, American Education: The Metropolitan Experience(New York: Harper and Row, 1988): 240.52. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.6553. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.54. Julia Brown, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.55. Vancouver Sun, September 10, 1962, p. 11, reported by John Arnett.56. New School enrolment and membership list, 1962.57. This was a personal mortgage held by Percy Easthope.58. New School Budget, 1962/63.59. Lloyd Arntzen, Annual Report, June, 1963, page 1.60. New School Newsletter, June, 1963.61. Gloria Levi, untitled statement, early 1964.62. Charles Christopherson, \"Notes Re Curriculum,\" February, 1964.63. Pat Hanson, \"Thoughts Re New School Philosophy,\" September, 1963.64. Don Brown, \"Are We A Progressive School?,\" September, 1963.65. Lloyd Arntzen, Joyce Beck, Annual Report, June, 1963, page 4.66. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987. This comment wastypical of former students from the early years.67. Neville Scarfe, Letter to the Now School, October 31, 1963.68. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.69. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April 1987.70. Julia Brown, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.71. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.72. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.73. Karen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.74. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.75. Don Brown, tape recorded interview, January, 1991.76. Jill Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.77. Vancouver Sun, September 10, 1962, p. 11, reported by John Arnett.78. Julia Brown, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.6679. Joyce Beck, Annual Report, June, 1963, page 3.80. Karen Tallman, Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.81. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.82. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.83. Jim Winter, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.84. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.85. Karen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.86. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.87. Karen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April 1987.88. Jim Winter, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.89. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.90. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.91. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.92. Paul Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1991.93. Karen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.94. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.95. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.96. Vancouver Sun, May 12, 1967, p. 14, reported by Clive Cocking.97. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.98. Jill Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.99. Elma Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.100. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.101. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.102. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.103. Karen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.104. Vancouver Sun, May 12, 1967, p. 14, reported by Clive Cocking.67105. In more traditional schools issues like dress are often used tokeep children from being interested in real issues.106. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.107. Lloyd Arntzen, Joyce Beck, Annual Report, June, 1963, page 5.108. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.109. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.110. Lloyd Arntzen, Joyce Beck, Annual Report, June, 1963.111. Vancouver Province, June 12, 1963, p. 17, reported by WilfBennett.112. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.113. Lloyd Arntzen, Joyce Beck, Annual Report, June, 1963, page 5.114. Vancouver Province, June 12, 1963, p. 17, reported by WilfBennett.115. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.116. Vancouver Province, June 12, 1963, p. 14, and Vancouver Sun,April 26, 1966, p. 27.117. Lloyd Arntzen, Student Reports, June, 1964, Thomas Collection.118. Lloyd Arntzen, Joyce Beck, Annual Report, June, 1963, page 5.119. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.120. Lloyd Arntzen, Joyce Beck, Annual Report, June, 1963, page 5.121. Laura Jamieson, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.122. Daniel Greenberg of the Sudbury Valley School believes that\"age mixing\" creates mature children who are not dependent uponadults. See Greenberg, The Sudbury Valley School Experience(Framingham, Mass.: Sudbury Valley School Press, 1985): 96-112.123. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.124. Karen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.125. Laura Jamieson, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.126. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.127.^Gwen Creech, interview, January, 1991.68128. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.129. Gwen Creech, interview, January, 1991.130. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, December 2, 1964.131. Tamar Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.132. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.133. Barry Promislow, tape recorded interview, January, 1991.134. Ken McFarland, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.135. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.136. Julia Brown, Hilary Nicholls, and others.137. Paul Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1991. He is nowa practising teacher himself.138. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.139. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.140. Paul Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1991.141. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.142. Jill Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.143. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.144. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.145. Laura Jamieson, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.146. Jill Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.147. Lloyd Arntzen, Ellen Tallman, Kay Stockholder, tape recordedinterviews, April, 1987.148. Laura Jamieson, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.149. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.150. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.151. Tamar Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.152.^Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.69CHAPTER 3: TEE PROGRESSIVE SCHOOL: 1964-1967The Parent Co-operativeThe New School was governed as a parent co-operative under strictdemocratic principles. The sovereign decision making body was thegeneral meeting of the entire school community where each family hadone vote.' Although the founders hoped that most decisions would bereached by consensus they set up an elaborate decision making structurebased on governance by majority. As with curriculum disagreements, theparents' failure to be clear from the beginning about how decisionswould be made within the structure, in addition to ambiguity in theirrelationship with the teachers, caused a great deal of dissension.A board of ten members was elected for a three-year term and metbi-weekly to manage the affairs of the school. General meetings of theentire parent body were held monthly with the agenda alternatingbetween business meetings and discussion sessions. The school held itsannual general meeting in June for the election of officers, andspecial general meetings could be called by the president or at therequest of five families. Teachers usually attended general meetingsand the head teacher was a member of the board but had no vote.Parents were deeply involved in all aspects of school life anddeveloped a comprehensive committee structure to which all members wereexpected to contribute. Standing committees included finance, buildingmaintenance, admissions, housekeeping, volunteers, carpool, telephone,secretarial, equipment, long range planning, \"scrounging,\" teachers'70aid, ways and means (fund-raising), grants, and teacher relations. 2Ad hoc committees were struck by the board for special tasks. Thecommittees (on which board members did not necessarily sit) became soactive that by the fall of 1963 board members were unaware of manyactivities taking place in the school. To remedy this situation thepresident, Ean Hay, asked for monthly written reports from allcommittees and notification of future meetings. 3 The board alsoauthorized a regular monthly newsletter to be sent to the wholemembership to further facilitate communication.Some members of the community opposed the formal decision makingstructure believing that the board was dictatorial. They argued for asystem of direct democracy that would eliminate the board altogether.In a comprehensive paper \"On New School Governance\" in Fall, 1963,Werner Cohn warned of the \"inherent inequalities and banality\" of anysystem of representative democracy. 4 He favoured a system with noofficers, no voting (decisions would be postponed if consensus was notreached), and a flexible, independent committee structure in which anyinterested members could participate. A creative teacher-administratorwould be expected to perform many of the tasks of running the schoolbut all decisions would be made by the general membership. Much ofthis argument was based on Rousseau's principle of General Will, whichMr. Cohn accepted as the ideal in decision making. Although severalother influential parents favoured this system, there was never enoughsupport to implement it. A compromise in the spring of 1964 decreasedthe term of board members from three years to one year and openedcommittees to the participation of all members. 571Decision making was chaotic during the first five years. Thefounding parents wielded considerable but not exclusive influencepartly because they disagreed over many issues themselves. At first,the organization was subject to \"checks, balances, and shiftingalliances\" 6 but more permanent factions developed when a major crisiserupted during the third year. Initially, a high percentage of parentstook active part in decision making, but the level of participationdecreased as the years passed. Norman Epstein estimates that overthree quarters of the parents were active in school affairs during thefirst year, but that less than one third were active three years later.Only a few new parents became active. ? The school community was notparticularly adept at making newcomers feel at home and there was noprocedure for integrating new families. As the membership increasedfrom thirty-two to forty-six families more people were content toremain on the periphery of the group. One parent commented, \"when youexpand to over a hundred people, you don't even know everybody.A tremendous amount of energy was unleashed with the purchase ofthe school building, and participants report feeling a sense of prideand community. One parent describes the excitement she felt as similarto that of \"fixing up an old house.\" 9 Building tasks provided anavenue through which parents with practical skills could assumeleadership roles, just as the academically inclined members had takenthe lead in the educational planning. The building committee convenedconstant work parties on weekends to fix the roof, paint the building,move walls, and make equipment such as tables, shelves, cushions,pendulum frames, or musical instruments. Another group of parents72tapped sources for scrounging equipment from books to test tubes. 1°Some of these duties were onerous but all the activity contributed tobuilding community spirit. Work parties became social occasions andmany participants remember such experiences as pouring tar and pebbleson the school roof. Parents, teachers, and students all did theirshare and felt this was indeed \"their school.\" 11Parents also performed janitorial duties according to an elaboraterotating schedule in which everyone participated. In typical NewSchool fashion the schedule was planned for months in advance and themaintenance committee circulated detailed instructions on cleaningtasks and their frequency. Parents were organized into three groups,each subdivided into four sections according to task. Alan Tollidayconsidered building maintenance so central to the group's identity thathe attributes the beginning of declining community spirit to the hiringof a school janitor after two years of operation. 12 Parents alsovolunteered their time to drive students to Oakridge Library once aweek, telephone members about important announcements, put together themonthly newsletter, and numerous other tasks. 13 The board acknowledgedthat the amount of time given by parents was \"remarkable.\" 14But the constant work load was demanding of parents. As early asthe Fall of 1962 one parent lamented the \"sacrifice in time, effort,and money; we like the school, but, oh, it's such an effort!\" 15 In aninteresting twist to the traditional rhyme, the newsletter announced aschool picnic at the end of the first year with:No more car poolNo more mopLet's have funBefore we stop. 1673Tuition fees were based on each family's ability to pay. Thefinance committee discussed several models for a sliding scale and thepros and cons of each system were debated extensively during the earlyplanning sessions. Several upper income families were resentful of thesliding fee scale at first but politically committed parents such asNorman Epstein and Don Brown insisted on it. They argued that it wasconsistent with egalitarian values that families ought to pay what theycould afford. Furthermore, the school founders had always believed inserving a cross section of the community and did not want to \"cater tochildren of high or low IQ or to children of rich parents.\" 17 Onceadopted, the policy was never questioned as a central school principleand even one of the early opponents agreed that it \"brought terrificpeople into the group who otherwise couldn't afford to come in.\" 18The fee schedule consisted of a base rate plus a percentage oftaxable family income. The finance committee chairperson visited thehomes of all members to verify their income tax returns so that theformula could be applied accurately. Norman Epstein reports thatalthough this was a time consuming procedure, no one seemed to mindproviding the information and his visits were cordial and enjoyable. 18After several years the school switched to the honour system forcollecting income data; this appeared to work just as well and was lesstime consuming.20 The information was kept strictly confidential.During the summer the finance committee sent each family a formalassessment specifying the coming year's tuition to be remitted by tenequal monthly post-dated cheques.For the first year the minimum annual fee was set at $110 plus 6%74of taxable income. The formula was revised at the end of the schoolyear in June, 1963 to a base rate of $115 plus 8% of taxable incomeyielding an average fee of $361 per child. 21 Two years later theminimum fee rose to $150 plus 9% of income. 22 In an attempt to avoidplacing too heavy a burden on any family, the finance committee adopteda maximum of $750 per child and reduced the fee for a second child to75% of the first. 23The sliding scale was successful in assisting families at the lowend of the income scale and in the early years there was a healthybalance among families who could afford the full fee and those who weresubsidized. For example, in 1964/65 seventeen of thirty-eight familiespaid the full fee of $750, fourteen families paid between $400 and$750, and seven families paid from the minimum of $150 to $400. Thefees remained fairly stable over a number of years with the average feeper child ranging from $350 to $450. 24 Member families were alsoexpected to contribute something toward the building mortgage in theform of debentures or loans which were to be returned when they leftthe school. School fees caused some financial hardship forcing somefamilies to do without luxuries as one parent wrote, \"sending two kidsto private school is going to be hard,\" 25 but participation in the NewSchool was a high priority for most families.The sliding scale was an ingenious method for measuring ability topay. The minimum fee was low enough to prevent undue hardship to anymembers, but also ensured that every family contributed something.Conversely, the maximum level was set so that no family would have toshoulder an unfair burden. The reduction for additional children also75kept the fees bearable for large families. Although there wereoccasional complaints about some aspect of the system (for example, onone occasion self-employed parents were criticized for not paying theirshare), most members considered the system fair and it operatedreasonably well. The fee policy managed to excite interest outside theNew School community; an early story about the school in The Sun inMarch, 1961 was headlined \"New School Bases Fees on Income.\" 26Norman Epstein, who was instrumental in conceiving and refining thepolicy, believes that one of the strengths of the New School was thatit exposed students to a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds whichcreated a \"life long significant difference\" for his own children. 27One student recalls that she had friends \"from the waterfront of WestVan to the east end of Vancouver\" 28 and several parents have commentedon the \"wonderful mix of kids\" from a variety of backgrounds. 29Although there is no reliable empirical evidence that the social mixproduced more tolerance among the students, many former parents believethis to be so.There was some discussion during the second year about whether itwould be appropriate for parents to exchange work for lower tuitionfees. The majority opposed this idea, arguing that volunteer work andmoney were equally essential elements in the healthy functioning of theco-operative. Since everyone was expected to contribute both, it wouldbe unfair to exchange one for the other, particularly when the slidingscale already allowed some families to pay less than others. The boardissued a statement to this effect and pointed out that, as withfinancial contributions, some families would be able to provide more76work than others.The school undertook from the outset to pay its teachers theequivalent of Vancouver School District scale and fringe benefits(public school salaries were in the $6,000 to $9,000 range in the mid-1960s). 30 The school provided teachers with matching contributions formedical coverage and an additional 5% of their salary was put into aretirement savings plan. Teachers were also given one day per monthsick leave with pay and the school offered matching payments in aninsurance plan to cover extended illness. Each year the schooldesignated a substitute teacher (usually a parent) to be on call tofill in for any teacher who was ill. Teachers at the New School werespared many of the deadlines and bureaucractic paperwork that were (andare) a fact of life for teachers in the public school system.Not surprisingly, teachers' salaries and benefits accounted forover two-thirds of each year's operating expenses. In 1962/63 twosalaries amounted to $12,100 out of a total expenditure of $17,100.The following year three salaries came to $16,150 out of a total of$22,600, and in 1964/65 salary commitments increased to $23,175 out ofa total of $31,600. 31 The school finished the first year with a modestsurplus of just under $1,000 and managed to balance its budget threeout of the next four years. Tuition income covered about 90% ofoperating expenses. Fund raising activities produced the remainder andalso had to cover capital expenses (mainly mortgage payments). 32 Inthe meantime the $16,500 mortgage and the $10,000 bank loan carried onthe building were reduced by approximately $4,000 per year (some ofthis came from new debentures). 3377The school owed its members $6,500 in loans or debentures payablewithin twelve months after a family left the school. Parents wereencouraged to contribute further loans to pay down the mortgage if theycould afford it, and were also asked for additional debentures when theschool incurred its first deficit in 1965/66. 34 Individual debenturesaveraged from $100 to $150, although some families paid less and a fewcontributed over $200, one going as high as $850. Some familiesallowed their money to remain with the school for several years afterleaving and a few forgave the debt entirely. 35Parents spent hundreds of hours on the \"constant fundraising\" thathad to be undertaken for the school to survive financially. They heldrummage sales, auctions, raffles, bazaars, dinners, and dances. Eventswere very frequent. During the fall of 1963, for example, the schoolheld a rummage sale in September, an auction in October, a folk songevening in November, a Christmas carnival in December, and a dinnerdance later the same month (with music provided by Lloyd Arntzen andfriends). 36 Other activities during these years included a showing ofshort films at the Varsity Theatre, two classical guitar concerts heldat a member's home, a ten week lecture series in the spring of 1964,and several art auctions including work by Jack Shadbolt, Jack Wise,parents, and friends. 37 Single events often brought in over $500, andfrom 1963 to 1967 fund-raising activities generated more than $3,000 inannual revenue peaking at over $4,000 in 1964/65. 38 An attempt to forman outside group of \"Friends of the New School\" did not succeed butotherwise fund-raising was successful.Parents opened The New School Thrift and Gift Shop, at 4352 West7810th Avenue, in August, 1964. The women spent many hours working inthe shop, collecting merchandise, and transporting unsold items towaste material outlets near the waterfront to be made into rags. 39 (Ishall return to the question of gender later.) The shop was open fourto six hours per day five days a week and depended entirely on donatedclothing and volunteer labour. The shop moved to 3598 West 4th Avenuein 1965, and later to 4484 Main Street in January, 1967, finallyclosing due to fatigue and declining sales in 1969. The shop generateda profit of over $2,000 during its first five months of operation fromAugust to December, 1964, but earned smaller amounts from then on.\"One year later sales averaged $300 a month with a net profit of $2,000for the year. By 1968 sales had fallen to $10 per day 41 with an annualprofit of only $900. 42 Before closing the Thrift Shop for good,parents hoped to find a \"draft dodger\" to run it (while being paidunder the table) but this was not successful. 43The parents ensured that fund-raising activities were in harmonywith New School values. Events were not prohibitively costly anddepended for their success on the time, energy, participation, andcreativity of the members. Theatre and lecture evenings were naturaloutgrowths of the parents' interest in the arts and intellectualdiscussion. Of the ten lectures in the 1964 series, five were given byschool parents. They covered such diverse topics as Libertarian vs.Authoritarian Communism, The Revolution in Contemporary Literature,Citizens But--The Canadian Indians Today, The Lesson of Buddhism,Sexual Mores in an Enlightened Society, and The Existential Answer. 44The art auctions were another example of how New School parents raised79money and furthered their interest in the creative arts at the sametime. Fund-raising activities also contributed to community spirit.School admissions procedure had to be re-evaluated during the firsttwo years after a disagreement over whether admission should be open orselective. Several members circulated a paper claiming the admissionscommittee made character judgements of prospective parents; apparentlya child had been rejected because his mother had a reputation for being\"meddling, manipulating, and generally troublesome.\" 45 A new committeewas struck to consider policy and reported in October, 1964.The committee concluded that the school was too young for a \"rigidformalization\" in this area, but offered comment on several points.The report proposed that decisions on admissions be made solely by theteachers and that the only criterion be whether teachers think they canwork with the child profitably. The committee also recommended thatthe school \"should admit children who require a greater-than-averageamount of the teachers' time, but that the proportion of such childrenin the school will probably have to be limited.\" 46 This compromiseworked reasonably well but the matter of special needs children wasalways problematic. As the years progressed many children withlearning difficulties came to the New School in order to escape thepressure they felt in public school, and because few public programmesfor them were available. The increased number of such childreneventually strained New School resources to the breaking point.Parents were involved in ongoing professional development. Inseveral panel discussions, individual teachers and parents presentedtheir views on curriculum to the membership. Parents in individual80class meetings did likewise. Outside experts, such as Neil Sutherlandof U.B.C. on Social Studies,. and James Inkster, a West Vancouverprincipal on experimental secondary education, were sometimes invitedto address these discussion evenings. 47 New School parents also turnedout in large numbers to attend lectures and seminars presented byvisiting educators such as Paul Goodman.Of course, parents were anxious to observe the instruction at theschool. There was so much interest that the board decided to limitschool visits to six per week organized by a member of the TeachersCommittee on an appointment basis only48 and sometimes visits wererestricted to one particular day of the week. Parents were also askednot to come during the first six weeks of school.There were also many visitors from outside the school. Theyincluded prospective parents, curious laypersons, education professors,student teachers, and other educators wanting to observe innovativeteaching practices. Although the school was very accommodating tovisitors there was little attempt to cultivate a relationship with thepublic school system; according to one parent relations were \"neitherfriendly nor unfriendly.\"'\" The New School was never inspected byEducation Ministry officials.A curriculum research committee began meeting regularly in 1964.The members sought to increase their own knowledge of progressiveeducation in order to engage more effectively in formulating schooleducational policy and advising the teachers. Committee members choseindividual areas of specialization and agreed to read up on theteaching of their subject so that they could report on their findings81at general meetings. 5° Parents spent a great deal of time debatingpoints of pedagogy and discussing the literature on various issues.One parent remembers a heated argument on the pros and cons ofCuisenaire rods! The committee also organized a parents' librarycontaining books on curriculum and educational philosophy, and theschool subscribed to a journal on curriculum research. The committeeresearched the feasibility of implementing new methods such as alanguage laboratory for older students and suggested that teachers useschool time to visit other experimental schools. 51During 1963/64 the long range planning committee initiated seriousdiscussion of the school's future. The original vision was that theschool eventually include grades one through twelve and the committeedeveloped different models as to how this would be accomplished. Someparents wanted to establish the secondary school quickly but mostmembers thought that the school should expand gradually by adding onegrade per year as the oldest students progressed. This would maintaincontinuity and would not strain the school's finances. The goal was tohave twenty students in each grade for a total enrolment of about 250and the committee was already making plans to search for a largerbuilding by 1964. 52The planning committee also recommended the admission of five-year-olds and the formation of a kindergarten class as soon as possible.\"They thought a K-1 grouping would eliminate a difficult adjustment frompublic school kindergarten to New School grade one and soften theboundary between \"play and the acquisition of skills.\" The committee'ssense of urgency was evident: \"The less our children become involved82in competitive, non-creative, teacher-centred school situations, thebetter for them as individuals and for the future of the school. Theyounger the child, the more deeply felt the injury.• 54Plans for the secondary programme grew quickly. Students wouldspend only half the day in classes leaving plenty of free time forindividual study in depth. Teachers would be available for tutorials,consultations, and seminars. The school hoped to arrange part-timestudent placements in community businesses and organizations to learnvocational skills. The planning committee also identified a number ofserious questions about secondary education. For example, how wouldsecondary specialists be accomodated in such a small school? How couldthe school afford to provide the kind of equipment secondary programmesrequire? What would the minimum secondary curriculum consist of andhow individualized could the programmes be? Perhaps the most difficultproblem of all was to reconcile the school's desired teaching methodswith student preparation for government examinations emphasizingmemorization, grammar, and discrete academic skills. 55Parents never had a chance to resolve these issues as secondaryschool plans did not progress beyond the idea stage. Internal turmoiland fund-raising demanded so much energy of the participants that theschool could not seriously consider expansion. The school did grow toinclude grades one to seven by the third year (1964/65) and enrolmentincreased rapidly from thirty-nine to sixty-nine students during thetwo years. The school added kindergarten in 1966 and was evenaccepting pre-school children by 1969. But it never expanded beyondelementary and enrolment peaked at eighty students.83There was a strong sense of community at the New School. Parentsand children spent many waking hours there—working, meeting, cleaning,carpooling, fundraising, and learning. One student remembers feeling\"part of a family; we all participated together, it was really fun.\" 56There was a great deal of social interaction and some participantsbecame close friends remaining so years after their involvement withthe school ended. Families took vacations together or made excursionsto Bowen Island, and students spent many weekends at their friends'houses. Professional boundaries diminished as teachers and parentsvisited socially and teachers enrolled their own children in theschool. Many participants saw themselves as pioneers and innovatorswith a keen sense of adventure, doing something that had not been donebefore. 57Many parents would have been sympathetic to gender issues, butfeminist concerns did not arise at the New School until the late 1960s.Though several women among the founding families were well respectedprofessionals, many traditional attitudes and forms persisted. Sevenout of nine members of the first board were men increasing to eight outof nine from 1964 to 1966. Only by 1966/67 was there a majority ofwomen on the board. Even in this highly educated group most mothersdid not work outside the home and of the seven female board members in1967 five listed their profession as housewife. Women were sometimeslisted on school documents by their husband's name.\" Furthermore,traditionally female activities, such as convening dinners and runningthe thrift shop, remained the women's domain at the New School (thoughthe men took an equal part in school cleaning duties). As in most84organizations prior to 1970, women began working towards equality onlyafter the early feminist movement raised awareness of women's issues.The New School community was extremely diverse. Most parents wereprofessionals but some were in business or trades. Political opinionwas predominantly left of centre but a few conservative parents (andothers who were non-political) were attracted to the school out offrustration with the lack of intellectual or creative challengeprovided by the public schools. 59 One parent was simply looking foralternatives because her five year old daughter had an early Januarybirthday and could not be accepted into the public school systemwithout waiting a year.\" Another parent had been looking foralternative schools because one of her children was learning disabledand was not given adequate attention in public school. Teachers andboard members had to try to satisfy a very broad range of opinion sincethe only point of agreement they could count on was the parents'dissatisfaction with the public school system. This diversity was amajor reason for the difficulty the group experienced in makingdecisions.Decision making was exhausting. Board meetings went on untilmidnight or later and parents spent hours at committee meetings or onthe telephone with each other. Informal meetings and discussionsoccured almost every afternoon as parents who were at the school topick up children used the opportunity to talk to each other or to theteachers. Much of the discussion concerned practical matters, but themore serious disagreements were about ideological issues. The parentbody was an unusually articulate group with carefully thought out85opinions. Many held their views passionately and the experimental andpioneering aspect of the school made the issues seem even moreimportant. This was particularly true for those in the founding groupwho had difficulty distancing themselves from the school's ongoingevolution.Several academic parents earned a reputation for being particularlydifficult, carrying on endlessly at meetings which occasionallydegenerated into shouting matches. Many members circulated their viewsin writing on educational, ideological, and administrative topics. Oneparent, new to the school in 1966, felt so intimidated by the academicsthat she stopped going to meetings. 61 On the other hand, many NewSchool parents enjoyed the intellectual, political, and organizationaldebate and it is not surprising that they spent much of their timearguing. Fortunately for the students, the friction did not muchaffect day-to-day school life.Important issues were decided by the entire community at a generalmeeting. These meetings were often difficult. The New School was acommunity of people who tried to honour minority opinions and caredabout doing the right thing. The group agonized over tough decisionsand sometimes consensus could not be reached, leaving no alternativebut to take a vote. Meetings were illustrative of the balance betweenthe formalities of democratic practice and the emotional life of a newcommunity. However, when the decision was made the overall sense ofcommunity was usually strong enough to transcend any bad feeling thatthe disagreements may have generated. This was not the case, though,when it came to disputes about the teaching staff.86Supervising the TeachersThe most difficult functions of parental governance at the NewSchool were the hiring, supervision, and evaluation of teachers. Thefounding parents had intended to hire teachers who believed in theschool's philosophy and leave them free to teach without interference.But parents did not have the skills or experience to do these thingswell, nor did they have effective procedures in place. Hiring wasbased on intuition with little attempt to seek teachers trained inprogressive methods. Once hired, parents did not leave the teachersalone to develop a programme as they saw fit. Disagreement about howfar parents should be involved in teacher evaluation led to a series ofmajor crises during the parent co-operative period.Realizing there were no guidelines in place, the Teacher Committeedrafted a discussion paper on teacher evaluation in November, 1963.The committee sought input from the teachers and from parents who werealso teachers. Suggestions included classroom inspections by anevaluating committee, evaluation by other teachers, and evaluationthrough surveys of parent opinion. The committee acknowledged thatbetter communication between parents and teachers was necessary andthat both groups should \"know more accurately what they wanted from theschool.\" The draft report suggested members of an evaluation committeebe fully knowledgeable about the schools' aims, but did not discuss thequalifications that evaluators should possess. 62Another proposal put forward by William and Hillary Nicholls a yearlater maintained that parent observation did not provide an adequate87basis for evaluation, and that the most reliable means of assessmentwould be \"the professional judgement of colleagues with tenure balancedby some form of representation by parents.\" 63 Despite a great deal ofdeliberation no agreement was reached on evaluation until 1965 with thehiring of a genuine director when the concept of evaluation by outsidequalified educational consultants was adopted. The lack of procedurepermitted serious disputes to continue unresolved for long periods oftime and almost wrecked the school.The first serious crisis arose in April, 1964 during the school'ssecond year. Some parents had become dissatisfied with the performanceof Miss Williams, who had been hired the previous September, believingher methods of discipline too traditional to be effective in aprogressive school. They complained that although she worked veryhard, she was not able to control the unco-operative behaviour of somestudents. The dissatisfied parents lobbied other members for support.Despite Mr. Arntzen's recommendation that Miss Williams be rehired foranother year, the Teacher Committee decided she should be let go. TheBoard concurred and, at its regular meeting on April 1, passed arecommendation that her contract not be renewed.This decision generated a great deal of controversy (\"chaos\" in thewords of one parent) and several families threatened to withdraw fromthe school. To make matters worse, Mr. Arntzen stated in a long letterto the board that as head teacher he believed Miss Williams had thepotential for considerable growth if he could continue working with herfor another year. He wrote that the board's decision indicated a lackof confidence in his professional judgement and consequently, he was88presenting his resignation.\"^In addition, Ean Hay, a friend andsupporter of Mr. Arntzen, resigned as president in sympathy with thehead teacher.The general membership convened on April 9 to consider the board'srecommendation. However, the board, believing that the loss of Mr.Arntzen would be a \"calamity for the school,\" reversed its position inthe interim. After a private discussion with Mr. Arntzen the board hadrecommended offering him a principalship with administrative relieftime, secretarial support, responsibility for co-ordinating staffactivities, and decision-making authority (in consultation withpermanent staff) over the reappointment of probationary teachers.\"The board maintained that these changes were necessary to improve theconditions under which the teachers worked. Supporters of Mr. Arntzenadmired him for taking a principled position, and one parent commented\"if my son took a position like that, I'd be proud of him.\" 66The real issue, however, was not the personnel matter but who ranthe school, and most of the debate focussed on this point. Forexample, Elms and Alan Tolliday stated in a written submission to themeeting that \"granting a principal veto powers over his employers andover parent committees amounts to a dictatorial setup.\" 67 They arguedthat such a situation would undermine the New School's original idealsand transform it into an \"ordinary private school.\"This was not quite accurate for the New School's uniqueness amongindependent schools lay in its democratic ownership and governance bythe entire parent body .68 Increasing the educational authority of anadministrator would not have altered the basic power structure. But89the majority agreed that the parent body should retain control over alldecisions affecting their children. After a long and emotional debatethat continued until just before midnight the meeting decided by a voteof 14 to 9 (families) to uphold the original decision to replace MissWilliams and, consequently, to accept Mr. Arntzen's resignation.\"The meeting was full of recriminations and personal attacks. MissWilliams, who had refused to resign quietly when asked privately by twoparents to do so, was present at the meeting and heard all of thecriticism. The outcome left such an atmosphere of bitterness thatanother general meeting was held the following week to reconsider thedecision. This time the discussion was calm and several parentschanged their votes, supporting Mr. Arntzen, in an attempt to reunitethe group. In the end, though, the membership reaffirmed its earlierdecision by a close vote of 19 to 16.Two board members resigned in the aftermath of this decision and afew families left the school. One board member wrote that Mr. Arntzenhad become a \"convenient scapegoat\" for the mistakes of the parentgroup. He believed further, that the problem was due to the \"verystructure and make-up of the New School's organization,\" citing thefailure of the originating group to define an \"adequate philosophy\" forthe school. He feared the teachers were being \"led to the lions.\" 70Years later, many parents regret the outcome. One feels that\"Lloyd was treated badly—not as a professional should be treated.\" 71Another remembers Miss Williams as a good teacher and \"couldn't seewhat the big fuss was about,\" 72 and one student recalls that he learneda lot in her \"calm, well organized\" class. 73 In the end, says a former90student, \"it came down to letting Lloyd run things or having theparents run things. The parents won the battle but they lost Lloyd.\" 74The pressure must have been severe indeed for a first year teacherdeveloping progressive methods under the watchful eye of a group ofhigh powered parents. Elliott Gose admits that teachers in the NewSchool were subjected to unrealistic scrutiny and another parent statessimply, \"you don't treat a beginning teacher that way.\" 75 Severalmembers believed that the parents had not appreciated what LloydArntzen had done for the school and subjected him to undue criticism,some thinking he was too conservative while a few others thought he wasnot structured enough. Most former parents acknowledge that they didnot have enough trust in the teachers' capacity to make educationaldecisions. Rita Cohn explains that \"people take sides in the heat ofthe moment and sometimes regret it later,\" 76 while another parentcommented at the time that \"democracy is for saints.\" 77Students and parents felt a great sense of disappointment andsadness with the departure of Lloyd Arntzen, admired by everyone at theNew School as an \"inspired teacher.\" 78 Mrs. Beck had left the schoolearlier in the spring for maternity (the board's refusal to grant herleave of absence was in part due to some parental complaints) and theschool was faced with the task of finding three new teachers.The hiring committee spent an enormous amount of time fulfillingthis task. They placed advertisements for \"creative and experiencedteachers\" in Vancouver daily newspapers and British Columbia Teachers'Federation publications and received eighteen replies. Most of theapplicants were interviewed by teams of several members of the New91Teachers Committee and detailed written impressions of each interviewwere circulated to other committee members. The three teachersrecommended by the committee were then interviewed by the full board. 79Some parents were reluctant to put candidates through a secondinterview but most considered an interview with the board essential.Two overriding criteria governed the committee's recommendations.First, the applicant had to demonstrate an understanding of and acommitment to the principles of progressive education. Second, in anobvious reaction to recent events, the board only considered candidateswho were experienced teachers.By the end of May, the school had engaged three teachers. MissAdele Gaba and Miss Mervine Beagle were hired to work with students ingrades one to five. They had developed an experimental and creativecurriculum at Inman School in Burnaby 80 and came to the attention ofthe committee through Marilyn Epstein who was a psychologist in thedistrict. Having worked together for a number of years they brought astrong and cohesive but somewhat inflexible style to the New School.Mr. Phil Thomas, a successful teacher with twelve years experience inthe Vancouver school district and a creative artist and musician, washired to teach the older students. Many parents knew his work fromVancouver's Summer Art programme and from a talk he had given at theNew School about art methods the previous year. Mr. Thomas wasenthusiastic about the appointment, and in his letter of resignation tothe Vancouver superintendent, referred to the New School as \"anexperimental school committed to a dynamic and progressive educationalphilosophy\" which he hoped would be of value to public education. 9192All three teachers were given two year contracts to protect them fromthe pressures of anxious or dissatisfied parents. 82In addition to staff changes, some organizational revisions weremade. 83 In the wake of the recent controversy some parents wanted toabolish the board entirely and make all decisions at general meetings.Instead members reached a compromise which decreased the term of boardmembers from three years to one year and further strengthened thecommittee system. The parents hired a part time secretary to relievethe overburdened teachers and a part time janitor to decrease their ownworkload. They also decided to limit the constant stream of visitorsto one assigned morning per week as the large numbers had contributedto stressful working conditions for the teachers. Parents renewed acommitment to their own continuing growth by planning a series of paneldiscussions on progressive education during the summer. 84The New School began the 1964/65 school year with sixty-ninestudents from forty-seven families and now included grades one throughseven. 85 Despite the divisive events of the previous spring, theschool community continued to grow and many looked forward to schoolopening with a good deal of optimism.The three teachers met at the end of the summer to work out somebasic agreements on timetabling and pedagogy. But from almost thefirst day in September communication broke down completely between Mr.Thomas on the one hand, and Miss Gaba and Miss Beagle on the other.President Gwen Creech and vice-president Dal Town met with the teacherson several occasions in October but were unsuccessful in helping themto work out their differences. Consequently, on November 2 the board93informed the general membership that there was \"a serious impasse amongthe staff of the school,\" and that \"this breakdown in communicationshas reached the point where the teachers cannot function as a team.\"Furthermore, \"fundamental differences in attitude have prevented basicco-operation or satisfactory communication between their respectiveclasses.\" 86The major differences were about curriculum, academic standards,discipline, and general housekeeping. 87 Mr. Thomas favoured adifferentiated graded curriculum and expected students to meet certainstandards while Miss Gaba and Miss Beagle preferred ideas for classroomactivities to be generated by the children and accepted the child'slevel in order to build on it. On the other hand, Mr. Thomas gave hisstudents considerable freedom of action interfering only in cases ofserious misbehaviour such as fighting, while Miss Gaba and Miss Beaglefollowed an Adlerian approach to behaviour management, allowing freedomof conduct only after months of structured co-operation training. 88The most striking contrasts were in organization and personalstyle. 89 Mr. Thomas created a museum-like classroom rich in materialsand was unconcerned about mess and confusion, whereas Miss Gaba andMiss Beagle were precise and well organized in their approach tomaterials and physical space. As one parent put it, \"Phil broughtincredible amounts of clutter into the school while the other two werepristine. The arguments were not about philosophy, they were aboutwhere things were.\" 9° The communication breakdown amounted to acombination of conflicting personalities and widely differingeducational philosophy.94Miss Gaba and Miss Beagle painted the entire school white withmauve trim and created a quiet, relaxing, but carefully arrangedenvironment with cushions on the floor and very little furniture ormaterials other than books. They instructed their students to enterthrough the basement, remove their shoes, and walk barefoot throughoutthe classroom. Students were to sit silently on the cushions awaitingthe beginning of the school day. During the first few months theirprogramme emphasized co-operation and citizenship. Miss Gaba and MissBeagle followed an integrated approach to reading and language notsubstantially different from the whole language methods in use today. 91Students chose their own literature and read silently, read to eachother, wrote their own stories, and engaged in group and project work.A few slow readers made significant gains. There were scheduled dailyreading and writing periods; students could chose not to participatebut they had to be quiet and couldn't do other work. 92 Students sangfolk songs and sixties protest songs like \"We Shall Overcome\" and\"Little Boxes.\" Several students remember feeling uncomfortable thatboys and girls had to change in the same room prior to gym class. 93The structured activities and their use of Driekers' behaviour theoriesbrought Miss Gaba and Miss Beagle into conflict with some parents.Mr. Thomas organized a full schedule of traditional subjects and amember of the younger class remembers Mr. Thomas's students doing a lotof work. 94 However, students were permitted several hours of free timeper week to work on individual or group projects. An individualizedreading programme was based on student-chosen novels, and written workgrew out of other studies. Basic language skills were taught on an95individual basis when necessary, and mathematics was handled in smallgroups of about six students. The social studies programme includedworld geography and ancient history, the standard B. C. curriculum forgrades six and seven, emphasizing open-ended research on such topics asprimate evolution and stone age tools. Music activities consisted offolk singing and playing Orff instruments, while art classes includedpainting, balsa wood design, clay modelling, and pottery. The schoolcontinued to use Clark Park and the Trout Lake Community Centre forsoccer, gymnastics, and skating. Mr. Thomas wanted his students totake responsibility for their own discipline and he wrote in a lengthyteacher's report that \"the fundamental feeling is one of understandingand co-operation.\" 95Mr. Thomas attempted to vary his expectations for each individual.Some of his students were behind in reading skills while some skilledreaders were not reaching their potential. Part way through the yearthe school hired two part time teachers to provide help with remedialreading.\" However, there was little systematic diagnosis of studentsneeding assistance.Mr. Thomas was an insatiable collector and his room was full ofobjects piled from the floor to the ceiling in a \"huge junkpile\" as oneparent described it. He had bottles of animals in formaldehyde, abanana tree, rocks, old machinery, a deer skeleton, a wide variety ofart materials, and junk of all kinds that he had picked up from thecity dump, the UBC dump, and other places. Some students found himinteresting and intriguing and liked him a great deal, while othersfound his expectations too great and his manner overly eccentric. One96parent suggests some students were slow to accept Mr. Thomas out ofloyalty to Mr. Arntzen. 97Mr. Thomas angered some parents when early in the year he reportedthat student standards in reading and arithmetic were appallingly low.He was concerned, for example, about the poor spelling skills of manyof his grade six students. He was also frustrated that the otherteachers would not meet with him to develop common academic goals andobjectives.\" Soon after school opening several parents becameconcerned about Mr. Thomas's teaching methods and criticized himpublicly at a general meeting in October. 99 Some acknowledged hiscreativity, innovation, and enthusiasm, but many felt he was toodirective about academic requirements and not directive enough aboutstudent behaviour.The board convened a general meeting in November, attended byalmost one hundred people, to address the staff problems.'\" Somemembers pressed for an open and \"democratic\" discussion of the issuesamong the entire school community, but most parents dreaded another\"public pillorying\" based on personalities similar to the previousyear. After a long and emotional debate the meeting voted 23 to 15(families) to strike an ad hoc committee of three parents, Gwen Creech,Don Brown, and Gloria Levi, to investigate the situation privately andto prepare a detailed report.The committee presented the results of its study to the generalmembership at another charged meeting on December 2, 1964. In a fivepage report the ad hoc committee acknowledged the difficulties ofteaching in a parent run school and identified some of the specific co-97operation problems.^The report described timetable and facilitiesproblems, disruptions of one class by another, and general disapprovalof each other's programmes. Agreements about sharing facilities hadbeen quickly broken. The report concluded that the main causes of theimpasse \"lie in the personalities on both sides.\" 101The committee recommended the appointment of a temporaryadministrator to arbitrate day-to-day disputes. Their report statedthat the school had a right to demand a reasonable level of compromisefrom its teachers for the effective functioning of the school. Thecommittee also recommended that the perceived problems in Mr. Thomas'class be considered separately from the general issue of disagreementamong the teachers themselves. The general meeting accepted all ofthese recommendations and denied a counterproposal from Miss Gaba andMiss Beagle to partition the school. This solution would have giventheir classes the top floor, relegating Mr. Thomas's group to thebasement (one parent wondered if she could \"pay lower fees for thebasement!\" 102 ). The majority of parents wanted children in the twogroups to spend more time together, not less. Mr. Thomas proposedschool wide activities such as assemblies and interclass readinggroups. He was also anxious to call on his expertise as a specialistto teach art and music to the other classes. Parents wanted this aswell but it never occurred.'\"The board appointed Gwen Creech as temporary administrator severalweeks later. She was not a member of any school \"in-group\" and had fewfixed positions on educational theory—probably the reason she wasasked to be president. But her objective stance did not bring peace to98the staff.^After meeting with the teachers in early January shedrafted a detailed timetable she hoped would satisfy everyone with aminimum of interaction between classes. She proposed all students betogether for lunchtime and weekly skating sessions. Otherwise, roomsand equipment would be allocated to each class for specific timesthroughout the week. Mrs. Creech added the condition that \"thechildren should all feel that the building is theirs and should be ableto move around freely providing they respect what other people aretrying to do. If they can't do so then even a progressive school hasto impose limits so as not to have chaos.\" 1\" All three teachers foundaspects of the proposal unacceptable and although some timetabling wasestablished there was little improvement in overall co-operation. 105By this time most parents had taken sides in the conflict and twoclearly defined factions developed. A large group of parents whobelieved that Mr. Thomas' \"talents, temperament, and teaching methodswere not suitable for the New School\" began to organize against him.They held \"informational meetings\" in private homes, conducted atelephone campaign, and circulated a petition in mid-January whichgathered thirty-two signatures. The petition stated that Mr. Thomaswas unable to perceive or to accomodate the interests and abilities ofindividual students. Further, the signers believed that he was unableto manage a number of simultaneous activities, resulting in \"random anddisorganized teaching and learning in his class.\" 1\" One story had itthat some students had lit a fire in the waste basket while Mr. Thomas,busy with another group of students, remained unaware. Although Mr.Thomas had a two year contract, the instigators of the petition hoped99he could be convinced to resign at the end of the first year. Theythought he was harming their children and some also saw his departureas the only way to keep the other two teachers at the school.Some parents also disapproved of the teaching methods of Miss Gabaand Miss Beagle believing their standards were low and students werelearning little, particularly the older ones. 1°7 One student describesthe year he spent in their classroom as \"games and pattycake; we didn'tdo anything. .108 However, this never became a public issue.Mr. Thomas wrote to Mrs. Creech of the pressure he experienced from\"a group of parents acting on their private initiative.\" He hoped thatsolutions to the problems of co-operation among teachers and parentscould be discovered without calling his professional integrity intoquestion. Although admitting to some difficulties and expressing awillingness to accept assistance from \"qualified\" people, he maintainedthat his class was developing a positive spirit and that he had nointention of resigning. 109 Mrs. Creech regretted the harassment he wasexperiencing but urged him to accept legitimate concern from parentsabout the \"tone and progress in your class.\" She continued attempts tomediate among contentious groups but by this time she believed only anobjective outsider would be able to help. 110The minority of parents who supported Mr. Thomas responded to thepetition with some politicking of their own. They claimed the chargesagainst him were exaggerated and were based on hearsay and unreliableevidence from students. Several thought the children were learning agreat deal in his class, and one parent feared, \"they just aren't goingto give him a chance.\" 111 In an open letter in February, William and100Hillary Nicholls reminded members of their legal and moral obligationsto the teachers and pleaded for restraint. They maintained that theboard had a duty to protect the teachers from unreasonable pressure andurged that no action affecting a teacher's tenure be taken, suggestinginstead that the board authorize an assessment of all the teachers byan outside professional. They pointed out that giving in to a factionwould result in injustice to teachers who had taken professional risksto teach at the New School, and that annual staff change-overs weredamaging to the children. They warned that if the situation was notresolved according to proper procedures many families would withdrawfrom the school:Great self-restraint and wisdom will be needed if the presentcrisis is not to prove fatal to the school. We continue tobelieve that the professional judgement of colleagues withtenure in the school balanced by some form of representation ofthe parents is the most reliable means of asessing a teacher.In the case of the present staff, we therfore think it urgentto find some outside professional assessment of all theteachers before their contracts are renewed. 112These arguments were convincing and in mid-February the membershipdefeated a motion, by a narrow vote of 12 to 9, to ask Mr. Thomas torelease the school from his contract. 113 On Gwen Creech'srecommendation, the board engaged two experienced educationaladministrators from Seattle as consultants. They visited the schoollater that month and were \"enthusiastic about the programme.\" They\"offered sound advice\" as to how the parents could effect bettercommunication in the school, make their expectations clearer to theteachers, and develop a more positive atmosphere. 114But the conflict would not disappear and another row occurred inMarch when Miss Gabs and Miss Beagle organized an evening meeting for101the parents of their students. A majority of board members thought themeeting was called for political rather than educational reasons andwas an imposition on the overcommitted parents. 115 The board sent aletter to the two teachers criticizing their judgement and requiredthem to clear any future parents' meetings with the board in advance.This prompted a supporter of the two teachers to send an angry lettercomplaining of a \"double standard\" in dealing with them. The letterfurther claimed that some parents had not been informed of meetings andaccused the board of \"discourtesy, arrogance, and bureaucraticmindlessness.\" A board member responded that the \"ill-advised\" lettercould \"only contribute further to the dissolution of the group. \"116Mrs. Creech accused Miss Gaba and Miss Beagle of \"generatingconsiderable agitation among the parents\" and involving the children inthe issues at classroom meetings. She continued to mediate day-to-dayconcerns regarding morning supervision scheduling and the requirementof monthly written reports which Miss Gaba and Miss Beagle did not wantto do. She claimed that much of the quarrelling focussed on \"trivia,\"and expected the teachers to resolve their disagreements. 117Board and general meetings continued into the early morning hoursand participants were subjected to numerous allegations as parentsexpressed their feelings in letters and lengthy position papers. Oneparent appealed to the school's commitment to co-operativeness,fairness, and justice in human relationships to bring its practice intoline with its principles. These stated objectives were in starkcontrast to what she saw as \"an unremitting, unfair, and relentlesspressuring of one of our teachers in order to obtain his resignation\"102despite a lack of clear charges or substantiating evidence. She alsoreferred to verbal personal attacks at meetings and the isolation ofMr. Thomas' class from the rest of the schoo1. 118 One parent accusedanother of \"Stalinism\" 118 , rhetoric intensified, and one parent \"becameunhinged\" when a decision did not go his way. The president referredto another parent at a board meeting as \"rude and abusive.\" She statedin a letter to the membership in early April that she \"can no longercontribute anything to this organization as long as present attitudesprevail\" which she described as \"a total lack of confidence on the partof an active and vocal minority in any regular forms of organizationalstructure.\" 120 Mrs. Creech was a decisive and even-handed chairpersonwho did her best to keep discussions on track and prohibit members fromindulging in gossip, at least publicly. But the situation was beyondrepair and she was not successful in bringing opposing sides together.Meanwhile, the two classes avoided each other during the school dayand didn't even get together for the Christmas party. One studentdescribed the situation as similar to being in a war zone. 121 Feelingswere so high among some parents that several children were transferredfrom one class to the other in the middle of the year even though thisremoved them from their friends and appropriate age group. However,although students were aware of the conflict and obviously felt thetension, their lives in the classroom remained relatively uneventful.In retrospect most parents admit they overreacted and their childrenwere not suffering in either class. The real pity was that \"the schoolhad degenerated to the point where parents can't talk to the teachersand the teachers can't talk to each other.\" 122103On April 26, 1965, Phil Thomas sent the board a long letter ofresignation effective at the end of the school year. He wrote abouthow he had hoped to be part of a team building a \"rich and variedprogramme with a flexible curriculum adapted to the needs of all thechildren\" and to provide \"a creative, stimulating, and challengingeducational experience based on the belief that each child holds thekey to his own growth.\" He urged the parents to appoint a director whowould receive their full support and co-operation in establishing afirm educational basis for the school. However, he warned that:Ways must be found to solve the problems concerning thestructure of the school and the role of the parents in itsoperation. But it seems that many parents are unable orunwilling to accept the limitation that would be imposed ontheir conduct. 123Looking back, Mr. Thomas thinks the main problem was that \"there was noway of handling the interface between legitimate parental concern andthe educational situation.\" Ironically, he concludes that he was \"muchfreer in the public system.\" 124Mr. Thomas was a generally misunderstood figure. Some thought himbrilliant and ahead of his time, while others simply thought he couldnot adequately motivate his students. Staff dynamics were against him.Miss Gaba and Miss Beagle worked as a team and agreed on virtuallyevery issue leaving Mr. Thomas outvoted. He was a convenient target asthe other teachers attempted to gain more power in the school. Eventhose most critical of Mr. Thomas' teaching agree that he remainedgracious and dignified in a very difficult situation. 125Miss Beagle believes there was fault on both sides. She explainsthat at the beginning the three teachers thought they agreed on basic104principles: \"We really thought we would get along, but when we startedworking together we found we didn't agree at all. .126 She acknowledgesthe good intentions of the parent group, but the New School was a toughplace to work. Parent evaluation of teachers was unworkable and \"somepeople felt so strongly that compromise was impossible.\" Miss Gabe andMiss Beagle also left at the end of the year and the school would onceagain have to begin in September with a new group of teachers. 127This crisis affected the New School deeply. Many parents losttheir spirited enthusiasm for the project and questioned whether thiskind of school could survive. 128 The arguments had continued for toolong and had been too intensely personal. Some parents describe howfriendships, even marriages, were strained; some close friendships wereseriously damaged and remained so for many years. 129 Other parentsremember returning home from meetings with \"insides churning\" and onekey board member, Norman Epstein, seriously doubted that the schoolwould carry on. He describes the stress vividly:It was emotionally all-consuming. In the midst of the conflictpeople began to behave inconsiderately towards others anddidn't spare their feelings. I tried to be a conciliator eventhough I did take sides, and I tried to specify the issues inless personal terms to save wear and tear on people, but Idon't think I succeeded. People simply stopped behavingaccording to normal rules of procedure, and some individualsstarted to behave very irrationally. Many people got burnedout. It looked like the school was coming to an end. 18°Another parent, Ellen Tallman, remembers meetings that were like \"Who'sAfraid of Virginia Wolff.\" \"The fights were enormous; it was constantdrama. The things people said to each other—obsessive, hollering,shouting, losing their tempers! We tried not to talk in front of thechildren but they heard.\" 131 A third parent describes individuals who105were \"brilliant, but couldn't figure out how to work things out.\" 132Several founding members, completely exhausted, withdrew theirchildren at the end of the year. Mr. Epstein explains \"when we lookedinto what was happening in the public schools we found that thedifference wasn't as great as we had imagined it to be; and the reliefof not having to go to incessant meetings.\" 133 Another parent \"sadlydecided she couldn't stand it\" and found that her kids had begun tosuffer and were glad to have some structure. 134 Julia Brown, anotherparent who left, explained that \"there is a limit to what we can put upwith. The sacrifice of the school is too much; our kids are strongenough to survive in the public school.\" 135The school did not live up to its commitment, in the prospectus, to\"protect teachers from arbitrary pressures.\" 136 The report of the adhoc committee stated that \"the New School is a difficult place forteachers to work because they are directly exposed to the criticism ofa large group of articulate and aggressive parents.\" The reportcontinued that the \"protection of teachers from arbitrary pressures hasnever been satisfactorily carried out\" and \"the evaluation of teachersis full of dangers from unnecessary harrassment, undue influence ofgossip and informal caucussing, and the involvement of students in thediscussion of teachers.\" 137 Norman Epstein, in a movingly honestfarewell letter to the teachers that June, wrote:The teachers did develop good working relationships with mostof the children despite the split between the classes and if weare able to start a fourth operating year of the New School \".will be because the teachers served us and our children untthe final day. They had every reason to walk out on us manymonths ago after the way they were treated by us, theparents. 138106Parents were much too directly involved in day-to-day professionalmatters at the school. Every parent had an opinion about theperformance of the teachers, and many overstepped reasonable bounds offairness. Teachers were criticized for \"not being creative enough, notbeing individualized enough, or not giving enough grounding.\" 139 Oneparent described teaching at the school as similar to working inside agoldfish bowl. Another parent believes that they were too impatientbecause it was difficult finding teachers that \"had any experience withwhat we wanted--we expected them to make leaps and bounds that theyweren't prepared for.\" 14° Another concluded that we as parents wereno better at choosing teachers than the public schools were\" and thatthe teachers \"weren't given a chance.\" 141 Simply put, the parents werenot prepared to give up any control.Temporary StabilityThe school did survive, however, and the membership decided toinstall a genuine director with decision making power who would takecharge of the school. Criteria for such a position were developed inApril, 1965. The director would be responsible for putting intopractice the individualized and progressive education described in theprospectus. The director would also have authority for the school'sday-to-day operation in curriculum, staff relations, admissions, andall personnel decisions including hiring, rehiring, or dismissal ofstaff. In addition, the director would be expected to promote co-operation among teachers, maintain clear channels of communication107between teachers and parents, and implement school policy within theconfines of the finance committee's budget. Ironically, this jobdescription was not much different from the one that the membership hadrefused to offer Lloyd Arntzen a year earlier.The parents finally developed realistic evaluation procedureswhereby the director's performance would be evaluated each year by ateam of outside consultants with appropriate educational background.Individual teachers were to be evaluated by the director who would thenmake personnel recommendations to the board in an annual report. 142The director was to be offered two one year contracts for the first twoyears. To protect the teachers from the kind of attacks that had beenall too common during the first three years, the Constitution Committeerecommended that no complaints regarding a teacher be considered by theboard or the general meeting. Day-to-day complaints were to be takenup with the director, and more serious concerns would be dealt with bythe consultants. 143Two serious candidates for school director emerged and each wasasked to submit long personal biographies and philosophical statements.One candidate was Mr. Robert Barker who had taught at Summerhill andtwo early free schools in upstate New York, Lewis-Wadhams 144 , and theCollaberg School which he founded. 145 He had also studied progressivemethods at Bank Street College in New York. His educational theory wassimilar to that of the New School in all but two respects—he believedin community government by students and teachers according to theSummerhill model, and he would not compel students to attend classes,another Summerhill practice. He cited Neill, Rousseau, and Homer Lane108as the three most important influences on his educational philosophy.Rita and Werner Cohn interviewed him in New York and were impressedwith his background, honesty, charm, knowledge of progressive methods,and his experience in working closely with parents. 146A second candidate, Mr. Graham Smith, had a different background,mainly in secondary teaching and mostly in the public school system.His varied experience included teaching in Britain, four years inNigeria, and the principalship of a two room high school in Hixon, asmall town near Quesnel in northern British Columbia. Although he hadlittle progressive experience, he had taken some courses in progressivemethods and professed to be conversant with and sympathetic toprogressive ideas. He was familiar with Neill's methods and had alsobeen impressed with a Steiner Waldorf School in England. He suggestedan informal but not permissive style of discipline and was interestedin co-ordinating a team approach to school governance. He favoured ateacher developed, flexible curriculum emphasizing research skills tohelp students learn to \"think and act for themselves.\" He was apragmatist who disliked jargon and emphasized the importance of findingand supporting good teachers. 147Five parents drove all the way to Hixon to interview Mr. Smith andreturned with an account of a strong character who had struggled with adifficult social situation in his rural school—seriously abused andneglected children from alcoholic families. He broke up fightsconstantly, gave much of his own time to children who did not want togo home in the evening, and even arranged for their dental care. 148 Inrecommending him for the job, the Teacher Selection Committee described109Mr. Smith as self-confident, realistic, honest, straightforward, firmbut flexible, with a sense of humour, a broad outlook, and an abilityto communicate with adults. He appeared to be unafraid of difficultsituations, \"not a public relations type but possessing a tolerant,pragmatic attitude to education rather than an incisive educationalphilosophy.\"149 He was somewhat influenced by Neill, as many educatorswere, but believed children ought to be able to read by the time theywere eight or nine and not just do what they liked when they liked.Graham Smith's application was approved by a large majority and hewas hired in May, 1965. This was a curious choice given his lack ofstrong commitment to progressive principles and the personal appeal ofBob Barker. However, it indicates clearly that the school was seekinga measure of stability after the previous chaotic year. Mr. Smith wasa proven administrator who would deal with situations before they gotout of control. Mr. Barker, on the other hand, was too Summerhillianfor most members who still wanted a progressive school based on Dewey'sphilosophy. One parent remembers that she became suspicious when hetalked about \"love all the time.\" The selection of Mr. Smith was alsoan attempt to achieve a balance that would appeal to a range ofopinion, even to parents who were somewhat more conservative. 150Mr. Smith turned out to be even more traditional than most parentsexpected. He believed in a skill-based curriculum with formal Englishand mathematics classes, partly in an effort to fill in gaps in theskill areas, and text books were used at the New School for the firsttime. In Social Studies students sat in rows and copied pages of notesfrom the chalkboard. 151 One student recalls that Mr. Smith's physical110education classes included \"a lot of very slow deep knee bends.\" 152Mr. Smith was sometimes compassionate and always interesting but therewas an \"English hardness about him.\" 153 Some students and parentsexperienced him as being angry and aloof and there were strongdisagreements about his traditional methods of discipline.However, he did develop a definite programme and pushed students toachieve academically. Several students report having \"learned a lotfrom him.\" 154 He livened up classes with stories and slides of hisexperiences in Africa and read to the students a good deal. Mr. Smithmade some attempt to individualize his programme, but he was certainlythe most traditional teacher to work at the New School. He was notoverly popular but most students accepted him well enough and, comparedto previous years, parents gave him some room in which to operate.Mr. Smith was a strong advocate of outdoor education and led theolder students on a two week hiking trip to the Rockies. The adventureincluded an eighteen mile hike in Yoho National Park, an excursion tothe Columbia icefields, and a climb to an 8,500 foot peak near Banff.Students hiked through glacial areas sighting moose and mountain sheep,walking for hours without stopping, testing their endurance. 155 Forone student the trip was the beginning of a life long interest: \"Itwas one of the great experiences of my life; my love of hiking stemsfrom that trip. \"156Mrs. Else Wise taught the grade one/two class in 1965/66. She hadexperienced family grouping classrooms and the \"free activity method\"during two years of teaching at an infant school in London. Influencedby Sylvia Ashton-Warner and Maria Montessori, she instilled in her111students an excitement for reading and writing. Although she seemed toknow when a student was ready to read, she waited for the motivation tocome from the individual. Mrs. Wise also taught art and music.Parents remember her as a creative, intuitive, and outstanding teacherand were disappointed when she left teaching after her first year atthe New School to pursue a career as an artist.The other staff member was Mrs. Doris Gray, who worked with thegrade three and four students. Her previous teaching experience hadbeen in California and with Inuit children in Alaska before coming tothe New School as an assistant to Mr. Thomas part way through theprevious year. 157 Mrs. Gray had a strong science background and wasinterested in the interrelationship of concepts, but had becomediscouraged by the emphasis on rote learning in the public schools.She initiated microscope work, and encouraged groups of students towork together independently. She did individual and remedial work withstudents in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Music and French weretaught by part time teachers coming in twice a week.Mrs. Wise was one of the few New School teachers to teach readingcomprehensively. She describes her beginning programme in detail:I had my students going at their own speed and teaching eachother. I didn't mention anything about reading. I just readthem stories and read them poetry and played reading readinessgames. And finally after a few weeks of school one little girlsaid 'when are we going to learn to read?', so I handed her thefirst preprimer and didn't say anything about it except nereyou are.' She read all the way through it and the next twopreprimers in one morning. She was thrilled; nobody had toteach her to read, she already knew. It spread like measles.Everybody came up and asked and when they asked that's whenthey started reading, so they all ended up doing individualreading. I would have two or three children together to listento them read every day and there was only one child that I hadto encourage. 158112Students wrote their own stories and built up a collection ofspelling words on individual flash cards as they required them.Students then traded words with partners, eventually learning everybodyelse's words. Some children began writing poetry and produced a bookof poems with the help of the school secretary. One boy completedthree years of the English programme that year and most others finishedtwo years. Students created their own films in art class and workedextensively with clay.Mrs. Wise believes that the small class size (seventeen students)and the background of the children contributed to her effectiveness.She was a great believer in children's learning from each other:It was their programme. They could talk and move around andask each other for help. If I was busy with one child andanother one needed help they would have to ask another child.I really learned to trust them; the more rope you give them themore creative they are. If you don't put any limits on what ispossible, and if you show them the next place they can get to,they'll go. I really expected something from them too. I didnot encourage competition but they pushed each other. 159In addition to the British primary school influence, Mrs. Wise'smethods are reminiscent of the co-operative learning methods pioneeredby Celestin Freinet in southern France from 1920 to the 1960s. In his\"natural method\" in reading, writing, and scientific enquiry, Freinetled children at their own rate through a progression of drawing, freewriting, and reading using shared activities, student poetry, walljournals, classroom magazines, and other techniques. 15°Both teachers had successful terms but left the school at the endof the year. They were replaced in September, 1966, by Mrs. Anne Longand Mrs. Beth Jankola. Mrs. Long was a creative teacher who had becomedisillusioned with traditional methods during two years in Vancouver113public schools. After an idealistic and impassioned first year she wasdeflated by a school board inspector who expected silent classrooms.She was reassigned to another school and \"toed the line but I was muchless inspired; definitely the edge was off.\"'\" Mrs. Long knew severalfounding New School parents through her English studies at U.B.C. andwhen an opening arose to teach the grade 4/5 class she gladly accepted.Mrs. Jankola taught the primary children and the school's firstKindergarten class was taught by Miss Margo Morgan who offeredbeginning reading instruction as well as French and a southeast Asianlanguage. Mr. Smith continued to work with the grade 6/7 class.The year was relatively uneventful. Anne Long describes herexperience: \"There was much more leeway than in public school and Iwas able to get kids involved in creative work. But the days werepretty well structured; we had subjects scheduled and we basicallyfollowed that schedule.\"'\" Mrs. Long trained students to be self-directed within an overall structure.'\" Reading was individualized;students chose their own books and had little whole class instructiondue to the range of skill levels. Art activities were memorable, thesmall class size making innovation more feasible. For example, theydid batik work with dye vats in the basement, a tricky process that she\"would never have tried in the public school.\" Mrs. Long formed strongbonds with her students and was the first New School teacher to becalled by her first name. Later that year a student coined the nameAnna Banana which stuck.Despite the director's more traditional approach, the New Schoolretained its essential elements. Students learned at their own pace114and were encouraged to pursue individual interests while the arts andcritical thinking skills continued to to emphasized. Curriculum andtimetabling were flexible, classes small, and exams non-existent.Students had freedom of movement throughout the school and could spendtime in other classrooms.'\"Mr. Smith proved to be a capable administrator and the school wasspared the kind of personnel and organizational problems that hadoccurred in previous years. He did not interfere with the methods orteaching styles of the other teachers. As a result, during these twoyears board and general meetings chaired by presidents Elliot Gose (fora second term) and Barry Promislow were relatively uneventful.The school remained accessible to families in all economiccircumstances but one aspect of admissions practice began to change.Mr. Smith enjoyed working with special needs students and more wereaccepted. Mrs. Long estimates that almost half of her students had hadlearning and/or behavioural difficulties in the school system, andfeared the New School was \"moving in the direction of being a catch-allfor kids with problems in the public schools.\"'\" This was not aschool objective but neither Mr. Smith nor the parents wanted to turnthese children away. There were few public school programmes forstudents with learning disabilities and some parents saw the New Schoolas simply a \"safe haven for their children\" where they would not beunder so much pressure to keep up. 166 Some of the original schoolfamilies began to leave during these two years but the major exodus ofacademic and middle-class families did not begin until about 1971.Like his predecessors, Mr. Smith found that teaching in such an115intimate, experimental environment had taken its toll and in early 1967he announced his intention to resign at the end of his second year.Anne Long wrote that Mr. Smith was \"constantly under the gun from theparent body for being overly authoritarian\" 167 and one parent describeshim as having been \"bowled over by the amount of parental involvement.\"Whatever he did half the group would disapprove. Mr. Smith was not adiplomat and made no attempt to parrot the views parents wanted tohear. He would say things like, \"if these children don't get someeducation soon, they'll be sweeping the streets of Vancouver whenthey're adults.\"'\" Mr. Smith was apparently having personal problemsby the end of his tenure and was under great pressure. He was accusedof having a short fuse and resorting to physical punishment of studentson occasion. 169 His students could be a handful to manage at times andseveral parents suspect he was close to a nervous breakdown. But hewas a fighter and stuck it out until the end of his contract.'\"As the New School approached its fifth birthday in the Spring of1967, it had to be described as a qualified success. It had grown to73 students from kindergarten to grade seven, employed three full timeteachers, owned a substantial equity in its building, and administereda budget of $36,000. Operating expenses were almost covered by tuitionfees, though capital costs depended on fund-raising. Ideological andpersonal disagreements had tested the commitment of its members, butthe community was still optimistic. Many parents believed what theywere doing was important and supported the project with an enormousamount of time and energy. They were convinced that the New School was\"the best school in Vancouver. .171116Although many parents found their association with the schoolemotionally draining, \"the kids were having a great time.\" 172 RitaCohn describes the school as a \"wonderful experience\" for her children.The previous chapter indicates how most New School graduates from thisperiod later entered the public school system without great difficultyand managed to acquire the skills they had missed. Many found thattheir well developed critical and creative thinking skills made highschool easy, albeit boring. Most students report that increasedconfidence and independence were also assets.However, some students found it difficult to adjust to a more rigidsystem than what they were used to. One parent describes how herdaughter felt like a \"misfit\" in grade eight, and a student says: \"Youweren't supposed to question what the teachers said but I did. Someteachers had difficulty with that. You didn't speak about issues.\" 173Fortunately for students who reacted poorly to large authoritariamschools, there were by the late 1960s innovative programmes availableat such schools as University Hill, Point Grey (the IntegratedProgramme), 174 Lord Byng (the Self Programme), and, a few years later,at Sentinel Satellite in West Vancouver. 175 Many former New Schoolstudents became reunited while attending these programmes.The public schools themselves had differing opinions about NewSchool education. One former student was put into the bright classwhen she registered at secondary school, while another reports that theelementary school she transferred to \"put me into a remedial class andgave me all kinds of psychological tests.\" 176 It is fair to say,however, that most New School students from this period had successful117school careers, attended university, and ended up, for the most part,in professional, academic, artistic, and business careers.The fact that these students fared well in their future academicendeavors was due as much to good fortune as to design, however.Although there was no continuity in teaching style or theory, there wasenough good teaching during the first five years that students learned.Graham Smith, disliked as he was by some, was responsible for fillingin gaps in the background of many students. The reading programme wasparticularly problematic. With the exception of Else Wise, no onetaught reading in any systematic way. It is only because thesechildren came from stimulating home environments where education wasvalued that the results were not worse. Even so, a few students didnot learn effective reading skills. During the school's later years,when students did not have the same support at home and many of themhad reading problems to begin with, the results were much more serious.Co-operative decision making and administation had been difficultand a series of power struggles among the parents and with the teachershad brought the school close to the breaking point. The ongoing criseswere partly the result of an inadequate foundation from the outset.The original parents never reached a firm agreement on what type ofeducation they would offer or what their decision making approach wouldbe. Despite the formally constituted board the parents wanted tooperate with an open and non-hierarchical structure. But in rejectinghierarchy the group allowed the more articulate and politically awareamong them to form an elite which dominated the school during the firstsix years.' 77 Another weakness, typical of co-operative organizations,118was the school's dependence on the large commitment of time and moneyexpected of parents, which could not be sustained over time.Parents greatly overestimated their ability to hire and superviseteachers effectively. Hiring had no continuity or systematic criteria.All teachers hired during the parent co-operative period were formallytrained and certified. However, aside from their general frustrationwith the public school system the teachers had little else in common.Teaching styles varied widely. Although the New School was generallyconsidered to offer \"progressive education,\" not one teacher hiredduring the six years of parent administration had any training inprogressive theory or methods. Even Lloyd Arntzen, arguably the bestteacher during the early years, developed activities based more onintuition than on any firm methodological foundation.Once hired, the teachers were not given the freedom to exercisetheir professional judgement without interference. Teacher evaluationwas frequently based on hearsay and carried out by individuals who hadno training or experience in supervision and a workable process ofevaluation was not accepted until the fourth year. Unreasonablepressure from parents was undoubtedly a principal cause of the highteacher turnover during these early years.This was not an uncommon pitfall among early American progressiveschools. W. A. C. Stewart states that parents hiring teachers was the\"usual American pattern.\" He describes one headmaster's \"exasperationwith the assumption by uninformed parents (at Oak Lane County DaySchool in Philadelphia) that their views on education and teachingcould be pressed upon teachers.\" 178119The New School was in many ways a vehicle for parents to work outtheir own political and intellectual agendas and they often lost sightof the original goals. The school's continued preoccupation with adultissues obscurred the educational objectives and led to an increase infactionalism and a decrease in consistency.The New School had come to a kind of crossroads by 1967. Would theparents be able to sustain their co-operative organization or wouldsome other vehicle of governance have to be found? And would theschool retain its progressive orientation or would it be swept alongwith the free school tide of the late 1960s?120NOTES1. New School Constitution, February, 1962.2. New School committee lists and newsletters, 1962-65.3. New School newsletter, September, 1963.4. Werner Cohn, \"On New School Governance,\" November, 1963.5. Amended Constitution, June, 1964.6. Robert Sarti, \"Decision Making in a Vancouver Alternate School,\"unpublished undergraduate paper for William Bruneau, U.B.C., 1974.7. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.8. Julia Brown, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.9. Cathy Gose, tape recorded interview, November, 1963.10. Ken MacFarland, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.11. This was a common feature of independent schools.^See DonaldErickson et. al., Characteristics and Relationships in Public andIndependent Schools (Educational Research Institute of B.C., 1979).12. Alan Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.13. New School Newsletters, September 30 and October 29, 1965.14. Special Bulletin from the Board, 1963; Epstein Collection.15. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, November 21, 1962.16. New School newsletter, June, 1963.17. Don Brown, quoted in the Vancouver Sun, March 29, 1961, p. 12.18. Elliot Gose quoted in Julia Brown, journal excerpt.19. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.20. Gloria Levi, Bary Promislow, tape recorded interviews.21. Financial Report and Fee Schedule, June, 1963, Epstein Collection.22. Finance Committee reports and minutes, 1965.23. Finance Committee minutes and New School Newsletter, 1964.12124. Finance Committee records, 1962-1966.25. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, August 24, 1963 and April, 1964.26. Vancouver Sun, March 29, 1961, p. 12.27. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987. Of course,public schools do this to some extent as well.28. Jill Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.29. Gwen Creech, interview, January, 1991.30. New School budgets and financial statements, 1962-66, EpsteinCollection.31. New School budgets and financial statements, 1962-66.32. Annual Financial Statements, 1963-1968, Registrar of Companies,Victoria; New School Budgets and Treasurer's Reports, 1963-1968.33. Annual Reports and Financial Statements, 1963-1968, Resgistrar ofCompanies, Victoria.34. Pledge form, June, 1966, Epstein Collection.35. Ron Hansen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.36. New School newsletters, September to November, 1963.37. New School Newsletter, October 29, 1965; New School Art Auctionprice list, November 22, 1968.38. Financial Reports, 1964-1969, Registrar of Companies, Victoria.39. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, May 19, 1964.40. New School Thrift and Gift Shop, Financial Statement, 1964, 1965.41. Thrift Shop sales records, June, 1968 to January, 1969, RandallCollection.42. Income Statement, June, 1969, Registrar of Companies, Victoria.43. New School Annual General Meeting minutes, June 21, 1968.44. Lecture Series publicity flyer, 1964.45. Private letter to the Board, September, 1964.46. Admissions Committee Report, October, 1964.12247. New School newsletter, December 16, 1963, Levi Collection.48. New School newsletters, 1962-64.49. Norman Epstein, November, 1991.50. Curriculum Committee minutes, 1964.51. Curriculum Committee, minutes, September 20, 1964.52. Planning Committee Report, undated.53. Planning Committee Report on Kindergarten, undated.54. Kindergarten attendance was still optional in B. C. at this time,but New School parents would have wanted their children to attend.55. Planning Committee Report, undated.56. Jill Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.57. Julia Brown, personal journal, Gwen Creech, interview.58. New School annual reports.59. Barry Promislow, tape recorded interview, January, 1991.60. Gwen Creech, interview, January, 1991.61. Nomi Growe (Promislow), tape recorded interview, July, 1991.62. Teacher Committee, Report on Evaluation, November, 1963.63. William and Hillary Nicholls, open letter, February, 1965.64. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, April 11, April 14, 1964.65. Board recommendation to the membership, April, 1964.66. Andy Johnston quoted in Julia Brown, Journal, April 14, 1964.67. Alan and Elms Tolliday, open letter to the membership, April, 1964.68. Most independent schools had individual or corporate ownershipstructure and were governed by appointed boards69. Vote totals from Julia Brown, Journal, April 11 , April 14, 1964.70. Charles Christopherson, \"Re The New School,\" letter to members,April 20, 1964.71. Gwen Creech, interview, January, 1991.12372. William Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.73. Paul Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1991.74. Karen Tallman, quoted in Robert Sarti, \"Decision Making in aVancouver Alternative School,\" U.B.C., 1974.75. Elliot and Kathy Gose, taped interviews, April, 1987.76. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.77. Don Brown quoted in Julia Brown, Personal Journal, April 6, 1964.78. Jim Winter, tape recorded interview, April, 1987. Mr. Arntzennever again taught in an alternative school.^He has combinedperiods of teaching with a career as a professional musician andcurrently teaches in the Vancouver School District.79. New Teachers Committee, Report, May, 1964.80. New Teachers Committee, Report, May, 1964.81. Phil Thomas, letter to Vancouver School Board, May, 1964.82. William and Hillary Nicholls, open letter, February, 1965.83. Constitutional Amendments, June, 1964.84. New School newsletters, June and September, 1964.85. Enrolment and membership list, 1964/54.86. Special bulletin to the membership, November, 1964.87. Report from the Board, November, 1964.88. Mervine Beagle, telephone interview,Dreikurs and Vicki Soltz, ChildrenHawthorne, 1964) and Rudolf Dreikurs,(New York: Harper and Row, 1968).89. Many alternative schools, such as thesuffered over the years from criticism90. Gwen Creech, interview, January, 1991.June, 1991.^See RudolfThe Challenge (New York:Psychology in the ClassroomRussells' Beacon Hill, haveabout mess and confusion.91. Mervine Beagle, telephone interview, June, 1991.^See VictorFroese, ed., Whole Language:^Practice and Theory (Vancouver:U.B.C. Department of Language Education, 1988.)92. Mervine Beagle, telephone interview, June, 1991.12493. Cal Shumiatcher, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.94. Paul Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1991.95. Phil Thomas, Teacher's Report, 1965.96. Mrs. Jean Affleck and Mrs. Doris Gray.97. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.98. Phil Thomas, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.99. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, October 28, 1964.100. Julia Brown describes this meeting in detail, Personal Journal,November 8, 1964.101. Report of the Ad Hoc Committee, December, 1964.102. Marilyn Epstein quoted in Julia Brown, Journal, December 2, 1964.103. Maureen Beddoes, Phil Thomas, letters to the board, October,1964, Thomas Collection.104. Gwen Creech, letter to the membership, January, 1965.105. Gwen Creech, Phil Thomas, letters, December, 1964, January, 1965.106. Parents' petition, January, 1965.107. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, December 15, 1964, January 31,1965 and Hillary Nicholls, taped interview, April, 1987.108. Paul Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1991.109. Phil Thomas, letter to Mrs. Creech, February, 1965.110. Gwen Creech, Phil Thomas, letters, January/February, 1965.111. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, October 28, 1964.112. William and Hillary Nicholls, Open Letter to the Membership,February, 1965.113. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, February 17, 1965.114. Report from the Board, February, 1965.115. Letter from the Board to Miss Gaba and Miss Beagle, March, 1965.116. Norman Epstein, Dal Town, letters, March, 1965.125117. Gwen Creech, Open Letter to the Membership, March, 1965.118. Ruth McCarthy, open letter to the membership, February, 1985.119. See correspondence between Don Brown and Norman Epstein,January to March, 1965, Epstein Collection.120. Gwen Creech, Open Letter to the Membership, March, 1965.121. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.122. Barbara Beach, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.123. Phil Thomas, letter of resignation, April, 1965.124. Phil Thomas, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.125. Norman Epstein, taped interview, April, 1987, Julia Brown,Personal Journal, October 28, 1964.126. Mervine Beagle, telephone interview, June, 1991.127. Phil Thomas taught in Vancouver public schools until the mid1980s. He remained active in both art and music. Adele Gabaand Mervine Beagle continued to work together on the west coastof Vancouver Island, and then from 1973 to 1989 at DiscoverySchool, an alternative elementary school in the Surrey SchoolDistrict where Miss Beagle was principal.128. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April 1987.129. Don Brown, tape recorded interview, January, 1991.130. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.131. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.132. Phillip Hewitt, interview, June, 1991.133. Norman and Marilyn Epstein, taped interviews, April, 1987.134. Barbara Beach, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.135. Julia Brown, Personal Journal, November 28, 1964.136. The New School Prospectus, 1962, page 2.137. Ad Hoc Committee, Report, December, 1964.138. Norman Epstein, farewell letter to the teachers, June, 1965.139.^Gwen Creech, interview, January, 1991.126140. Barbara Beach, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.141. Julia Brown, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.142. New School policy paper, \"The Position of of Teacher-Directorat the New School,' April, 1965.143. New School Newsletter, October 29, 1965.144. Lewis-Wadhams was founded by Herb Snitzer, author of Today isfor Children, New York, MacMillan, 1972. He had earlier spenta year at Summerhill and wrote Summerhill: A Loving World.145. George Dennison writes that the Collaberg School (originallycalled the Barker School) \"represents, as far as I know, thefirst full-fledged use of Neill's methods in this country.\"The Lives of Children (New York: Random House, 1969): 299.146. Robert Barker, Biographical and Educational Statement, April,1965.147. Graham Smith, Educational Statement, May 1965.148. Hillary Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.149. Hiring Committee Report, May 1965.150. Barry Promislow, tape recorded interview, January, 1991.151. Cal Shumiatcher, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.152. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.153. Paul Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1991.154. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.155. Karen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.156. Paul Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1991.157. Vancouver Sun, July 8, 1965, p. 38, reported by Kathy Hassard.158. Else Wise, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.159. Else Wise, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.160. Celestin Freinet, Co-operative Learning and Social Change(Toronto: Our Schools/Our Selves and OISE Publishing, 1990).161. Anne Long, tape recorded interview, May, 1987.127162. Anne Long, tape recorded interview, May 1987.163. Cal Shumiatcher, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.164. Vancouver Sun, April 26, 1966, p. 27, reported by Bob Sunter.165. Anne Long, tape recorded interview, May 1987.166. Cathy Gose, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.167. Anne Long, \"The New School—Vancouver,\" in Radical SchoolReform, Gross and Gross, eds. (New York: Simon and Schuster,1969): 275.168. Barry Promislow, tape recorded interview, January, 1991.169. Robert Sarti, \"Decision Making in a Vancouver AlternateSchool,\" U.S.C., 1974.170. Mr. Smith went back to teach in northern British Columbia.Some believe he later returned to England.171. Wayne Levi, quoted in the Vancouver Sun, May 12, 1967, 14.172. Jim Winter, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.173. Jill Tolliday, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.174. An interdisciplinary programme for students in grades ten andeleven, started by vice principal, Jim Carter, who later becamedeputy education minister.175. Sentinel Satellite offered a humanities and drama basedprogramme headed by Barbara Shumiatcher, a long-time New Schoolparent.176. Laura Jamieson, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.177. Hilda Thomas, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.178.^W. A. C. Stewart, The Educational Innovators, Vol. 2, (London:Macmillan, 1968): 140. The observation was made by W. B. Currywho headed the progressive parent-run school in Philadelphiabefore returning to England to become headmaster at Dartington.128CHAPTER 4: THE FREE SCHOOL 1967-1973From Progressive to Free SchoolIn March, 1967, the New School hiring committee began searching fora new teacher-director to begin work in September for the 1967/68school year. Mr. Tom Durrie, a teacher in Williams Lake, read aboutthe vacant director's position in an advertisement in the Summerhill Society Bulletin and applied. He was interviewed by three parents,Jean Kuyt, Saralee James, and Jean Jamieson, who made the long tripnorth to spend the day with him at his school. They were favourablyimpressed and invited him to come to Vancouver to meet the board andthe other teachers.However, several other parents were opposed to bringing in someonefrom outside and believed it would be \"a great mistake to hire ateacher-director who had not taught at the school.\" In a letter topresident Barry Promislow, Norman Levi wrote:After five years in the New School I am convinced that theteaching staff must produce its own director or head teacher,because they, the staff, know the intricacies of the teachingproblems and the parent-teacher problems, and have worked outtechniques to handle them. We have seen with all the teachersthat have passed through the school that there has to be alearning process in regard to our somewhat nebulous views onprogressive education. A new teacher director would have thesame problems. After five years we should realize that headteachers or directors are made in the system they work. Theycertainly are not born that way. 1Mr. Levi believed the directorship should be offered to Anne Long whowas capable and, having already taught for a year at the school, wouldprovide continuity.129Mr. Promislow did not take an active role in making the decision.He was more conservative in outlook than most New School parents andjoined the school mainly because of his wife's interest in innovativeteaching. He had been asked to be president because he was not tieddown by strong educational opinions, was an effective mediator andefficient chairperson, and could get things done. 2Mrs. Long did eventually put her name forward for the director'sjob after an initial unsatisfactory meeting between the teachers andMr. Durrie. However, neither she nor the board took her candidacy veryseriously. 3 Meanwhile, the board was just as impressed with Tom Durrieas the interview team had been and, after a second negotiating meetingwith the teachers, he was hired.Mr. Durrie began his teaching career in southern California andfrom the beginning disapproved of what he saw as the coerciveness ofpublic schools. Active in the teachers' association, he eventuallylost his job for speaking out against merit pay. He moved to BritishColumbia in 1960 and taught in Burnaby, Kitwanga, and Williams Lake.After experimenting briefly with traditional discipline, Mr. Durriebecame acquainted with Summerhill and the writings of Paul Goodman andEric Fromm. His experience teaching learning disabled children inseveral B. C. school districts during the early 1960s \"threw a lot ofthe problems of education into very sharp focus for me.\"I became more and more permissive and things were really quiteoutrageous with kids running around screaming and yelling allday long. My acceptablility in the public system wasdeteriorating rapidly. But the changes that took place in thekids were astonishing to me and to everyone else in theschoo1. 4Mr. Durrie observed his submissive students begin to take more130control over their lives through activities around the school such aslawn mowing, and was amazed that they became \"somewhat civilized.\" Hethought that since children at the New School were less repressed thanthe problem students he had been working with, New School students'behaviour would be far less disruptive when given real freedom. He wasjust as surprised as their parents were when this turned out to beincorrect. 5The parents' decision to hire Mr. Durrie poses an interestingproblem, for the complete freedom he advocated was to take the NewSchool in a direction very different from the progressivist model ofthe previous five years. He believed children should not be forced tostudy and should be allowed to solve their own problems. He envisionedno set curriculum and would take his cue instead from the students. Inan interview with the Vancouver Sun in August, 1967 titled \"Far OutSchool to be More Free,\" Mr. Durrie explained that the school would be\"more liberal and free in its approach.\" 6Several parents later claimed that Mr. Durrie deceived the groupabout the kinds of changes he planned. This is improbable, however,for the interviewing team had spent a whole day with him in WilliamsLake observing his work with the students there. A more plausibleexplanation is that free school advocates among the parent body,reacting against the traditional methods of Graham Smith, used theopportunity to press for a director who would take the school in thedirection of considerably more \"freedom.\" They advertised in a freeschool publication and the majority of the interviewing team were freeschool advocates. Furthermore, the composition of the parent body was131already beginning to change by 1967 and most new parents were moreinfluenced by Neill than by Dewey. 7 Free schools were the talk of theday and the free school supporters, considering Mr. Durrie something ofa Hmessiah,' 8 were successful in selling him to the rest of the group.New School parents embraced complete freedom in theory withoutbeing prepared for what that meant in actuality. Mr. Durrie maintainsthat parents wanted something resembling Summerhill: \"They thoughtthey did. But they weren't prepared for what that meant—their nicewell behaved children running around yelling 'fuck you.' I don't thinkthey knew, any more than I did what would happen.\" 9 It is also likelythat the freedom Mr. Durrie allowed his students in Williams Lake wastempered by his working in a traditional school where outsideconstraints were in effect. The parents who observed him in WilliamsLake were not able to imagine what complete freedom would be like. Theinfatuation ended when the parents saw the reality of the situation.The three other teachers were Mrs. Long, and new staff members Mrs.Rita Cohn and Ms. Diane McNairn. They replaced Mrs. Jankola whorefused to work with Mr. Durrie and Miss Morgan who moved to easternCanada. Mrs. Cohn was no stranger to the New School, having been oneof the founding parents in 1962. She was an experienced teacher,fluent in French, and looked forward to her new role in the school.All three teachers expressed reservations about the new director'sapproach, but a compromise was worked out during a special weekendmeeting with Mr. Durrie late that spring. 10 They agreed to set asidethe mornings for structured lessons (as creative as possible) in thebasic subjects—reading, writing, and arithmetic. The afternoons would132be for creative work, sports, field trips, and other unstructuredactivities that students would not be compelled to attend. The fourteachers also drew up tentative class lists.The compromise fell apart almost immediately. The story is besttold by Rita Cohn and Anne Long themselves. Mrs. Cohn had herkindergarten/grade one classroom well organized prior to schoolopening.But after the first day, it didn't make any difference who youhad in your class, because the kids could go anywhere theywanted. I was less free about letting my kids go to otherclasses, but other students came to mine. I looked into Tom'sclass that first day and there was nothing. Not a book, nofurniture. I asked him, \"What are you going to do, Tom?\" Hesaid, \"Well, I'll see what the kids want to do.\" I rememberthinking, that's not going to work. 11Mrs. Cohn reports that although some students enjoyed the freedom,others simply attached themselves to one of the other teachers. Thosewho remained with the director \"ran rampant and became quitedestructive, and the school building suffered greatly.\"Mrs. Long describes that eventful year in detail in her 1969article, \"The New School—Vancouver.\"With no expectation of class work, an anti-academic attitudepervaded the school and the students were quick to rejectanything that even half looked like a regular lesson, no matterhow skillfully devised. They discovered that freedom waslimitless. 12One former student recalls that he \"did not open a book all year\" andanother remembers school that year as being \"lots of fun.\" 13The Monkey Patrol was a group of four boys who made life difficultfor everyone else. \"They spent their time building forts, fightingover materials, disrupting activities of other kids, lighting fires,and wrecking furniture, school equipment, other forts, and the very133walls of the school itself.\" Parents on the maintenance committeeremember having to repair holes in the walls as big as basketballs.Mrs. Cohn describes Mr. Durrie's approach as Rogerian: 14 \"trying tohelp these kids work through their problems by accepting all of theirantisocial and destructive behaviour, buying them candy and pop, andtaking them on exclusive outings leaving the rest of his class to fendfor themselves.\" 15 The students soon learned that Mr. Durrie wouldnever disapprove of any behaviour. One former student remembers havingto fight her way out of a room after being dragged in by four or fiveboys. She describes a \"gangland situation with no control over thekids—you had to learn to defend yourself.\" 18 Mrs. Long continues:There were Cuisenaire rod fights, fortwater fights. Student meetingsIncident piled upon incident and noStudent artwork was destroyed, chairshalf. The ditto machine became a juvenile pornography plant.I began feeling that I was living in the land of Lord of theFlies. 17Mr. Durrie describes how the students would drift into school inthe morning. \"There was no particular structure—they would go wherethey wanted to go and do what they wanted to do. The older kidscirculated around the whole place and created a lot of mayhem.\" Theother teachers, and indeed many of the younger students, were notprepared for the older kids to be as energetic, rambunctious, orhostile as they turned out to be, and \"although they may not have likedthe structure either, they were afraid of the madness that burst forthwithout it.\" 18 Mr. Durrie claims that the students were not allowed tohurt each other, but for the most part suggestions to control them wereignored.fights, paint fights,were screaming matches.end to it was in sight.broken up, desks sawed in134Mr. Durrie remembers one day when a group of students had floodedthe basement and spent much of the day running and sliding on theirbellies. Upon being picked up and asked by a horrified mother, \"whywould you do a thing like that?\" the child replied, \"nobody stoppedme.\" Mr. Durrie believes that although New School parents weregenuinely anti-autoritarian, they were too middle class to accept suchuncontrolled behaviour from their kids and that \"some of the kids foundit difficult to accept in themselves.\" 19 Mr. Durrie, on the otherhand, saw the behaviour as natural. He had lots of fun with the kids,playing computer games on a typewriter, building electronic equipmentor terrariums for frogs, building dams and rivers at the park. Teacherand students enjoyed driving to various interesting places in the city.Several incidents finally caused Mrs. Long to challenge Mr. Durrieopenly. She was concerned that he would not intervene when members ofthe Monkey Patrol refused to allow any other students to go along ontheir outings with the director. Furthermore, he expressed nodisapproval of the students' shoplifting activities when they weredowntown. 2° But the most serious disagreement occurred when studentsbegan lighting fires all over the school building—in wastebaskets,washrooms, under the stage, and in all corners of the basement, with nointervention from the director. Mrs. Long finally acted on her ownaccord, confiscating matches and telephoning parents, and Mr. Durrieagreed to move the burning outside. 21 Staff relations becameincreasingly strained.The majority of parents disapproved of Mr. Durrie's methodsintensely. The apparent lack of control over the kids was a greater135concern to parents than the decrease in academic activity althoughparents and even a few students were concerned that they were notgetting an education. However, a significant minority supported him,including president Jean Kuyt, and the school quickly divided into twocamps. Most of Mr. Durrie•s supporters were relatively recent membersof the school community, very few of the old guard favouring hisapproach. According to Mrs. Long more than twenty students werewithdrawn during the first two months and by November it had becomedifficult for the school to function at al1. 22The school limped along through a series of crises and intensemeetings including a three day session with a Simon Fraser Universityconsultant. One temporary solution designated the basement as the areawhere students could do whatever they wanted while the upstairs wouldbe reserved for academic activities but this and other \"adult generatedplans\" broke down very quickly. 23Mr. Durrie found himself under increasing stress and widespreadcriticism, but believed strongly in what he was doing. He saw theflexible timetables and creative teaching methods of progressiveschools as mere tricks to get students to do what adults wanted them todo in the first place. In \"Free Schools: Threat to the System orHarmless Lunatic Fringe?\" written in 1969, Durrie questioned theassumption that children have to be taught anything at all and whetheradults really know the best ways of growing up and living. He notedthat children learn such complex skills as walking and talking duringthe first few years of life without prodding or assistance. Whatschools do, he wrote, is \"turn learning into a chore when it should be136one of life's greatest delights.\" Accepting the positive andconstructive nature of human drives as fundamental, Durrie concludedthat \"we need not direct learning and growth but simply allow them tohappen.\" He told children, \"You are free to be yourself and to do whatyou like. I trust that you know better than I do what is good foryou.\" The responsibility for making decisions was left to eachindividual. 24In late December the school hosted a high profile Free SchoolConference organized by Lynn Curtis, a former Company of YoungCanadians worker from Victoria. Mr. Durrie was pleased to offer theNew School as the conference site. A free school advocate himself, theconference provided an opportunity to make new contacts with other freeschool teachers. The participants included Bob Davis of Everdale Placelocated north of Toronto, Colin Thomson of Vancouver's Knowplace, 25 andBob Barker, who had opened his own Barker Free School in Aldergrovewhen his application to be director of the New School was turned downtwo years earlier. The conference generated a great deal of excitementand conviction among the participants. Anything to do with freeschools was considered big news in Vancouver of 1967, and both majornewspapers ran stories on the sessions for several consecutive days. 26The situation continued to deteriorate after the Christmas breakand the school closed for encounter groups (\"T-Grouping\") in January inan unsuccessful attempt to resolve the differences. 27 Several parentmeetings failed to yield results as well. Finally, at a meeting of theentire school community on March 14, 1968, the parent group decided todivide into two schools. 28 After considering several proposals they137decided that the division into \"progressive\" and \"free\" groups wouldtake place immediately with the progressive majority carrying on in theschool building. 29 President Jean Kuyt (a Summerhillian and supporterof Mr. Durrie) resigned along with four other board members and aninterim board with president Kay Stockholder (U.B.C. English professorand friend of the school founders) was elected the following month.\"Mr. Durrie left with the minority of students whose parentssupported his practices and, after conducting a \"floating free school\"for the remainder of the spring, opened the Saturna Island Free Schoolthe following September. This was a residential school located on afarm in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia with approximately twentystudents between the ages of five and eighteen. Similar in outlook toSummerhill, the Saturna Island School permitted students completefreedom to explore their own interests without pressure from adults. 31The school operated for three years until it was forced to close due toharassment from the health department 32 and lack of finances. 33The New School was left with just under thirty students. Mrs.Long, who in April was appointed acting director for the rest of theyear, 34 explained that \"we will not be an unstructured school, but wewill be much freer than the public schools. We will teach the basicskills, but the kids will also be involved in academic things outsidethe classroom.\"35 The parents cleaned, repaired, and painted theschool building, and the students completed the year without furtherincident. Mrs. Long claims that students responded with enthusiasm tothe new structured order because they now understood why it wasnecessary. 36 The constant tension was over.138The events of the previous six months did not appear to harm thestudents in any lasting way. The older students, some of whom had beenat the school for several years, were soon to begin their secondaryschool careers and it was time for them to make the transition topublic school anyway. None of the students interviewed, nor theirparents, believe they suffered any serious consequences from the yearof academic inactivity.In May, the teachers petitioned the parents to hand the operationof the school over to them. The teachers had endured what theyconsidered to be almost impossible teaching conditions and saw theaftermath of the recent crisis as an opportune moment to gain controlover their working environment. There was little parental resistanceto this proposal, hardly surprising given the almost constant strifeover teacher supervision they had experienced during the previous sixyears. By this time only one or two of the original families were leftand parents had no desire to administer the school any longer. In factone parent, Norman Levi, had suggested the school might operate betteras a teacher co-operative more than a year earlier. 37 The motioncarried at a general meeting on May 16 without a dissenting vote. 38When the New School opened for its seventh year in September, 1968,it was clearly a different school than it had been in 1962. A newclientele influenced by the social movements of the late 1960s wasbeginning to replace the academic and professional families. Even withthe departure of Mr. Durrie, and the leadership of the school securedby the teachers who had opposed him, the New School soon came closelyto resemble a typical late 1960s free school.139The Teacher Co-operativeThe school was re-incorporated as The New School Teachers Society,a teacher co-operative, in June, 1968. 39 Anne Long and Rita Cohn askedBeth Jankola to return and the three teachers took charge of the schoolbeginning a new era that September. Mrs. Long taught the intermediatestudents, Mrs. Jankola worked with the older primary students, and Mrs.Cohn taught the very young children. A few months into the schoolyear, Mr. Daryl Sturdy joined the staff to provide extra supervisionand participate in team teaching. Mr. Sturdy and Anne Long had beencolleagues at Hastings School three years earlier and the two had spentmany hours talking about Summerhill and other alternatives to the\"repressive\" public school system. He had attended the Free SchoolConference at the New School the previous December and had come awayeven more enthusiastic about free school education. In April, 1969,after almost three years at the New School, Mrs. Long left to pursue anartistic career and Mr. Sturdy took her place with the older class.\"The teachers made all school decisions and parents no longerparticipated in decision making or administrative functions. Theconstitution was set up to produce maximum stability. The membershipof the new society consisted only of teachers who had been on staff fortwo years and (in the case of the three original members only) theirspouses. 41 This allowed for a probationary period before any teacherbecame a permanent member of staff or of the society. Furthermore, newmembers could join the society only by invitation after a majoritydecision of existing members. In this way society members retained140close control of future membership. However, the probationaryprovision was applied unevenly and some teachers, such as Mr. Sturdy,were admitted to society membership before the two year period had beencompleted. Society members appear to have ignored the rules for someindividuals and eventually the waiting period was reduced to one year.The provision for the teachers' spouses to be society members wasindeed unusual. The justification seems to have been twofold. Sincethe society (hence the teachers) owned the school building, the legaland financial status of the organization was stronger if the husbandswere also members. Secondly, all three families had children in theschool giving the husbands a double interest in the school's welfare.Former teachers would remain with the society for two years afterleaving the school and could be requested to serve for a longer periodif a two-thirds majority agreed. The constitution provided for parentsto elect two representatives to the society, but in practice thisrarely happened42 as parents were content to let the teachers run theschool. There was also a provision for \"other interested persons\" tobecome members for a one year term (two thirds majority required) butthis never occurred. Society members usually numbered between six andtwelve and, according to the constitution, were to elect three or moredirectors each year. Because there were so few members they usuallyall became directors.Formal society meetings occured at least once a year to satisfy theprovisions of the Societies Act. The Society had two principalfunctions: administering the school's finances and supervising staff.Each spring society members met to decide whether or not to rehire new141teachers on a permanent basis (and hence admit them to membership inthe society) after the probationary period. But even in such cases,the decision was usually already made at a staff meeting. Legalprocedure was lax and the school often fell behind in filing annualdocuments with the Registrar of Societies.The legal details took several years to work out. The transfer ofassets could not be completed until the old New School Society hadbrought its annual reports up to date. This was finally concluded in1969 when the New School Teachers Society bought the building for onedollar. 43 However, the old society continued to exist with its own setof directors until 1973 when it was finally disbanded. This causedconsiderable confusion and the school was fortunate that the bulk ofthe legal work was done by two parents, Sid Simons and Marvin Stark, atminimal cost. 44Decision making by the teachers was much less stressful than underthe parent organization. Staff meetings were held once a week andsmaller team meetings were frequent, but they were natural extensionsof the school day. The teachers were together all the time, at lunch,after school, and they became friends. Evening meetings were oftenheld at a staff member's house over a pot luck dinner while theteachers discussed curriculum, philosophy, and day-to-day schooloperation. Team teaching was frequent, but individual teachers werefree to develop their own programmes and to implement them as they sawfit. Mr. Sturdy describes the atmosphere in this way:We weren't just teachers leaving at the end of the day—we ranthe school. It humanized the workplace. It wasn't just a job.There was a real feeling of family, of connectedness; it wasmore fun. We didn't have to deal with levels of bureaucracy. 45142Decisions were reached through consensus and, although some issuesrequired extensive discussion and occasionally had to be brought to avote, most of the teachers agreed on how they wanted to work withkids.\" The smaller number of individuals making decisions helped tominimize disagreements. On the other hand, meetings were still longand difficult, and at times there were heated arguments. It was a timeof strong beliefs, experimentation, and high emotion. People expressedthemselves freely and sometimes feelings were hurt as everyone took theissues very seriously. 47 This more cohesive group was not spared thepersonnel crises of earlier years. In 1969/70 and 1970/71 seriousdisagreements about whether to rehire teachers called the wholedecision making mechanism into question once again.The school could not afford to hire any administrative, secretarialor janitorial staff and all administrative tasks were handled by theteachers. The most important jobs were finance and bookkeeping,admissions, building maintenance, secretarial work, supply ordering,fund-raising, volunteer co-ordination, and fielding telephone callsfrom concerned parents. 48 At first these were all done by Mrs. Long asacting director, but beginning in 1969 each staff member tookresponsibility for one or more tasks. 49 Every year one teacher wouldvolunteer to be treasurer, the most demanding of the administrativejobs. Some teachers performed this task well, but other years thebooks were in a shambles.\" Because administration was tiring and timeconsuming after a full day of teaching, staff members tried to keepthese duties to a minimum. In 1971, the teachers attempted toresurrect parent committees to assist with admissions, maintenance,143fund-raising, typing, and the library, 51 but this had little success.Parents were content to let the teachers run the school during thisperiod and many parents did not even know the Society existed. In May,1971, a controversial dismissal of a teacher led to an uproar among theparent body. More than ten parents wrote letters protesting both thedecision and the way it was made. 52 The parents accused the permanentstaff of operating a secret society to which no one had any input andthey demanded greater participation in decision making. They furtherobjected to teachers' spouses being members of the Society and severalparents withdrew their children from the school.The suggestion that the teachers ran the school in secret was anoverreaction. The society rarely met more than once a year to makestaffing decisions and to submit annual reports in compliance with theSocieties Act. Most decisions were made at weekly staff meetings. Butthe teachers had neglected to communicate adequately to the parent bodyhow the school was governed. Following this incident society memberstook steps to \"acquaint the parents more fully with the administrativestructure of the school\" 53 and invited non-permanent staff to attendsociety meetings, although not to vote. Barbara Shumiatcher, a parentwho supported the teachers, reminded other parents how disruptivepersonnel decisions had been under the earlier parent co-operative:Some parents are agitating for more participation in decisionsat the school.^This was disastrous in the past as gossipincreased and factions grew:^stranglehold was the basicpolitical attitude. Since teachers have to take day-to-dayconsequences for policy decisions (including hiring) it seemsonly reasonable that they alone should make those decisions. 54While less confrontational than during the parent administration,teacher decision making, particularly about personnel matters, was144still problematic.This new group of parents lacked the drive and commitment of thefounding group. They had not created the school and no longer ownedit, and many were too busy living a counterculture lifestyle to thefullest. Parents were, however, informed of ongoing events and issuesthrough a monthly newsletter and had an opportunity to provide informalfeedback to the teachers at parent/teacher class meetings which wereheld about once a month.Parents did perform a great deal of volunteer work in the school.They transported children and helped with the endless cleaning. Fullday work parties took place several times a year and each Labour Dayweekend was usually a marathon of painting, fixing, and cleaning. 55Parents also built an adventure playground in the early 1970s. Somevolunteered extensively in the classroom and assisted with field tripsupervision. A few parent volunteers became full staff members insubsequent years.Despite the parents' diminished role in decision making, the schoolremained a central part of everyone's life and many evening socialevents were held for parents, students, and teachers. There wereeducational evenings, craft nights, dances, political discussions,singing evenings, pot luck meals, and birthday parties. One teacher,Daniel Wood, remembers these evenings well:They would get someone in to teach them how to tie-dye. Forthe next week or two everyone in the school would be tie-dying.Or they would have a film and video night where they wouldlearn how to make films. Parents and teachers would gettogether and talk about issues. Everybody would sit around andsing folk songs or dance. The lights were on in the school allthe time, evenings and weekends, and for many of the adults itwas the centre of their social life.\"145Most teachers enrolled their children in the school and this added tothe family-like atmosphere. One parent, artist Roy Kiyooka, describesthe social structure as \"tribal, familial, extended family.\" 57 Thisfeeling carried over to the children and one student reports that \"wewere a lot closer than kids in a regular school.\" 58 The schoolprovided a ready-made community, exactly what many parents wanted.There was a sense of camaraderie and most participants remember the NewSchool as a welcoming place. The school became an extension of home.Students were recruited mainly by word of mouth or direct contact,for many people came to observe the school. The teachers alsoadvertised in daily newspapers, Anne Long appeared on a radio talkshow, and CKLG radio aired a full length interview with two New Schoolteachers and two students in 1972. 59 Despite a temporary decrease innumbers after the school split in 1968, enrolment reached eightystudents by 1972. 60 Prospective parents were required to observe inthe school for half a day before applying. A team of two teachers,similar to the parent teams of the earlier period, interviewedapplicant families. The staff believed this was essential to ensurethat they could \"support the parents' aims for their children and thatthe school will be able to meet the parents' expectations.\" 61Parents were attracted to the school for many of the same reasonsas in the first era but particularly because they valued individualfreedom. They perceived the public schools to be unconcerned aboutindividual students, excessively rigid, and inhumane in methods ofdiscipline (such as the strap until 1972). One parent describes beingdrawn to the school by \"warmth and colour and kids running in and out.\"146She \"hated and feared the school system and didn't want my energeticfour year old pounded into a mould.\" 62 Another parent, who had taughtat the progressive City and Country School in New York, hoped the NewSchool would make her daughter less \"conforming. \"63 Others saw theschool as a way of reducing the pressure their children experienced inpublic schools. Some were attracted by what they knew of Summerhilland wanted their children to have the kind of freedom they never had.The teachers hoped to attract self-motivated students and to retaina mix of family income. However, the school no longer appealed toacademic, professional, or higher income families and only a few suchfamilies remained by 1972. This change occurred primarily because theschool was no longer offering progressive education. Almost all theprofessional parents ultimately wanted their children to do well inacademic subjects; when academic learning became less of a priority,these families left. Parents who thought they were getting the kind ofprogressive education offered during the early period rarely stayedlonger than a year or two\" and all of these families were gone by1973. As the public schools became somewhat more flexible by thistime, the professional families could usually find an acceptablealternative in the public system.Furthermore, students with learning and behavioural difficultieswere admitted to the school in significantly greater numbers by 1970.With few programmes for these children in public school, many parentschose the New School as their last resort. Anne Long writes that oftwenty students in her 1968/69 class \"nine had real problems seriousenough in the public school system for their parents to look for147alternate schooling. \"65 This watered down the regular programme evenfurther causing professional families to leave. The teachers wereforced to be less discriminating in their selection criteria. Theschool had to maintain its enrollment level to be financially viable,and at times it seemed they would take \"almost anybody.\" 66The proportion of special needs students continued to increaseduring the 1970s as did the number of students from troubled families.Some of these kids exhibited aggressive or anti-social behaviour whileothers were withdrawn.\" One student, referred by U.B.C., was amusical genius with behavioural problems. He would throw chairs andscissors and needed a space where he could wander around withoutfeeling confined. Sometimes he would go into a storage room and writethree and four part music. These students were difficult to work withand strained the teachers' abilities and energy. With few exceptionsthe teachers were not trained to help these students other than toprovide them with a safe, supportive environment.The New School continued to receive a constant stream of visitors.The school newsletter reported in December, 1970, that 150 observershad visited the school during the first three months of the year.\"Among these were many student teachers. Professors and students in theeducation faculties were interested in the free school phenomenon, andinstructors who wanted their students to observe a free school directlyoften took them to the New School. A group of New School teachers andstudents was even invited to the U.B.C. campus in the Fall of 1972 tomake a presentation to education students.\"The school also attracted students in training from a range of148professions. Students in the pre-school programme at the VancouverNight School observed for two weeks in 1970. The same year a group ofcounsellors-in-training spent an afternoon at the school. A New Schoolparent who taught in the U.B.C. social work faculty arranged for herstudents to work with small groups of New School children on a regularbasis during the early 1970s. A group of U.B.C. architecture studentsexperimented with a number of design exercises at the school during thespring of 1970 and compiled a long range design plan. The New Schoolwas different and people used it to broaden their experience.Parent observers were always welcome in the school but their visitswere usually limited to one specific morning or afternoon per week.Parents were asked to make prior arrangements with the teacher, andsome years parents were required to attend a monthly meeting beforeobserving. Observations were usually prohibited during the first twomonths of the school year. These restrictions on observations wereundoubtedly a reaction to the way in which parents harassed teachersduring the days of the parent co-operative. Sometimes the schoolconducted a formal open house. For example, the school invited parentsin for an entire week in December, 1970, culminating with an evening ofdiscussion for all participants.\"With parents less intensely involved in running the school, therewas nowhere near the same energy for fund-raising. An art auction inNovember, 1968 did manage to raise $1,000 71 but from then on eventswere less frequent and less lucrative than before. In 1969/70 therewas only one major fund-raising event--a smorgasbord dinner inNovember.72 The following year the school collected newspaper for149recycling, 73 held a raffle, and raised $300 at a Spring Fair which\"transformed the school into colourful craft areas, a coffee house witha foot stomping blue grass band, a health food store, and a fun andgames room.\" 74 But these activities only raised $500 compared to the$2,200 raised two years earlier and $3,000 in 1966/67. 75 From 1970 onthe school rarely earned over $500 from fund-raising activities.Teachers and parents used their many contacts among local rockmusicians to organize fund-raising concerts and one New School teacherwho wrote part time for the Georgia Straight arranged for the schooland the newspaper to co-sponsor a successful benefit dance in 1972.The school occasionally rented its premises to like-minded educationalor political groups such as the Free University, but the revenue earnedwas minimal. 76With decreased fund-raising the school had to depend more ontuition fees for its income. The sliding fee scale was still in use.The fee for the first child was 8% of family income (.5% less for eachadditional child in the family). The second child's fee was 75% of thefirst, the third child's fee was 75% of the second, and so on. Tosimplify the calculations the teachers compiled a fee chart based ontwo variables, income and number of children. Parents were asked tobring their income tax returns for the previous year to registration.The fees had risen significantly. The minimum rate was $350 per childby 1972 and the maximum fee for an income of over $15,000 was $1150. 77The debenture system was still in place and new families had to includean additional 20% of the first child's fee as an interest free loan tothe school (redeemable when they left).150But the decreased number of higher income and professional parentsmeant that more families were paying fees at the lower end of the scalethan ever before. With fewer families able to contribute at the higherlevels of the scale, the school suffered a serious financial crunch.Mr. Sturdy describes the difficulties this way:We were always on the edge. Financially, it became more andmore difficult as the years went on. The parents were notworking class people, they had hippie type life styles. Therewere a lot of single parent families and a certain number ofthose were on welfare. The public school system had changed alot. Professional families could find what they wanted in thepublic system. 78After managing to break even or keep deficits to a minimum throughadditional donations and subsidies from 1966 to 1971, the schoolsuffered a major loss of $8,000 in 1971/72. 79 It remained in finanicaldifficulty thoughout its later years.The deterioration of the school building added to the financialproblems. The basement floor, back porch, roof, and outside yard wereall in poor condition by 1973. 80 An increase in the frequency of workparties and attempts to scrounge replacement furniture and equipmentdid little to improve the situation. A group of U.B.C. architecturestudents designed an extensive school development plan in 197081 whichrecommended moving the stairway and moving the main entrance to thebasement. However, the school did not have the funds or the interestto pursue this. The state of the building became an increasinglyserious problem during the school's last five years.Not surprisingly, teachers now earned far less than in the publicschool system. Full time New School teachers earned $6000 in 1968/69.The following year permanent full time staff members earned $6,200151while teacher assistants earned between $2,000 and $3,000. 82 In1970/71 salaries for the two longest serving teachers increased to$6,600, with other salaries ranging from $5,800 to $3,000. 83 However,all salaries decreased to $5000 in 1971/72, as the teaching staff grewsignificantly larger in order to lower the pupil-teacher ratio, andremained at this level until 1976 when they fell even further. 84 Thestaff also decided to share all salaries equally, regardless of theteachers' background and experience. It is ironic that the parentadministration had been able to pay salaries equivalent to publicschool teachers, yet when the teachers ran the school they were unableto do this. But the teachers didn't mind earning less than half ofwhat they could have made in the public system. As a representativestaff member put it: \"It was politically correct. No one worriedabout money then.\" 85The school organization changed in several important ways between1969 and 1971. First, the teaching staff grew significantly larger.In 1969 the staff hired teaching assistants to work with each of thefour teachers to permit staff to devote even more time to individualstudents. This was necessary because of the unstructured nature of theprogramme and the increasing number of special needs students. Thepairs worked so closely together that in 1970 the assistants were madefull fledged teachers with equivalent salaries. This doubling of thesize of the staff, produced an enviable pupil-teacher ratio but placeda severe financial strain on the school.Secondly, the school began hiring non-certified teachers in 1970, apractice that increased throughout the next few years. Although some152of these individuals were capable, this further weakened the academicand professional orientation of the school.Thirdly, in 1971 the four individual classes were reorganized intotwo larger units requiring a commitment to an open area or teamteaching approach which was becoming popular at that time in the publicsystem. The younger group ranged in age from about four to seven yearsold, while the older group included ages eight to twelve with three orfour teachers attached to each group. The larger groups gave rise toan even more informal, unstructured style of teaching.The school operated a licenced day care centre for up to twenty-four pre-school children beginning in 1969. However, due to inadequatefacilities the school had trouble renewing its interim permit eachyear. The Day Care added an after-school care programme the followingyear. This service was not continuous and in some years students wentto the Grandview Community Centre Day Care after school.\" The daycare facility was administered as a separate entity although the NewSchool Teachers' Society was the owner and was responsible for hiringstaff. The day care facility managed to make ends meet throughMinistry of Human Resources subsidies. However, the bureaucraticrequirements for day care centres were a chore and Mrs. Cohn, whostarted the day care, had to deal with endless correspondence from theMinistry of Human Resources and the Vancouver health and licensingdepartments. A summer day care programme, which constantly lost money,was also run out of the school building.Mrs. Daphne Trivett joined the staff in September, 1969. She hadhad extensive training in progressive teaching methods and had taught153for a year at the Laboratory School founded by John Dewey at theUniversity of Chicago. Like Anne Long, she had spent an unsatisfyingyear trying to apply child-centred methods at an east Vancouver publicschool only to be told to tighten up her discipline. Instead, shegratefully accepted a job at the New School, assuming it was a typicalprogressive school where students actually worked.So when I arrived at the New School I encountered a new kind ofdifficulty. Instead of being perceived as the wild one, I wasperceived as the straight one. I was too rigid, I was tooformal, I wanted to teach lessons! 87Mrs. Trivett quickly became isolated from the rest of the staff andwas the only teacher without a teaching assistant. Four of her pupilswere the children of other New School teachers and the teacher/parentsoften disapproved of the way she handled their children, resulting inseveral confrontations. As well, she maintains that other teacherspermitted their students to harass her without consequence, and shefelt unsupported and even sabotaged by most of the staff. 88 Yet, manyparents and students remember her as the best of all the teachersduring this period.Mrs. Kathryn Chamberlain taught at the New School in 1969/70 and1971/72, the first year as a teaching assistant and later as a teacher.Like Mrs. Trivett she was familiar with progressive methods having beeneducated at well known Peninsula High School in Menlo Park, California,where her mother was head teacher. She heard about the New Schoolwhile doing graduate work in education at U.B.C. and working at theChild Study Centre there. During her two years at the school shebecame active in the women's movement and eventually returned toCalifornia. Ms. Catherine Pye, a child care worker, was also hired as154a teaching assistant in 1969, becoming a teacher the following year.She remained at the school for two years.Staff relations were difficult from 1969 to 1971 due to personaland professional differences, and a hierarchy of power based on age andlength of tenure developed. Mrs. Chamberlain believes that teachershad difficulty reaching agreement because they lacked the skills andexperience necessary for effective consensual decision making. The \"doyour own thing\" attitude of most teachers inhibited staff co-operation.Staff interaction became even more turbulent when several intimaterelationships developed among the teachers in 1970. These were alldiscussed openly89 and according to one teacher \"staff dynamics tookover the whole programme.\" 9°In 1970 the staff hired a facilitator to conduct evening sessionsin communications for the teachers. The sessions eased relationssomewhat and produced one tangible result—Mrs. Chamberlain became Mrs.Trivett's teaching assistant and helped her find new ways to manage andorganize her classroom. Mrs. Trivett had an easier time during thelast few months of the year, but a majority of the teachers had alreadydecided not to rehire her. Nevertheless, several parents reported thather reading and mathematics programme had an important effect on theirchildren. 91 Mrs. Trivett had contacts in the U.B.C. and Simon Frasereducation faculties and arranged workshops at the school in mathematicsand other areas. That she was not accepted despite her thoroughprogressive background and creative teaching skills, indicates clearlythat by 1969 the New School was little interested in providing anacademic programme.155Mrs. Saralee James, an active parent at the school since 1966, washired for a full time teaching position in 1970. She was not acertified teacher but had volunteered extensively in the intermediateclass the previous year. She devoted a great deal of energy to theschool and would share the older class with Mr. Sturdy for over threeyears. Mr. Daniel Wood joined the staff in the fall of 1971 and alsoworked with the older class during his two years at the school. Hisbackground included work in political and humanitarian education. Hehad helped set up schools for black children in the American southduring the 1960s and had also assisted in establishing primary schoolsin rural Borneo during a stint with the United States Peace Corps. Mr.Wood taught for one year in the American public school system, finallyending up in Vancouver because of his opposition to the Vietnam war. 92Mr. Sturdy, Mrs. James, and Mr. Wood became a close team, and duringtheir two years together developed an effective co-operative workingrelationship. Mr. Wood remembers that the \"close team spirit\" andfriendship made the functioning of their class much easier andconcludes simply, we all liked each other.\" 93Mr. Wood is a good example of a second wave of young Americans atthe New School as teachers and parents after 1969. They had come toCanada not for employment reasons (as had the earlier group of Americanacademics) but rather to escape what they saw as an oppressive andmorally unacceptable political climate in the United States due to thewar in Vietnam. Their thrust and background were different from thatof the earlier immigrants although there was some continuity ofAmerican influence. These Americans were a small minority (less than15620%) at the school. Their significance was essentially psychologicalin that they brought with them a whole range of counterculture valuesin a more intense form than their Canadian counterparts.Mrs. Barbara Hansen, another staff member who began as a parentclassroom helper, worked with the younger group as a teaching assistantin 1969 and as a full teacher from 1970. Her background was in socialwork and child care, and she played a central role in determining theschool's direction throughout the 1970s. Although not a trainedteacher, Mrs. Hansen was an intuitive problem solver and could usuallyfind the right way to reach any individual child. Mrs. Joan Nemtin washired in 1970 to provide part time counselling and after-school care.She became a full time teacher with the younger group in 1971 remainingin that position for three years. She was a newly certified teacherand her background in working with emotionally disturbed childrenproved to be useful as the school admitted increasing numbers of suchstudents.Ms. Claudia Stein was also hired to work with the younger group in1970. She was remembered for her language arts programme whichincluded the use of drama and puppetry. Ms. Jonnet Garner, who had•been trained in the Nuffield science method, began work at the schoolthe following year. Like Mrs. Trivett, she emphasized academicsubjects and also introduced such art activities as weaving and naturalwool dyeing. She was energetic and one year organized a group to paintthe entire outside of the school. Mrs. Hansen, Mrs. Nemtin, Ms. Stein,and Ms. Garner were the principal members of the team working with theyounger class between 1971 and 1974.157Mr. Geoff Madoc-Jones and Mr. Tim Frizzell taught at the New Schoolin 1970/71. Mr. Madoc-Jones was a charismatic and highly motivationalindividual and parents appreciated the creative work he inspired in hisstudents. However, he had been a disruptive element on the staff andwas not rehired for personal reasons. The vagueness of the chargesagainst him angered his parent supporters but the decision stood. Mr.Frizzell, his team-teaching partner, also left the school at the end ofthe year, out of sympathy for Mr. Madoc-Jones. Several studentsremember Mr. Frizzell for helping them with reading skills and wereupset when he left. One former student who spent six years at the NewSchool describes them as well organized teachers who worked togethereffectively, and she remembers that year as one of her best. 94Another rift, this time between the senior class teachers led byMr. Sturdy and the junior class teachers led by Mrs. Hansen, developedabout 1971. This encompassed both professional and personal issues andled to vigorous disagreements at times, each group voting as a bloc.However, although staff relations were strained this division did notparalyze the school like the earlier split in the mid-1960s.Some teachers participated in conferences and made the communityaware of New School activities through speaking engagements. Forexample, in late 1970 Ms. Stein attended a national environmentalconference and spoke to Simon Fraser University education students onthe socialization of children. 95 During the same period Mrs. Hansenspoke to staff at the Northshore Neighbourhood House and was a panelmember at a secondary teachers conference on \"Fostering creativity inteacher and child.\" 96158Rita Cohn left in June, 1971 having taught at the New School forfour years. 97 According to several teachers Mrs. Cohn was a powerfulmember of staff, usually managing to persuade others of her point ofview. Beth Jankola had departed the previous year. Despite a numberof staff changes and contentious personal issues, the central group ofteachers remained remarkably constant between 1969 and 1973. Thisstability was mainly due to the teachers' control of school policy andpractice, and their general agreement about the school's direction.The CurriculumThe teachers allowed students to choose and develop their ownactivities during the free school period. They agreed with John Holt,author of How Children Fail, that \"we learn best when we, not others,decide what we are going to try to learn, and when, and how, and forwhat purpose.\" 99 One parent described the curriculum as free flowing,exploratory, and open-ended. 99 But the most important aspect of theNew School curriculum was not about learning at all. Teachers wereconcerned about \"human interaction and rapport, personal motivation,meaningful social relationships, and unplanned spur-of-the-momentexperiences.\" A group of visiting architecture students observed, intypical 1970 jargon, that the teachers were reluctant to \"define whatthe s hool is all about because to define is to limit.\" 100 Theteachers wanted to place no limits on their students or on themselves.Barbara Hansen described these social/emotional objectives in aninterview with radio station CKLG in 1972:159Kids are learning to cope with themselves and to cope with theenvironment. They have to come in contact with themselves aspeople and with adults as adults. They come in contact withother kids in the school from four to twelve as individualpeople with needs and joys and angers and highs and lows. Itshard work. They are working at being human beings and findingout about themselves and the people around them. It's the samefor the teachers. Its not the kind of place where you canhide behind a desk or behind a role. 1\"The teachers believed learning had to be fun \"whether in academiclearning like math or non-academic learning like cooking or carpentry.\"One student described the curriculum this way: \"At our school you workfor maybe two hours in the morning and then we do different things allthough the day. It's not exactly what you'd call play. We do what wewant or what we know how to do. We ask the teachers and if they're notbusy they'll help us with it.\" 1°2 New School students interviewed in1972 by the Vancouver Province agreed that they did not have to work ashard in mathematics and reading as at their former schools. One said\"at the school I went to before we studied harder. But at our schoolits kind of a wide field of learning. \"103There was little academic content or formal structure. One formerstudent describes activities as being \"completely unstructured\" andcannot remember doing any mathematics or other academic subjects atall. 104 Another says \"we had to do a certain amount of academics butit wasn't much. We watched a lot of National Film Board films.\" 105Parents and students describe the curriculum as loose, unstructured, or\"laid back,\" and one parent says \"there was nothing very challenging ina teaching way. \"106 Another student remembers sitting down to doacademic work in the kindergarten/grade one class, but after that shespent most of her time \"on the swings at the park while everyone else160smoked.\" There was some mathematics offered but \"we had a choice to doit or not. We could get away with doing nothing. .107 This de-emphasison academics was consistent with other North American free schoolswhere teachers were reacting against what they saw as too much booklearning in the public schools.Periodically teachers would plan lessons in the standard academicsubjects. Mrs. Long organized writing activities every morning forseveral months but finally gave up citing student disinterest. Later,she had her class work individually on mathematics for the first hourof each day. Although most students participated at first, she wasdisappointed by the lack of student enthusiasm for any structuredactivities, even creative ones.'\" Mr. Sturdy and Mr. Wood organizedmorning classes in mathematics, writing, and science but rarelysustained these initiatives for more than a few weeks. Another yearstudents would sign up for academic work on a large piece of cardboard,but there was no consequence for students who did not work.'\" Mrs.Trivett instituted a structured mathematics and reading programmeduring her year at the school and Ms. Garner also taught reading andscience regularly. But these were exceptions and few students rememberdoing much academic work at the New School during this period.Reading during the free school years was individualized buthaphazard—students found their own library books and read them whenthey felt like it. Most teachers read aloud to students during somepart of the school day but there was virtually no reading instruction.The only formal writing activities that former students remember werebeing asked to respond to pictures cut out from magazines. Mr. Sturdy161summed it up as follows:Students did a lot of incidental reading and incidentallearning but the academics were never very strong. Theteachers presented ideas and possibilities and the kids went onfrom there. Students looked after things themselves andprovided their own activities. 110Mrs. Trivett implemented a reading programme called Words inColour. This was an imaginative method that assigned different coloursto different sounds. Since in English the same combination of letterscan be pronounced differently in different words, this system allowed abeginning reader to proceed with certainty.^The method was verysuccessful with a number of students. 111^Students also rememberextensive use of Cuisenaire rods in Mrs. Trivett's mathematics class.The teachers incorporated play as a valuable aspect of learning. 112Mr. Wood organized treasure hunts with clues involving scienceconcepts, mathematics, and reading, while Mr. Sturdy devised scienceproblems and experiments to promote thinking skills. One year heorganized the Great Egg Drop. Students were given a raw egg and had todesign a package so that the egg could be dropped from the school roofwithout breaking. Students used cotton batten, styrofoam, wings,parachutes, and other creative solutions. 113 Students also did scienceexperiments which included making batteries out of lemons and mixingvinegar and baking soda to observe the reaction. Of course, these andsimilar ideas were not original and had been used by creative scienceteachers in the public schools even in those days.The New School continued to emphasize creative expression andstudents participated in art activities almost evey day. Mrs. Long,herself an artist, taught batik, papier-mache, painting, ink, collage,162and pottery. Students learned popular 1960s crafts like making sandcandles. In the early 1970s artists were brought in to teach origami,batik, tie-dying, weaving, and bead work. 114 Students photographeddowntown Vancouver sites, developing and printing the film in theschool darkroom in a dark corner of the furnace room. 115 One student,now a professional photographer, says that taking pictures anddeveloping them at age nine was \"the spark that got me going.\" 116Students could draw and paint whenever they liked and many parents suchas musician Robert Minden were pleased his children had so muchopportunity for free artistic expression and exploration, differentfrom public schoo1. 117Teachers and parents had contacts in the arts community and tookstudents to a variety of arts events outside the school. Studentsattended openings of avant-garde art shows and participated in an artsfestival at UBC. They enjoyed \"interactive art\" and the Vancouver ArtGallery invited New School students to help \"create an environment\" forseveral special events. 118 The teachers took students' interestsseriously. One year several students wanted to learn macrame and ateacher bought the necessary supplies right away. 119Dramatic activity continued to thrive during the free school periodand included acting, writing plays, designing costumes, and puppetryfor the younger children. Students also participated in film-making,animation, and video work. Mr. Sturdy taught them how to write scriptsand operate technical equipment. Students took a fashion show to theVancouver Art Gallery. The clothes were designed by a student and theshow was performed to Beatles' music.163The Orff instruments made by Lloyd Arntzen were still in theschool, but the music programme during this period was weak, consistingmainly of singing traditional North American folk songs. 12° A localdance studio offered creative movement sessions after school tointerested students. 121 Students interested in building pursuedcarpentry in the workshop while others spent time cooking. The art,music, and drama activities were usually done in the afternoon.The primary programme was similar to an unstructured daycare. Mrs.Nemtin describes:There were generally quiet activities in the morning. We wouldset out activities in areas, such as a science area, cut andpaste, arts and crafts, some fantasy stuff, a little bit ofnumber stuff, and lots of stories. The kids were free to comeand go. There were enough of us to do a good reading readinessprogramme, one to one stuff, but there wasn't much of a realreading programme. Some kids had trouble reading at the NewSchool and we weren't trained to help them. It wasn't an easysetting to sit around and read! 122Many students taught themselves to read. One parent describes how hisoldest daughter taught herself to read and then taught her sister. 123Another parent only discovered that her daughter had learned to readupon her transfer to public school the following year. 124Science for the younger students included investigating liquids intest tubes and observation of tadpoles, and one class kept a rabbit.Teachers and students had to improvise for the school did not havesophisticated science equipment. The teachers divided students intogroups of ten for special activities outside the school one afternooneach week. One teacher often took her group home to do cooking.Students in both classes sometimes went on all day \"juice trips\" toother children's homes. 125 These were valuable experiences in seeing164how different students lived.Students had access to the duplicating machine and produced classand school newspapers. They published field trip reports, interviewswith teachers and students, commentary on world events, recipes, adviceto parents, and accounts of such school activities as plays, art work,and student social life. Two nine year old boys produced asurprisingly professional eight page magazine of cartoons, jokes, andhumorous diaglogue entitled FLOP. They did all the writing anddrawings and even took part in the technical operations at Press Gangpublishers. All of the publications were written and produced entirelyby students without adult assistance except in the case of the veryyoung children.Many parents were happy for their children be free to followtheir interests. Robert Minden, for example, didn't care if hischildren learned how to read by a certain age. He was more concernedthat the school be a gentle place. 126 Another parent says \"I thoughtit was a little chaotic but the kids were having a good time. I likethe idea of deformalizing our institutions.\" 127 And still anotherwrote in a letter to the teachers: \"As a result of their New Schoolexperience, my children have become more untidy in their appearance,more opinionated, and more argumentative. They have also become morewilling to undertake new experiences, more trusting of people, andenormously creative and complex in the projects they undertake andcomplete.\" 128But the lack of attention to basic skills caused problems for manystudents. One student says that she \"didn't have any math skills when165she went into public school.\" 129 Another describes how her publicschool teacher was shocked when she showed up in grade five withoutknowing how to read or write. She never caught up in mathematics. 13°A third student says that his younger sister can barely read to thisday 131 and a parent describes how her son can barely read parkingsigns. Several students report that they can read for information whennecessary but they do not read for pleasure.According to one parent, whose son was dyslexic, it took him twoyears to make up the time he had lost at the New Schoo1. 132 Anotherparent says \"my preference would have been for more academics. I wasexpecting something more along the lines of Montessori or Ashton-Warner. It was a frustration for me.\" 133 A third parent agrees that\"there were kids who managed not to learn to read as well as theyshould have. One of them was one of my kids. Some kids fell throughthe cracks.\" 134One student, who attended the New School in grade three, was so farahead of her classmates in reading that she was advanced to the oldergroup. She describes that year and her transfer back to public school:I feel like I took grade three off. When I went back toShaughnessy for grade four that was the toughest year of mylife because I didn't know a lot of the skills that they hadlearned in grade three. I had forgotten how to write, I didn'tknow how to use a dictionary, I didn't know how to read maps.The only thing I wasn't behind in was math. By grade five Ihad caught up. I think that one year was an interestingexperience but two or three would have been dangerous. Itwould have been impossible to go back to the regular system.Once you were that far behind, unless you were very motivated,you'd never catch up. 135Another student who spent six years at the New School is highlycritical of academic neglect:166I think a lot of kids left the New School with a lack of basiceducation. I felt lucky that I went to grade one (in publicschool) because that's where I learned how to read. If Ihadn't gone to grade one I don't know how long it would havetaken me to grasp that kind of stuff. In the morning theywould try to get us to sit around the table and do arithmetic.But I don't ever remember doing any writing or being encouragedto read books. I wasn't able to make up the academics I lost.The kids were given a lot of power and could decide what wasgoing to happen on any day. I knew kids who didn't learn howto read quicker than out loud; they couldn't get through a bookwithout it taking forever. A lot of what we did could havebeen turned into informative or educational experiences, evenif we had just written about it. You get addicted to the funpart. My younger sister didn't get any of the basics and shehas really paid the price. 136Still another student who attended the New School for grades fourand five in 1969-1971 describes her experience as follows:I had learned basic reading in grades one to three and wasquite good at reading and writing. But I don't remember usdoing any academics at all (at the New School). After the NewSchool I went to a regular school in North Vancouver and I wasmiserable there because I was so far behind. They put me backa year into grade five. Then I failed grade five so I was twoyears behind. It became a nightmare that I couldn't get outof. I felt bad particularly since it wasn't my fault. I wishI had kept the same level as all my peers. Halfway through mysecond try at grade five I quit. If I had started my educationat the New School I think I would be illiterate now. 137This student eventually went to City School, an alternate secondaryschool in the Vancouver public system, and two mainstream secondaryschools but says: \"I never graduated. I'm just getting my gradetwelve now.\"In fairness, all students quoted acknowledge that the New School'sacademic deficiencies were partially balanced by other benefitsincluding increased verbal skills, assertiveness, independence, andself-reliance. As one former student put it: \"We learned to makedecisions. We had to live by the decisions we made.\" 138A few teachers were uncomfortable with the lack of structured and167skill based learning but sporadic attempts to teach reading, writing,and computing skills were unsuccessful. Mr. Wood, who claims to haveargued from time to time for more academic content, admits that \"wedidn't do as good a job as we could have.\" 139 Mr. Sturdy agrees that,in retrospect, he would probably do it differently. Mrs. Chamberlainadds \"the desire for knowledge has to be fed and I don't know how wellwe did that.\"'\" Joan Nemtin thought so little of the readingprogramme that she took her own child out of the school when she wasold enough to read. 141 But despite occasional doubts, the teacherswere too caught up in the free school mythology of the day to make anysignificant changes to the programme.It would be wrong, however, to suggest that the reading programmeduring the progressive years had been consistently better. The maindifference was that most students in the free school period did nothave the academic support at home. As well, the New School became away of life for many students in the post-1970 period, spending much oftheir elementary careers there. By the time they reached secondaryschool they were too far behind to catch up and had lost confidence intheir academic ability. On the other hand, most students in the earlyyears spent enough time in public school to ensure a balanced educationand the acquisition of literacy skills.When it came to the students with learning problems the school dideven worse, for the teachers did not have the expertise to help them.All they could do was to make the kids feel better about themselvesemotionally. This could be a considerable service in itself—onemildly dyslixic student describes how the New School \"saved my life in168a way from the labelling, emotional trauma, and hell\" he experienced ingrade one at public schoo1. 142 But that still didn't help them learnto read. As Joan Nemtin put it: \"If a kid wanted to read you couldn'tstop them; if a kid had a reading problem they were doomed.\" 142A few parents with the will or the resources sought the expert helpof doctors or specialist teachers. One parent, whose son had a severelearning disability, sent him to the Centre for Exceptional Children atU.B.C. where he learned to read in three months. Although shemaintains that the New School provided a good environment for her childwith the teachers' non-judgemental attitude and the school's policy ofallowing students to learn at their own pace, she readily admits hewould not have learned to read had he not gone to the Centre. 144Nevertheless, some students did manage to return successfully tothe public school system when they left the New School. Some schoolsput the students back a year but New School teachers suggested parentsinsist their children be placed at the correct grade level. Mr. Woodclaimed \"many kids are not behind, but if they are most will catch upquickly\" and Mr. Sturdy agreed that \"as long as students were averagelearners they had no trouble catching up. .145 One parent, whosechildren attended the New School from 1971 to 1973, remembers themlearning to read and do basic mathematics there. He reports that theyhad no trouble adjusting to public school and experienced no academicproblems.'\" Another student remembers working through the grade threemath textbook and part of grade four in one year, but she believes shewas able to do this because it did not require a lot of instruction. 147However, in both cases the students came from professional families169(one doctor, one lawyer) and spent a relatively short time at theschool. Only in one case did a student spend most of her elementarycareer at the New School (six years) and go on to a successful careerat a mainstream secondary school. In this instance, however, thestudent learned to read at home (where education was highly valued),and travelled a great deal with her parents. Even so, she reports \"ittook me a year to get adjusted. I did well in school after that.\" 148Students who had an unstimulating home atmosphere, had belowaverage ability, spent many years at the school, or came from troubledfamilies had definite academic problems. Many of these students mayhave had difficulty in any setting, but the New School did not have thepersonnel or the resources to help them.Most New School students from the free school period remained atalternate schools throughout their secondary careers, attending CitySchool, Total Education, Ideal School, or Relevant High. One typicalstudent was \"too scared\" to go to a mainstream high school because shedidn't have the academic background. 149 Some of those who tried becameoverwhelmed by the rigid structure, except in a few special programmesat schools like University Hill. There was an informal network ofindividuals committed to alternative education and several secondaryalternate teachers enrolled their own children at the New Schoo1. 19°Few New School students from this period attended university and someonly completed their secondary education as adults. One parentdescribes how her daughter graduated from Total Education and took twoyears at Simon Fraser University: \"She wanted to take medicine butwhat she missed at the New School was discipline.\" Roy Kiyooka adds:170When all of this came unravelled at the other end, the kidsfound themselves faced with the fact that, if I'm going to getahead in the world I still have to go back to the three R's.Years having gone by it was not easy for them. And some ofthem did and some of them didn't. 151Discipline was a constant problem. Mrs. Long describes herfrustration at not being able to enlist student co-operation in taskssuch as cleaning up. 152 One student says that there was only one rule,that students were not allowed to play on the roof, \"but we broke itanyway. .153 Another student remembers being amazed that they wereallowed to do what they wanted, even paint on the walls. A thirdstudent describes their behaviour as \"pretty wild. Out in the woods wewere uncontrolled, attacking other people's campsites with flamingspears.\" 154 For safety reasons younger students were prohibited fromgoing to the store (older kids could go). 155 Beyond this, other thanattempts to keep children from screaming and yelling in the hall,teachers allowed students to do just about whatever they wanted.The teachers were philosophically opposed to discipline believingthat students would develop self discipline if they were givenresponsibility. 156 Some teachers tried to set a basic tone and conveycertain limits but this was a recurring battle. Kathryn Chamberlainclaims that not all behaviour was accepted by the teachers, thatstudents were corrected from time to time, and that one student waseven sent home. But overall, the idea of establishing consequences forinappropriate student behaviour did not receive much support. 157Even personal safety measures were not taken seriously at times bythe staff. For example, the school lacked fire exits. Furthermore,students who did not want to go skating were sometimes left at the171school with no adult supervision. Supervision on camping trips wasparticularly lax and accidents occasionally happened. Fortunately, noone was seriously hurt.Teachers had an equally difficult time with censorship issues.They debated how to handle students reading pornography or drawingswastikas. Some took a strict libertarian position and criticizedothers for not understanding the ramifications of censorship whileothers felt that not to prohibit abusive expression was an abrogationof responsibility. 158Daryl Sturdy explains the school's general philosophy on disciplinematters:We had kids who fought or who said fuck or who gave each othera rough time. But we dealt with those things, not by callingdown the wrath of the principal, but by talking to the kids andby having school meetings. We tried not to have the kind ofrules that would create problems in the first place. Then wecould deal with real problems like fighting when they came up.We didn't try to keep the lid on. 159Students were aware of disagreements that arose among the adults. Thepolitical battles sometimes got in the way of the educational processbut, \"if an issue arose it was discussed right there on the spot.\"'\"There were few secrets at the New School.Students were left to work out disagreements among themselves.Although the teachers thought this approach worked well, students offera different perspective. One student describes how she had to learn tobe resourceful and \"fend for herself, defend herself, and disarmbullies because the teachers would not step in. \"161 Another studentdescribed the school as \"pretty wild—the whole attitude was to justlet the kids do what they wanted and I don't remember the teachers172doing or saying anything.\" 162 A third student says that a few studentswere ostracized and teased mercilessly without any intervention by theteachers. 163 Peer pressure was powerful and students teased others asthey would among any group of children. The weak kids were given ahard time, but the adults did not become involved even when somebehaviour should not have been tolerated. 164 The teachers could notagree on an appropriate response to student conflict because \"there wasno committment to a clear set of principles.. 165 No one wanted to beauthoritarian and the only thing the adults could usually agree on wasthat \"you didn't lay your own trip on anybody else.\"One former student from the 1962-1965 period returned to the NewSchool as an adolescent in 1972 with an improvisational theatre group.He reports that \"we could barely get an audience because they were allwatching television and the teachers wouldn't dream of telling themthey couldn't do that. They seemed like a lot of wild, uncontrolledkids.\" 166Despite some underlying conflict, the general atmosphere at the NewSchool was easygoing. Students called teachers by first names andstudent-teacher relations were informal. Dress was casual and onestudent who transferred from a West Vancouver school remembers havingto buy jeans immediately. Classes were \"sort of compulsory. .167Students played most of the time and many remember school as lots offun. One year several groups of students built forts right in themiddle of the school building. Roy Kiyooka describes the atmosphere as\"uncontained liveliness\" and says that the New School was the onlyschool for which his children were glad to get up in the morning. 168173The 1972/73 school prospectus concluded: \"The days are best summarizedby the word flow: an easy interaction between the kids and theirteachers, between the school and its environment.\" 169 Mr. Sturdydescribes further:The kids were fun to be with and the teachers did with the kidsthe things they liked doing themselves. The teachers didn'thave to teach anything they didn't want to and could afford theluxury of doing the things they enjoyed doing. We didn't do agreat deal of planning. The days seemed to flow. 170As in the progressive period, teachers discouraged competition.There were no marks or report cards and teachers conveyed informationto parents through individual conferences. Older students wereencouraged to help younger kids and children of different ages playedtogether frequently. In contrast, several students remember beingteased for playing with younger children at public school. Boys andgirls played together regularly as well. Children and adults alikewere encouraged to be individuals without the need to conform and onestudent explains how \"you had to develop a tolerance there.\" Despitethe academic shortcomings, students felt emotionally supported at theNew School.The teachers organized occasional student \"sleepovers\" at theschool to provide students with an opportunity to get to know eachother better and to interact socially. At one sleepover a teacher tookthe group to a horror film and then to the cemetery at midnight. 171New School teachers believed students should learn from the outsidecommunity and developed an extraordinary field trip and recreationprogramme. 172 Students went swimming, ice skating, skiing, bicycling,horseback riding, and hiking in the local .ountains. 173 They went to174the beach, to parks, on forest walks, and took full day trips to LynnCanyon and to White Rock by train. 174Mrs. Long and one parent organized a series of urban living trips.They visited the police station, warehouses, Chinatown, the SalvationArmy, grain loading facilities, and even toured two freighters. 175Another year the students toured the Vancouver General Hospitalmaternity ward, 176 the aquarium, Gastown, the airport, a pulp mill, theVancouver police dog training centre, the two major universities, 177and even visited a train wreck. 178 Sometimes students travelled insmall groups of less than ten, other times it might be a whole class.Field trips were often arranged spontaneously and teachers respondedreadily to student suggestions about places to visit. A former studentexplains: \"If we were interested in something we would bug a teacherto take us. For example, some kid would ask how neon signs are made.We'd jump in the car and go right down to the factory and ask them togive us a tour.\" 179Student awareness of environmental issues was raised through visitsto the Delta city dump, Joshua Recycling, an organic garden in Sardis,salmon spawning grounds, and the Reifel Bird Sanctuary in Ladner.'\"Students also participated in political activities such as interviewingcivic election candidates and canvassing for the N.D.P. One year Mrs.Hansen took a group of students to \"confront the School of Social Workat U.B.C.\" 181 Students also attended a Vancouver City Council meeting,a \"demonstration for Jewish solidarity,\" 182 and a protest rally againstthe 1972 nuclear test at Amchitka. Students were willing participantsat these events but teachers chose activities that coincided with their175own political and social interests.Parents sometimes contributed their own expertise to the schoolprogramme. One parent who was a doctor came in and put casts onstudents. Parent musicians played at the school while parents involvedin film would come in and teach kids how to run the video cameras. 183Some parents conducted cooking lessons. 184 Students were encouraged toorganize tours on their own and some became very good at getting on thephone to collect the necessary information. Students continued to ridethe busses a great deal and developed a strong feeling of independence.The New School's ambitious outdoor education programme was its mostinnovative curriculum development. As early as 1968 Mrs. Long and theolder students spent five days on a farm in the gulf islands. Studentshiked, rode horses, sighted deer, tried their hand at spinning, visitedwith farm families, and worked out problems of living together in closequarters. 185The camping programme went into high gear under the leadership ofDaryl Sturdy in 1969 when he and Ms. Pye took the students to AllouetteLake at the end of the school year. Students also camped on SaltspringIsland 184 and went on survival trips to places like Gabriola Islandwhere they had to make do with only a tarp, rope, and a few matches.The next year, Mr. Sturdy took a group of students aged eight toeleven on a bicycling trip to Vancouver Island \"in the Outward Boundtradition.\" 187 They cycled through downtown Vancouver, took the ferryto Nanaimo, and camped in Parksville. The next day they cycled to PortAlberni, took the Lady Rose to Ucluelet, and continued to Long Beach,camping there for several days. Meanwhile, a few parents had driven176directly to Long Beach with supplies. Mr. Sturdy recalls: \"I spentmost of my time fixing bikes. Some of the kids had done very littleexercise and I was pushing them all the time. It was hard—twentymiles on a bike with just one speed going up and down hills!\" 188Another time Mr. Sturdy and Mrs. James took a group of students toan archaeological site at a beach on the Olympic peninsula:We hiked down to the beach and during the night it absolutelypoured and we got soaking wet. So we decided to hike all thekids back up and drove to Olympia where we dried them all outin a laundromat. We headed into the interior of Washington andeventually ended up at Grand Coulee Dam.From there the group followed the Columbia River north and, after sometrouble at the border, they returned to Vancouver through southernBritish Columbia. Altogether they were gone for ten days. Mr. Sturdyexplains: \"The kids took a large part in this. We didn't mollycoddlethem. They had their own tents and they were responsible for their ownfood. They were great trips.\" 189Even the youngest children took part in the camping programme. InJune, 1971 Barbara Hansen and Catherine Pye took the five to seven yearold group to Alice Lake via the P.G.E. Railway where they sleptovernight. 198 In other years the younger group went tenting at Secheltand at Camp Alexandra near White Rock.In June, 1972 Mr. Sturdy, Mrs. James, and Mr. Wood took twenty-four students, aged seven to twelve, on a two week camping trip to theKootenays that covered 1,500 miles. This trip was the culmination ofalmost a year of planning and was the subject of a full page story inthe Vancouver Sun. 191 Students looked after their own food and madetheir own campsites. This didn't just happen haphazardly; student177knowledge and skills were developed over several months. Preparationbegan with two sleepovers at the school followed by a two day survivalhike on Galiano Island where the older students learned about ediblewild plants and making lean-tos. On a return trip to Galiano the classlearned how to make fires and cook over the campfire. Cooking groupsof five students each were responsible for planning, shopping, andcooking according to an allotment of $1 per child per day. If a groupshopped unwisely or ate too much during the first few meals, they hadto live with the consequences. Students accepted the challengewillingly and careful shoppers with money left over at the end of thetrip were allowed to buy junk food. Two weeks before departurestudents made equipment lists and conducted practice shopping trips.Students also helped decide where to go and what to see.On departure day three cars crammed with students, teachers, andsupplies pulled away. They visited such diverse places as the ghosttown at Sandon, a communal farm, a naturalist park, abandoned mines atHedley and Silverton, and the Arrow Lakes. They learned about fires,finding edible food, and what to do when it rains on the campsite inthe middle of the night. Students also learned how to co-operate incooking groups and what happened when they did not.The camping trips were a metaphor for New School philosophy duringthe free school period. The teachers believed that kids are capable offar more than adults normally give them credit for. They saw theirtask as providing materials, challenges, or stimulation, for studentsto develop and carry out their own goals and activities. Preparing forthe trips created an ideal learning opportunity which integrated skills178such as writing, mathematics, map reading, cooking, planning, and co-operative group process. The result, according to Dan Wood, was growthin student confidence and responsibility:Children are too frequently protected from real challenges andself discoveries by the very people whose job it is to promotechallenge and discovery. Basic to the philosophy of the NewSchool is the conviction that children, given considerableresponsiblilty, can learn to think, choose, and act wisely. 192she CountercultureThe New School parent community changed dramatically between 1967and 1973. Most academic families had departed by 1971 and the schoolincreasingly appealed to artists, writers, musicians, craftspeople,dropouts, individuals involved in human growth activities, and \"freeliving types of people.\" 193 Parents were strongly libertarian andobjected to the authoritarian structure of the public schools. Manyalso questioned the value of academic learning and felt that the publicschools were too book oriented. Parents were searching for new socialvalues and worked them out through their participation in the school.The teachers were exploring their values as well, about educationand about life, and the New School provided an environment where theycould do so without interference. Mr. Sturdy explains:I left the public school system because I was tired of being apoliceman. A lot of the curriculum was irrelevent. This was achance to give children more responsiblility, to let them havemore say in what they were doing, to be friends with thechildren. It was a time to explore different ideas about whateducation should be. 194The New School was enormously influenced during its free schoolperiod by the counter-culture of the late 1960s. This was a diffuse179movement which took many outward forms in North America including:drugs, free love, long hair and bright clothing, public nudity,artistic expression, back to the land, \"do your own thing,\" and anemphasis on feelings rather than reason. There was also a more seriouspolitical and intellectual component expressed in anti-militarism,anti-materialism, and anti-authoritarianism, as well as their positivecounterparts pacifism, spiritual mysticism, and communitarianism. Manyteachers and parents in alternate schools held some or all of thesecounterculture values and saw themselves as part of a movement toreform schools and to reform society.All of this affected the teachers and parents of the New Schoolcommunity and they expressed a myriad of political, social, andeducational positions. Some parents lived communally, others had nameslike \"Lark\" and \"Sage,\" one had an herb and sprout farm, many wereartists or musicians, and some were members of local rock bands such asBrain Damage. Photographs of the children taken during the early 1970sreveal scruffy long-haired kids typical of counterculture parents. 195Daniel Wood describes the atmosphere: 'Parent meetings would often turn into \"love-ins.\" Everybodywould sit around singing folk songs. There were plenty ofaffairs and breakups. There were not many stable families,there were plenty of single people, and it was the age of freelove. If parents were together when they got involved in theschool, it was more than likely that they would not be togetherwhen they left. Field trips were great social events for theadults as well as for the kids. There would be caravans ofvolkswagen vans. Parents would sit around smoking dope andflirt with each other. Kids would go skinnydipping, climbtrees, and tell ghost stories. We were like a big family and Ithink the kids felt well loved. We were very close.'\"The period around 1970 was a time of rapidly changing sexual valuesand the adults at the New School were strongly affected. There were180relationships between teachers, affairs between teachers and parents,love triangles, nude swimming parties, and frequent marital breakups asa generally permissive attitude pervaded the community.The teachers attempted to deal with sexuality issues among studentswith the same kind of openness, as when a group of older students beganexperimenting with sex in a confined area under the basement steps.When we found out about it we didn't suspend anybody; we realized thatthe kids were expressing something they needed to express. Some of thekids who got caught up in this didn't relate to the other kids verywell and and didn't feel too good about themselves. We ended up havinga class meeting and had the kids verbalize what had gone on and got itall out so we could talk about it. We realized that we weren't allthat clear about our own feeling about sexuality. We ended up having aweekend workshop about sexuality for the staff so that we could dealwith the kids from a more positive position ourselves. I think thatillustrated how differently we dealt with problems.\" 197However, there are indications that openness about sexualityextended beyond the bounds of appropriateness. For example,photographs of a senior class fashion show at the art gallery show theolder girls in varying degrees of undress and seductive poses.'\"Student often ran around the building naked and several formerstudents remarked that there was a lot of nudity at the school. Therewere strip shows, full body massages, and varying degrees of sexualexperimentation in the older class. According to one student theteachers never attempted to tone down excess sexual exploration amongstudents and, in fact, never even discussed it. One teacher took181students to Wreck Beach frequently for nude sunbathing and severalteachers made sexually charged remarks to students. On camping tripseveryone swam nude together, male and female, teachers and students.The adults acted out their own sexual freedom in full view of thestudents, yet no one seemed to wonder why these ten and eleven year oldkids were so interested in sex. It was not uncommon in the early 1970sfor \"sexual freedom\" to be used as a justification for behaviour thatwould not be considered appropriate today.The adults also regularly exposed students to alcohol and drugs andkids were often the bartenders at evening dances. At times thestudents seemed to be incidental, and some parents admit that peoplesometimes forgot who they were supposed to be there for. Some formerstudents believe that the adults used the presence of the children asan excuse to behave in ways that otherwise would not be appropriate.At times, the goals of the school appeared to be very hazy.Teachers and parents also began questioning gender roles by theearly 1970s. On one occasion a male teacher initiated a writingexercise on dreams. To stimulate the students' imagination he broughtin some images from magazines one of which was a Playboy centrefold.The teacher was severely criticized at several angry school meetings.Parents were not concerned about the sexual implications of thephotograph, but objected to the stereotyping and objectification ofwomen. Following this incident, parents encouraged female students toconfront teachers whenever they saw examples of sexist behaviour. TheCanadian feminist movement was in its early stages at this time andfeminist response to sexism was to become a central concern of the New182School community during its third period after 1973.The Human Potential Movement found its way into the New School by1970. A number of teachers and parents did personal growth work andgroup therapy at institutes like Esalen in California and Cold Mountainin British Columbia. Three parents were popular gestalt therapists inthe early 1970s. In 1970 when staff relations were seriously strained\"someone suggested that we might work together better if we did acommunications workshop. \"199 A communications expert from Simon Fraserpresented several evening sessions on listening, expressing feelings,and taking responsibility in an attempt to resolve issues among staffmembers.But the teachers wanted something more intense so Richard Weaver,director of Cold Mountain Institute, was enlisted to do a weekendgestalt therapy session for the group in North Vancouver that June.The interaction \"brought up so much personal stuff between people,\"that they decided to schedule another session. So in the fall of 1970,the whole staff went to Cortes Island for an intensive weekend retreat.One teacher describes how \"it shook the school up and broughtinterpersonal issues and relationships out into the open.\" 200 Anothersays more bluntly that \"all hell broke loose,\" particularly in regardto several steamy relationships among staff and parents. 201 Theseexperiences encouraged many participants to continue this kind ofpersonal exploration in regard to each other and in their own lives.Encounter group jargon became common during daily life at theschool in the early 1970s. For example, teachers taught students howto express their feelings to each other using phrases like \"I have a183resentment about....\" or \"I have an appreciation about....\" 202Teachers described the students with typical counterculture adjectives:warm, vibrant, open, fully alive, human, loving people. 203 One formerNew School student captures the belief well: \"If you can cope in theworld emotionally, everything else is a snap.\" What was important forhim was to \"find out what is right for yourself, find your owntruth.\" 204This chapter began by asking why a progressive school would hire aradical free school educator as its director in 1967 and why the schoolwas transformed into a free school even after the director was forcedto leave. The answer almost certainly lies in the period itself. Inall probability the New School would have become a free school nomatter what conscious decision its leaders made. This is borne out bythe experience of such stable progressive schools as the Putney Schoolin Vermont where the example of Summerhillian schools and the pervasiveyouth subculture of the sixties forced the adults to change with thetimes. 205 By the late 1960s both teachers and parents interested inalternative education were full of counterculture values and romanticnotions of freedom for children, and it would have been unlikely forthe New School to have followed any other path.The New School was more than just a school. It was a community ofindividuals caught up in the excitement and idealism of the times, amini-expression of the powerful social and cultural movements of avolatile period.184NOTES1. Norman Levi, letter to Barry Promislow, March 20, 1967.2. Norman Levi, letter to Barry Promislow, March 20, 1967.3. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" in Gross and Gross, eds.,Radical School Reform (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1969): 275.4. Tom Durrie, tape recorded interview, July, 1988.5. Tom Durrie, tape recorded interview, July, 1988.6. Vancouver Sun, August 17, 1967, p. 20.7. This was confirmed by virtually all parents interviewed.8. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 275.9. Tom Durrie, tape recorded interview, July, 1988.10. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 275-276.11. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.12. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 276.13. Cal Shumiatcher, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.14. Carl Rogers, in his \"client-centred\" therapy, accepted allqualities and possibilities of each individual's personality. Seehis On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1961).15. Rita Cohn, interview; Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 278.16. Laura Jamieson, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.17. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 278-279.18. Tom Durrie, tape recorded interview, July, 1988.19. Tom Durrie, tape recorded interview, July, 1988.20. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 278.21. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 276-277.22. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 277.23. Tom Durrie, tape recorded interview, July, 1988.18524. Tom Durrie, \"Free Schools:^Threat to the System or HarmlessLunatic Fringe,\" in The B. C. Teacher, (British Columbia Teachers'Federation, May/June, 1969). Reprinted in Stevenson, Stamp, andWilson eds., The Best of Times/The Worst of Times, (Toronto, Holt,Rinehart, and Winston, 1972). Also see Tom Durrie, \"Free Schools:The Answer or the Question,\" in Byrne and Quarter, ed, Must Schools Fail? (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972): 33-44.25. Knowplace was an alternative secondary school started by New Schoolgraduate Karen Tallman and several friends. It was located in anold house in Kitsilano.26. Vancouver Sun, \"Free School Surge Called Spontaneous Development,\"\"Freedom Itself Not Enough,\" December 28, 1967, p. 16; \"Boss SystemHard to Shake Says Free School Teacher,\" December 29, 1967, p. 13;\"Public Schools Turning Out Slaves or Rebels, Meet Told,\" December30, 1967, p. 13. Vancouver Province, \"Free Schools Swap Ideas,\"December 29, 1967, p. 6.27. Rita Cohn, tape recorded interview, and Anne Long, \"The NewSchool—Vancouver,\" 279.28. \"Parents Split School, Disagree With Methods,\" Vancouver Sun, June1, 1968, p. 7.29. New School General Meeting minutes, March 14, 1968.30. Board meeting minutes, March 21, 1968; general meeting minutes,April 11, 1968.31. Prospectus, Saturna Island Free School, August, 1968.32. The Health Ministry's campaign against the school is reported inover thirty articles in the Victoria Times, Victoria Colonist,Vancouver Sun, and Vancouver Province, May, 1969, to June, 1970.33. After the Saturna Island Free School closed, Tom Durrie wrote abouteducation but never returned to teaching. He has been active inmusic and the arts and lives on Hornby Island. Five families fromthe school remain on Saturna twenty years later and operate a bedand breakfast resort. See The Globe and Mail, January 4, 1991, A3.34. New School General Meeting, minutes, April 11, 1968.35. Vancouver Sun, June 1, 1968, p. 7.36. Anne Long, \"The New School—Vancouver,\" 280.37. Norman Levi, letter to Barry Promislow, March 20, 1967.38. General Meeting Minutes, May 16, 1968.18639. New School Teachers Society, constitution, June 21, 1968.40. After spending time at Esalen Institute in California, Anne Long(Anna Banana) returned to Vancouver as a practising artist.41. New School Teachers Society, Constitution and By-Laws, 1968, 1974.42. New School Teachers Society, Annual Reports, 1968 to 1977.43. Deed of Sale, June 24, 1969, Randall Collection.44. Extensive legal correspondence, 1968-1973, Randall Collection.45. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.46. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987; Daniel Wood,tape recorded interview, June, 1988.47. Kathryn Chamberlain, telephone interview, May, 1991.48. Staff Meeting Minutes, September 6, 1973; Randall Collection.49. New School Prospectus, 1972/73.50. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988; Anne Long, taperecorded interview, April, 1987.51. New School Newsletter, May, 1971.52. These letters are in a file in the Van Volkingburgh collection.53. New School Newsletter, May, 1971.54. Barbara Shumiatcher, letter to the New School Society, April, 1971.55. New School Newsletters, September, 1969; September, 1970; April,1971.56. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.57. Roy Kiyooka, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.58. Kiyo Kiyooka, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.59. Tape recording of the original broadcast.^The teachers wereDaniel Wood and Barbara Hansen and the students were MichaelShumiatcher and Scott Robinson.60. Vancouver Province, \"Students do all the Talking at Vancouver's NewSchool,\" October 4, 1972, p. 41; New School Prospectus, 1972/73;and Daniel Wood, \"The New School,\" in the Georgia Straight, 1972.18761. New School Prospectus, 1972/73.62. Margaret Sigurgeirson, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.63. Aurie Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.64. For example, professor Ed Wickberg withdrew his children after onlyone year, and professors Fred and Kay Stockholder withdrew theirson after two years. Interviews, October, 1987 and April, 1987.65. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 291.66. Dewi Minden, tape recorded interview, August, 1988.67. Kiyo Kiyooka and Margo Hansen described several such students intape recorded interviews, June, 1991 and July, 1991.68. New School Newsletter, December, 1970.69. Vancouver Province, \"Students do all the Talking at Vancouver's NewSchool,\" October 4, 1972, p. 41.70. New School Newsletter, December, 1970.71. Auction Accounting Sheet, November, 1968.72. New School Newsletter, October, 1969, Randall Collection.73. New School Newsletters, November and December, 1970.74. New School Newsletter, April, 1971.75. Financial Statements, 1967-1974, Registrar of Companies, Victoria.76. Staff Meeting Minutes, October 2, 1973. The Free University was atypical counter-culture creation, offering informal non-creditcourses (mainly by S.F.U. professors) in a variety of locations.77. New School Prospectus and fee schedule, 1972/73.78. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.79. Financial Statements, 1966-1972, Registrar of Companies, Victoria.80. Staff Meeting Minutes, October 16, 1973.81. U.B.C. Student Architects Report, May, 1970, 43 pages.82. Annual Report, July 11, 1969, Registrar of Companies, Victoria.83. New School Teachers' Society Meeting Minutes, March 27, 1970.18884. New School income tax records, 1973-1977, Randall Collection.85. Joan Nemtin, tape recorded interview, December, 1987.86. New School Newsletter, September, 1970.87. Daphne Trivett, tape recorded interview, October, 1987.88. Daphne Trivett, tape recorded interview, October, 1987.89. Kathryn Chamberlain, telephone interview, May, 1991.90. Barbara Hansen, tape recorded interview, October, 1987.91. Barbara Hanson and Barbara Shumiatcher, interviews, October, 1987and April, 1987.92. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.93. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.94. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.95. New School Newsletter, December, 1970.96. New School Newsletter, December, 1970.97. Rita Cohn taught in the French Immersion programme of the VancouverSchool District for many years.98. John Holt, quoted in the New School Newsletter, April, 1971.99. Roy Kiyooka, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.100. U.B.C. Architecture Students Report, May, 1971, Page 3.101. Tape recording of original CKLG interview, 1972.102. Dan Wood and Michael Shumiatcher, CKLG interview, 1972.103. Ted Heyes and Margot Hanson quoted in the Vancouver Province,\"Students do all the Talking at Vancouver's New School,\"October 4, 1972, p. 41.104. Kiyo Kiyooka, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.105. Scott Robinson, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.106. Ed Wickberg, tape recorded interview, December, 1987.107. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.189108. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 282-285.109. Aimee Promislow, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.110. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.111. Daphne Trivett, tape recorded interview, October, 1987; BarbaraShumiatcher, interview, April, 1987.112. Although they would not have articulated it, this was partlybecause their neo-Froebelian views led them to do so.113. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.114. New School Newsletter, early 1971, Randall Collection.115. New School Student Newspaper, early 1971, Randall Collection.116. Scott Robinson, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.117. Robert Minden, tape recorded interview, August, 1988.118. New School Newsletters, November, 1970; December, 1970.119. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.120. New School Student Newspaper, 1971, Randall Collection.121. New School Newsletter, September 2, 1970.122. Joan Nemtin, tape recorded interview, December, 1987.123. Robert Minden, tape recorded interview, August, 1988.124. Daphne Trivett, tape recorded interview, October, 1977.125. New School Student Newspaper, 1971, Randall Collection.126. Robert Minden, tape recorded interview, August, 1988.127. Ron Hansen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.128. Bob Gilliland, Letter to the teachers, June 7, 1971.129. Dewi Minden, tape recorded interview, August, 1988.130. Dana Long, tape recorded interview, June, 1987.131. Mark James, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.132.^Ray Stockholder, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.190133. Sharon Burrows, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.134. Ron Hansen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.135. Aimee Promislow, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.136. Margot Hansen, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.137. Kiyo Kiyooka, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.138. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.139. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.140. Kathryn Chamberlain, telephone interview, May, 1991.141. Joan Nemtin, tape recorded interview, December, 1987.142. Scott Robinson, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.143. Joan Nemtin, tape recorded interview, December, 1987.144. Margaret Sigurgeirson, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.145. Dan Wood, CKLG interview, 1972; Daryl Sturdy, interview, 1987.146. Gerry Growe, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.147. Aimee Promislow, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.148. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.149. Margot Hansen, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.150. Total Education teachers Phil Knaiger, and Richard andElizabeth Neil sent their own children to the New School.151. Roy Kiyooka, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.152. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 286.153. Dana Long, tape recorded interview, June, 1987.154. Scott Robinson, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.155. Staff Meeting Minutes, September 6, 1973, Randall Collection.156. Barbara Hanson quoted in Vancouver Province, \"Students do allthe Talking at Vancouver's New School,\" October 4, 1972, p. 41.157.^Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.191158. Robert Minden, tape recorded interview, August, 1988.159. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.160. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.161. Dewi Minden, tape recorded interview, August, 1988.162. Aimee Promislow, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.163. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.164. Margot Hansen, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.165. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.166. Eric Epstein, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.167. Daryl Sturdy quoted in Vancouver Province, October 4, 1972, 41.168. Roy Kiyooka, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.169. New School Prospectus, 1972/73.170. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.171. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.172. The field trip programme ressembled John Bremer•s ParkwayProgramme in Philadelphia. See The School Without Walls (NewYork: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971).173. New School Newsletters, 1969-1971, Randall Collection.174. New School Newsletter, February, 1971, Randall Collection.175. Anne Long, \"The New School--Vancouver,\" 284-285.176. New School Prospectus, 1972/73.177. New School Student Newspaper, 1971, Randall Collection.178. CKLG interview, 1972.179. Scott Robinson, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.180. Daniel Wood, \"The New School,\" Georgia Straight, 1972.181. New School Newsletter, December, 1970.182.^New School Student Newspaper, 1971, Randall Collection.192183. Aurie and Max Felde, both professional classical musicians,performed at the school from time to time.184. New School Student Newsletter, 1971.^For example, BarbaraShumiatcher conducted cooking classes in 1971.185. Anne Long, \"The New School-Vancouver,\" 281-282.186. New School Student Newspaper, 1971, Randall Collection.187. Outward Bound sought to build character through adversity,somewhat different from New School objectives.188. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.189. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.190. New School Newsletter, June, 1971, Randall Collection.191. Daniel Wood, \"We took 24 kids 1,500 miles across B.C.,\"Vancouver Sun, July 6, 1972, p. 41.192. Daniel Wood, Vancouver Sun, July 6, 1972, 41.193. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.194. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.195. Photograph collections of Scott Robinson and Margot Hansen.196. Daniel Wood, tape recorded interview, June, 1988.197. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.198. Photograph from the personal collection of Daphne Trivett.199. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.200. Daryl Sturdy, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.201. Daphne Trivett, tape recorded interview, October, 1987.202. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.203. Dan Wood, CKLG interview, 1972.204. Scott Robinson, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.205.^Susan Lloyd, The Putney School (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1987): 224-229.193(RAFTER 5: TER TERRAPZUTIC SCOWL 1973-1977The Radical Therapeutic SchoolThe New School underwent a second major shift in membership andphilosophy around 1973. The academic families had long since departed,and many counterculture parents, who had dominated the school since1968, also began to leave. For some their children were ready forsecondary school, others no longer endorsed free school methods, andstill others were re-entering society's mainstream as they grew older.Many of the remaining students had been unable to cope in thepublic school system, and almost all came from single parent and lowincome or welfare families. A few parents were social workers and onehad a managerial position in the post office but most were unemployedor marginally employed. The parent body had become a mix of formerhippies, political activists, and \"downwardly mobile\"' poor people.One teacher, Margaret Sigurgeirson, described the remaining clienteleas \"really poverty-stricken, single parent, or low income families.\" 2The shift from a middle class to a lower income population is borneout by an examination of demographic information taken from enrollmentlists. When the school opened in 1962 only three out of thirtyfamilies (10%) lived east of Cambie Street. Figures for 1964, 1965,and 1969 varied from two of thirty-two (7%) to nine of forty-sixfamilies (20%). However, by 1971 the figure had increased to eighteenout of fifty-one (35%) and in 1973 to twenty-two out of forty-threefamilies (50%). By 1975, eighteen out of twenty-five families (72%)194lived east of Cambie Street.3 Many New School families now lived inthe immediate neighbourhood, far different from the days whencarpooling from the west side of town was such a part of school life.A 1975 fund-raising brief described this shift—from a \"school foundedby a group of university professors\" to a \"work-oriented, east endschool.\" 4Family structure had also changed dramatically by 1973. Of thirty-nine New School families in 1975/76 only six were two parent familiesand two of those were about to break up. 5 Thirty-three families (87%)were headed by single parents; in only seven of these were both parentsinvolved significantly in the children's lives. In the other twenty-six families the second parent (in most cases, the father) had all butdisappeared from the child's life. An examination of thirteenapplication forms for 1973/74 and 1974/75 found in remaining studentfiles produced the following data: two \"intact\" families with bothparents living together, four families in custody of the mother, threefamilies in custody of the father, two families with joint custody inseparate residences, and two students cared for by \"four women withequal responsibility for the children.\" 6 In three cases the non-custodial parent had no contact with the child at all. Three of thecustodial arrangements were informal and in one family the child \"movedorganically\" between the two homes. 7 Several of the parents lived incommunal houses. The living situations of New School families were farfrom traditional. 8The acceptance of large numbers of special needs children begantransforming the New School into a therapeutic institution by about1951973. During its first years the school accepted a few special needsstudents, but by the mid-1970s students with learning disabilities anda few with severe emotional disturbances became much more numerous.The school even accepted two students from Browndale, a centre for verydisturbed children founded by John Brown, 9 and one teacher rememberslearning how to do the \"Browndale hold.\" There were few mainstreamschools offering programmes for disturbed kids in the early 1970s.This shift was partly an attempt to solve some of the school'sfinancial problems. Barbara Hansen arranged with a social worker sheknew, for the New School to receive Department of Human Resourcessubsidies if the school accepted more emotionally disturbed children. 10The subsidies resulted in a temporary financial benefit of severalthousand dollars per year, 11 but in the long run the increase in thenumber of kids with problems weakened the school. Parents of normalstudents began to withdraw from the school because their children werenot getting any semblance of a regular programme. Finally, the shifttowards special needs students became irreversible.Joan Nemtin describes the changing atmosphere:A lot of new parents had personal problems and their childrenwere quite disturbed. As a child care worker I knew what anemotionally disturbed kid looked like. The kids were badlybehaved. They would throw rocks at one another lnd run rightinto the middle of what you were doing. There were severalacting out boys and it was difficult to teach them anything.You could sit around a table and talk, but you couldn't (teachthem) to read. It was discouraging. Barb (Hansen) was theonly one strong enough to provide the disturbed kids with thestructure they needed. It was a harrowing experience for thequieter kids. The problem kids had too much power and bulliedthe others. They were too disturbed to be with normal kids;they needed a more therapeutic setting. We didn't have thetraining to deal with at least five kids who were there but wefelt that if we turned them away there would be nobody else. Ifelt it wasn't fair to the other kids. 12196Another teacher, Sharon Van Volkingburgh, estimates that over 20%of the students had serious behaviour problems and that close to 40%had learning disabilities. She describes one girl, whose mother was analcoholic, stealing cars at age thirteen. Another child \"just showedup at our door one day. Her mother was so out of it (on drugs) that wenever even found out her last name.\" 13 One former student describesyounger kids being picked on by \"a lot of weirdos.\" 14 Anotherremembers \"lots of destructive kids with bad tempers who should havebeen in halfway houses—kids I was deathly afraid of.\" 15 One teacher,in recalling a boy who was eventually asked to leave the school, says\"his name strikes fear into my heart still!\" 16A group of aggressive boys was particularly difficult for theteachers to control and the staff did not have the training to handlechildren with serious problems. Teachers attended a conference onspecial needs testing but for the most part assessment was simply doneby teacher intuition. Parents desiring a formal assessment had toarrange and pay for it themselves.Some students ended up at the New School because the school systemcould do nothing for them. Social workers placed kids there becausethey were desperate and because it was difficult for the school to turnthe kids away when there was often no other place for them to go.Margot Hansen remembers how her mother, Barbara, used to take kidshome:She'd bring kids home that needed a break from their parents.She took in the ones who couldn't fend for themselves andlooked out for them. I also remember picking up a couple ofkids whose parents were herion addicts. The only way theycould get to school was if we picked them up, so we did. 17197The teachers developed an idea of the school as a \"caring community,\" aconcept Mrs. Hansen brought from her association with unitarianism, andthe school became a refuge for local kids who needed help. Studentsreceiving little emotional support from their families had the mostserious problems. Some kids didn't get enough sleep or enough food,several spent much of their time destroying property, and a few wereviolent and bullying.In a funding request to the Human Resources Ministry the teacherscompiled a list of the kind of troubled families they served. 18 A fewexamples are instructive:* One woman has three children, is pregnant, on social assistanceand is attempting to get a restraining order on her husband.* One single mother has five children and just completed a coursein welding. She is trying to find employment.* One girl was referred to the New School from Transition House.Her mother is on drugs. She was not attending school becauseshe was looking after her mother.* One Native woman, single parent, has a child who was kicked outof a public school. She thinks it did not respect her culture.* One woman has two children who had reading problems in publicschool. She found the New School in desperation.* One child would be labelled hyperactive by the school system.His mother is a single parent on social assistance.The teachers understood that their principal function had becometherapeutic rather than educational. The philosophy of the school wasclearly set out in a fund-raising brief prepared in 1975:We provide a programme for sixty to seventy children who, for avariety of reasons cannot succeed in the school system. It isalso a programme for these children's parents. 19The statement goes on to describe an emphasis on developing practicalwork attitudes:^\"There is a familiarization for the children of198different occupations in the community (i.e. printing, woodworking,retail stores, factories) to give them concrete employment experiencesso that they can begin to see themselves making choices and have aclear connection of the skills they work on and how they can be used inlife in the community.. 20Finally, the document elaborates on the school's therapeutic andpolitical function in a description of parent and family supportgroups:The programme provides an environment where children and theirparents learn life skills and responsibility for their lives.It is a preventative programme that helps families out of thepoverty cycle and social services dependency. The programmegets children and their parents in touch with their competenceand stresses the importance of taking care of oneselfphysically, mentally, and emotionally, and taking care of one'senvironment. 21Only once in four paragraphs is education even mentioned: \"The basicskills are taught on an individual basis and in small groups to ensurecompetence in these areas.\" 22 Competence in the basic skills is a farcry from the loftier goals of earlier years—the development of problemsolving skills, critical thinking, research skills, and self-expressionin the creative arts.Mrs. Hansen was recognized by all participants for her exceptionalability to work with children who had serious behavioural or emotionalproblems. But most New School teachers did not have the skill or thetraining to help these students other than to make them feel loved andworthwhile. The affects of a positive attitude could be considerable,however. One parent, whose son's behaviour was \"pretty extreme,\"credits the school with restoring his self-esteem and \"saving him fromdelinquincy.\" She continues: \"Any other school would have kicked them199(seriously disturbed students) out or made their lives hell, but theNew School just loved them to death.\" 23Teachers (and parents) were primarily concerned with emotionalrather than academic development of their students and put a great dealof energy into working with families. This took the form of socialwork to solve immediate personal or economic problems, and politicalwork in an attempt to organize the individuals to take some collectiveaction. This group was led by Mrs. Hanson and Sandra Currie, aninfluential parent from the United States. Mrs. Currie (and severalothers) saw her work in the school as a natural extension of herpolitical activity which was concerned with social change and theempowerment of poor people through collectivist organizations.The parent body once again became a powerful group in the school.Between 1974 to 1977 only two staff members out of ten were certifiedteachers and the distinction between parents and teachers becamesomewhat blurred. Some parents volunteered in classrooms and oneparent volunteer was invited to attend staff meetings. Workshopsessions for parents and staff to discuss issues such as aggression ordiscipline, and get-togethers to discuss the children were held severaltimes a month. 24The New School maintained a strong communal atmosphere and becamean extended family for many of the participants. Social evenings atthe school featuring potluck meals, dancing, or films were frequent. 25The school provided emotional support for parents with financial ormarital problems and some students would move in temporarily with otherfamilies. It was empowering for the kids to feel that they had200choices. One parent remembers nights when she \"took home six kids.\"Ron Hansen, a longtime New School parent, says:I lived on the North Shore and there were kids staying in ourhouse every night. Sometimes they'd come every night for threeweeks. They'd think they lived at our house for a while. Thenmy kids would disappear for a week or two and live in Kitsilanoat somebody's house and I knew, sort of knew, where they were.There was a community even though it changed from year to yearwith new kids coming and people moving away.The New School Teachers Society continued to formally govern theschool. All permanent teachers who had been at the school for morethan one year became society members, as well as former staff membersfor up to four years, and two elected parent representatives. 26 Thesociety took a more active and overt role in school affairs than duringthe previous few years. Meetings were more frequent and concerned longrange planning, financial matters, and personnel. One society memberwas responsible for managing school finances. This was an onerous joband a professional accountant was brought in to help from time to time.Although the society's policy was to make decisions by consensus, theydid take votes when necessary. The parent representatives played amore important role in society business. Changes in decision makingparalleled a shift in school policy as a whole. Teachers and parentsduring this period were moving away from the extreme laissez-fairepractice of the free school period and parents wanted more input.Day-to-day decisions were made by the teachers at weekly staffmeetings.^They discussed programmes and scheduling, problems withindividual students, and communication with parents.^Staff membersalso divided up tasks such as building maintenance, purchasingsupplies, secretarial duties, and screening admissions. Everybody was201involved in fund-raising which continued to be less effective thanduring the first era. Staff were responsible for organizing alljanitorial work and quickly became plumbing experts. Salaries wereequitable, although teachers with dependent children received a monthlybonus when finances permitted. 27 Staff made decisions collegially, butMrs. Hansen was the dominant figure during this period.The after school care programme was renamed the Clark Park LatchKey Programme and functioned as a separate department for staffing,decision making, and finance. This was the one operation of the NewSchool that broke even because parents with children in the afterschool programme were eligible for government subsidies. The day careand the after school care were engaged in a running battle with thehealth department and visits from health and fire inspectors werefrequent. This often resulted in required repairs such as replacingexit lights, adjusting doors, and upgrading washrooms and kitchen. 28In 1973 the day care gave up trying to meet licensing standards andceased operating. This did not greatly affect parents because by thistime the school was accepting children as young as four years old intoits regular programme anyway. However, the loss hurt the schoolfinancially because parents of pre-schoolers could no longer receivegovernment subsidies.The New School continued to have many visitors including studentteachers, social work students, and students doing research. Forseveral years students in a training programme for Vancouver SchoolBoard area counsellors spent an afternoon at the school.\"The parent group influenced school decisions at staff/parent202meetings which were held when the need arose. There was often intenseconflict over the direction of the school and, in an attempt to reachconsensus, meetings could drag on until late at night. The school wasrun as a collective and became very politicized. There was a lot ofrage expressed, and according to Ms. Nemtin, meetings were draining anddecision making often became a case of the \"survival of the fittest.\" 3°There was a sense of desperation in the belief, voiced by some, that\"the school got better (more authentic), the poorer it got.\" 31Co-operative organizations flourished during the early to mid-1970sand the \"co-op movement\" became an important aspect of New Schoolpolitics. Many parents and teachers belonged to other co-operative andcollectivist organizations such as food co-ops, daycare co-ops, andhousing co-ops. There was even talk about forming a food co-operativeat the school. This high level of social/political activity wasbalanced by a continuing concern with individual self-actualization andparents were busy participating in radical therapy groups, a blend ofindividual transformation and political analysis.The emergence of radical feminism as a unifying theme for teachersand parents was a significant aspect of New School life during its lastfew years. Most of the women were single parents, many on welfare, whosaw in the New School a place they could afford where their kids wouldbe treated well. Many also looked to the school for an importantelement of their social, political, and emotional life. Some werelesbian, a few were Marxist, and many were militant feminists. Thefeminist group grew so strong that from 1973 to 1976 the school becamea focus for feminist activism throughout the city and several important203women's groups from this period had close connections with participantsat the New School. These organizations included the Women's HealthCollective, Press Gang publishers, Makers magazine, Women's Inter ArtCo-op, Women's Emotional Emergency Centre, and the B.C. Day CareFederation. 32 Several parents were also actively involved withSouthhill Day Care which took a leading role in advocating children'srights and increased government funding for day care.Feminist issues dominated New School activities during these earlyyears of the women's movement just as counterculture attitudes hadconsumed participants a few years earlier. Sometimes discussions weredirected against such indiscretions of male teachers as the infamousPlayboy pinup or the use of sexist, degrading language. Severalmembers recall groups of parents walking down the hall, tearing off thewalls any material that could be construed as sexist. Whether or notthis constituted censorship was a hotly debated issue. Another issuethat concerned parents and teachers was the lack of teacher attentionreceived by the girls due to the anti-social and destructive behaviourof several emotionally troubled boys.One parent describes how \"Barbara Hansen used to refer to us as theFeminist Mafia. We were extremely prickly in the seventies. Therereally was a sexist pig under every bed.\" 33 Mrs. Hansen says that afeminist orthodoxy soon developed that had everyone \"looking over theirshoulder\" for fear that they were not politically correct. 34 Othersagree, claiminc that the school was taken over by militant hard corefeminists. One former student remembers how the girls were teased ifthey played with dolls or wore dresses. She also recalls dances where204men were not allowed and describes the school as a \"cold man-hatingplace.\" 35 More moderate women had mixed feelings about the school'sdirection. They agreed with feminist ideas but also acknowledgedseveral fathers and one male teacher who contributed significantly toNew School life. Nevertheless, the feminists were successful ineradicating most sexist attitudes at the school within two years.Mrs. Currie organized a women's support group that was an importantactivity for many parents and teachers. Group members supported eachother's goals, both as women confronting sexism and as poor peopleaspiring to meaningful occupations. Women talked about personalexperiences with sexism and how they were affected by such things assoft core pornography. 36 The group helped one parent, a welfarerecipient, realize her ambition to become a welder. 37 Another parentcredits the emotional support she received at the New School with\"helping her get out of a bad marriage and into a career.\"Students sometimes took part in these discussions and femalestudents were encouraged to confront the male teachers whenever sexistbehaviour arose. 38 Several parents conducted sessions with the girlsabout female social conditioning and how girls \"can no longer do and bethe way they are. \"39 One of the girls rebelled and insisted on wearinga dress to school for several months. As was often the case at the NewSchool, the adult preoccupation usually dominated the proceedings.The boys' response to feminism was mixed. Most do not appear tohave been adversely affected although one former student is bitter inrecalling that the \"male energy of the boys was shut down.\"\" Oneparent describes how her son became a \"militant anti-feminist\" (her205daughter is a \"militant feminist\"), but points out that \"although theboys did not get the usual male privilege, they were still cherishedeven when being outrageous.\" 41A major turnover of staff occurred in September, 1973. DarylSturdy, Saralee James, and Daniel Wood42 had strongly influenced theschool's direction during the free school years. With their departurein June, 1973, the balance of power shifted to a group of teachers andparents led by Barbara Hansen. Claudia Stein, Joan Nemtin and JonnetGarner had also left by the following June, 43 and a new team wouldcarry the school throughout its last years. They were Barbara Hansen,Margaret Sigurgeirson, Sharon Van Volkingburgh, Daniel Morner, Judy deBarros, Ellen Nickels, Jill Fitzell, Kathy Stafford, Linda Proudfoot,and Jan Robinson. Mrs. Hansen, Ms. Sigurgeirson, and Mr. Morner workedclosely together with the older students for three years.Key staff members shared a common political orientation whichincluded the co-operative movement, the women's movement, grass rootscommunity associations, children's rights groups (such as co-operativeday care), and left of centre political organizations (including theN.D.P.). Ms. Sigurgeirson had been a long time parent at the schooland Mr. Morner had come to Canada as a draft resister from the UnitedStates. He had a special interest in working with the hyperactiveboys. Ms. Van Volkingburgh had been active as a community organizerthrough such groups as the Company of Young Canadians and an interfaithchurch association. She met New School parents and teachers throughher work with anti-poverty and welfare rights groups and throughcommunity woodworking classes which she taught. Ms. Nickels was a206classical musician and Ms. Robinson was a former New School student.Several staff members had social work and child care backgrounds thusstrengthening the therapeutic and weakening the academic orientation.Only Linda Proudfoot and Jill Fitzell were certified teachers.This group of teachers was more cohesive than almost any other inthe school's history. They had a uniform idea of their objectives anda strong leader in Barbara Hansen who, although her views on educationlacked a consistent framework, was admired by both teachers and parentsfor her energy, ingenuity, and intuitive skill in reaching troubledchildren. Further, the teachers were drawn together by the almostinsurmountable obstacles they faced. They were inadequately trained towork with such difficult children and they confronted an increasinglygrim financial situation. The teachers had to act as administratorsand custodians in addition to their roles as teachers and care givers,often cleaning and maintaining the school building after a full day ofteaching or on weekends.Ms. Van Volkingburgh and Ms. Sigurgeirson describe the challengefaced by the teachers: \"It was often uncomfortable for adults—it wasso much of a kid's place. We had no adult space, no place to takerefuge.\" \"The New School was very physical—kids were moving all thetime. You were living with those kids. I used to spend my Saturdayswashing the floor. It wasn't just your job—it was your life.\" 44207CurriculumThe curriculum at the New School during this period continued, forthe most part, to de-emphasize academic work. The teachers did notbelieve in separation between \"playing, learning, and working,\" andoffered \"lots of individual attention and ungraded work with nopressure.\" The teachers believed that good results would depend moreon children's attitudes than on skills. 45The school day was organized as follows: academic work for aboutthe first two hours of the morning; free time or play time at the parkuntil lunch; art, creative activities, special projects, or interestgroups in the afternoon. Swimming and physical education were heldoutside the school two mornings per week cutting into academic time.According to Mrs. Hansen, most of the classroom day \"went according towhatever came up. \"46Reading instruction consisted mainly of teachers writing downstudent stories and reading aloud to groups of children. There waslittle systematic attempt to teach reading skills until the last twoyears. Some students did not learn to read effectively and some readpoorly to this day. 47 Most of those who did learn to read managed todo so on their own or at home. Some teachers believed reading was nolonger so important in a highly technologized society.One parent describes the haphazard approach in regard to her son:He liked to help (the younger students) because he was alsolearning while he was doing that. He had a learning disabilityor I call it a perceptual difference. So he never really satdown and learned anything. He just sort of picked it up as hewas wandering around.\" 48208Another parent claims that no one even noticed\" that her daughterdidn't know how to read, 49 and still another reports that her oldestson was reading at a grade two level at twelve years old.\" Onestudent who learned to read at home doesn't remember any academiclearning at the schoo1. 51 Starla Anderson, a teacher during the mid-1970s at City School, an alternative secondary programme, says flatlythat New School kids couldn't read. 52 There were some dyslexicstudents at the school and although the teachers did provide them withindividual attention and understanding they were not skilled enough toreally help them.Academic work (what little there was) was individualized althoughthere was some group activity in mathematics and science. Mrs. Hansentaught a regular mathematics programme emphasizing practical skills.One parent remembers that \"she used to take ten kids down to the bankand say 'this is how you fill out a deposit slip so you won't getripped off.'\" 53 The younger students did little mathematics other thancounting things out and sharing. There were science experiments withmakeshift equipment or social studies lessons with castoff textbooksfrom the school board but these were exceptions. According to Ms.Sigurgeirson, teachers set minimum academic standards that varied witheach individual. 54 In theory, students had to finish their work beforedoing anything else, but in practice students could get away with doingvery little. One teacher agrees that the students needed a moreregular routine: \"I thought kids needed creative stimulation and Ididn't think the routine was as important as I do now.\" 55The curriculum emphasized project work similar to earlier years.209One parent, a geology professor, shared some of his expertise with thestudents. After his vis:;t students painted floor to ceiling dinosaursand made a geological time line around all the inside walls of theschool.\" Students also made their own fireworks and hot air balloons.A change in thinking about academics occurred in 1975 as theteachers and some parents realized that sending poor kids into theworld without basic literacy skills would double their disadvantage.Barbara Hansen told a journalist in 1975: \"There is an expectation ofsome kind of work being done. Reading, writing, and arithmetic aresurvival skills in this society, and kids have to learn them, and thejob of the teacher is to teach them as efficiently as possible.\" 57This view was in line with a general rethinking in the mid-1970s offree school methods and the value of literacy initiated by the writingsof Jonathan Rozol in the United States and George Martell in Canada.\"The back-to-basics movement was also in full swing by 1975. 59In 1976 a group of teachers with the younger students initiated aconscious programme to teach kids to read.We got a set of textbooks and worked one to one with thekids—we had enough teachers that we could do that. We hadchecklists and worked on phonics and key words. We felt wewere making progress.\"Teachers tried to spend twenty minutes per day with each child whileone staff member supervised the others at play or doing individualprojects. Teachers were enthusiastic about this programme despite thelack of quiet areas or carpets to sit on comfortably. However, theschool closed before any significant results could be achieved.Whether the teachers were skilled enough or the students receptiveenough to have made this programme a success is uncertain.210The school continued to have weekly swimming and skating sessions.Students played floor hockey, dodgeball, and soccer, and worked out onthe school's modest gymnastics equipment. There were crafts sessionsone afternoon per week and students participated in art galleryworkshops. Ms. Van Volkingburgh revived the woodwork shop and somestudents built forts and even their own desks out of wood lying aroundin the playground. Music was sporadic. Mrs. Nickels played the pianoor led students in singing and one parent, a symphony member, played atthe school from time to time, but it was not a comprehensive programme.The school provided a \"feast\" for students on Friday after a morningswimming session at the Y.M.C.A. pool. Everyone looked forward to thisevent, sometimes held at Stanley Park.Field trips were frequent. Students often went to the beach andset up a salt water aquarium back at the school. One highlight waswhen seven students were given rides on a hot air balloon. After theexperience they made miniature balloons and flew them outside theschool. Field trips with small numbers of students were easy toarrange and often occurred spontaneously.Social work students from Simon Fraser University came to theschool once a week to lead family meetings and interest groups. Thesewere small student groups organized around topics such as photography,theatre, cooking, arts and crafts, music, sports, and exploringVancouver.61 Student groups sometimes visited parents' workplaces.During its last months Mrs. Hansen initiated a comprehensive legalrights and awareness programme for students and their parents. Theprogramme utilized experts from the field and was consistent with the211school's commitment to children's rights.The teachers continued the outdoor education programme with regularcamping trips. One parent donated a mining claim lease and cabin at anold mine site in a remote area near Anderson Lake south of Lillooet.The only access was via the B.C. Rail stop at McGillivray Falls andcampers had to climb four and a half miles of steep mountain switchbacktrail to reach the camp site. 62 Teachers, parents, and children spentfrom three days to a week at the cabin learning basic survival skillsin the bush including cooking, hauling water, and chopping wood. Amemorable activity for the adults was learning how to use a chain saw.The students, as young as six, were expected to do their share of thework and were responsible for getting along with each other.Teachers were more willing to set minimal expectations for studentbehaviour and participation than during the free school period. Atstaff meetings during 1974 and 1975 the teachers actually compiled alist of rules which included: younger children not to cross streetswithout an adult, no smoking in forts, no burning paper in science, nomore than two students on the tire swing, and school equipment was notto be taken home. Other rules stipulated that younger children werenot permitted to go to the store, students could not change interestgroups once they had begun, all students were required to go skating,and students were to vacate the staffroom if asked to do so by anadult. 63 Even these minimal common sense rules were far stricter thanthe teachers would have imposed a few years earlier.Teachers spent a good deal of time verbally correcting studentbehaviour but, despite the rules, one student who attended during the212final two years remembers a \"totally free school where kids could dowhat they liked.\" 64 There were no rules about attendance and somestudents missed a lot of school. Students were permitted to smoke inrestricted areas. Teachers expected students to solve most of theirown problems and teacher directed solutions were usually temporary.One former student remembers a lot of bullying of younger kids in theunsupervised basement.\" The only rules enforced consistently werethose about violence or damaging property and fights were usually dealtwith right away by several staff members. But the basic stance was topromote student autonomy in almost all situations. One teacher says inretrospect \"we thought the world was a safer place that it was and weexposed kids to scary situations. Some of them developed a pseudo-maturity that made adolescence unnecessarily hard.\" 66On the other hand, many of the students were going through divorcein their families and living chaotic lives that, according to oneparent, would have challenged even the most structured school setting.She points out that the students learned to take care of themselves andthat the adventure they experienced at the New School kept some fromending up in the drug subculture or other destructive environments. 67The school held monthly student/staff meetings in Summerhillfashion and students were given an opportunity to set the agenda andchair the meetings.\" Some positive results of this were that NewSchool students learned how to express themselves and to debate issues,and they certainly were not afraid of adults. Students of all agesplayed and worked together and older students looking after youngerchildren contributed to a family atmosphere.213The End of the Mew SchoolThe financial situation at the New School continued to worsen. Thetwo main problems were salaries and fees; salary expenditures were toohigh due to the large teaching staff, and fee income was too low due todropping enrolment and a poorer school population. Many parents wereunemployed or marginally employed and few could afford even the minimumfee which had risen to $500 a year by 1973 and $600 per year in 1975. 69Families who could have afforded more left the school, unhappy that theregular educational programme was neglected because of the large numberof special needs students. This left the school with a serious lack offunds. It could not afford to expand its offerings or pay staffadequately even though teachers were earning only $5,000 per year.\"By 1973 parents who were looking for a less structured schoolsetting could choose from a number of alternate programmes emerging inthe Vancouver School District. For example, Bayview Elementary Schoolin the Kitsilano district had developed a reputation for being open,integrated, and innovative, and many New School students transferredthere. Bayview offered multi-age groupings and was influenced by the\"open classroom\" and \"integrated day\" practices often found in Britishprimary schools. Teachers were called by their first names andstudents were encouraged to work on individual and group projects.Charles Dickens primary annex, in east Vancouver was another schooloffering a more individualized programme and one former New Schoolstudent has good memories of Dickens after transferring there. IrwinPark Elementary School in West Vancouver developed an Alternative214Intermediate Programme (A.I.P.) in the early 1970s, attended by two NewSchool students. The existence of these alternatives hastened thedeparture of the very families necessary for the New School's financialsolvency.The school could have become financially viable through integrationinto the Vancouver public school system like many alternative secondaryschools did during the mid-1970s. 71 This possibility was discussed butthere were serious obstacles—the teachers were not certified, thebuilding was substandard, and many participants believed the school wassimply not respectable enough. They were too tired to muster theenergy to convince the school board that the New School was acceptable.In addition, the group felt a general \"hostility\" towards the schoolsystem. 72 Parents and teachers distrusted large institutions andfeared that the school would \"lose everything it stood for.\" 73Beyond these considerations was a belief that the New School'sfunction was fundamentally different from that of the alternate schoolswithin the school system which they saw as merely rehabilitative. Thegoal of the New School was to prevent problems from occuring in thefirst place through a kind of education that would empower childrenrather than teach them to fit into a system. 74Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Currie applied for grants from numerousorganizations and government agencies. They applied to Opportunitiesfor Youth and Local Initiatives Programmes for assistance to the afterschool programme and for a \"mining for minors\" summer campingexperience at the mine. They made numerous requests to governmentagencies particularly from 1972 to 1975 hoping that their political215orientation le old give them some clout with the N.D.P. government. Agrant request to the Ministry of Education for science equipment andsupplementary salaries was denied because the government was opposed togrants to private schools. In the proposal the applicants had referredto the school as \"a real independent school, not one subsidized by areligious organization.\" 75 A 1974 request to Norman Levi, HumanResources Minister and former New School parent, managed to producesome funds to assist the school in caring for children of families onwelfare.The school began losing money consistently from 1971 at an averageof $5,000 per year, and managed to balance its budget in only two ofits last seven years. 76 The school was forced to take out a $6,000bank loan in 1972 and a \"personal\" loan of $2,000 the next year. Therewas a brief period of optimism when the original mortgage was retiredin 1973, and a staff reduction led to a profitable year in 1973/74.However, a big loss the following year forced the school to take out anew mortgage of $15,000. 77 This put a severe strain on the school'sfinances and in 1976/77, the last year of operation, the school wasvirtually kept afloat by half a dozen families with average or aboveincomes. Despite an uncertain future, as late as 1975/76 the NewSchool enrolled fifty-one students and employed six teachers.Fund-raising activities, mainly benefit concerts and rummage sales,became less frequent during this period. Energy for these eventsdecreased and fund-raising rarely brought in more than $500 per yearafter 1971. 78 Starting in 1974/75 the school required parents to paytheir June tuition at the beginning of the school year:\" In an effort216to ensure that fees were paid, the teachers asked parents to sign alegal fee agreement stating the tuition fee, date by which it would bepaid, and the amount of debenture to be paid within three months. If achild withdrew part way through the school year, the parent(s) agreedto be liable for 50% of the remaining fees until the end of the term.\"Of course, such agreements were almost impossible to enforce.Attempts to increase income through fees could not succeed becausehalf of the parents could not afford to pay them. Of thirty-eightfamilies registered in 1975/76, fourteen were assessed the minimum feeof $600 while twelve were assessed less than the minimum, five of thosepaying $200 or less. One parent was assessed no fees at all. Fivefamilies paid between $600 and $1,000, but three of these had more thanone child enrolled so their fees per child were actually less than theminimum. On the other hand, a few families carried a much heavierburden, demonstrating how badly they wanted to send their children tothe New School. Three families paid the maximum fee of $1150 per childand four other families with more than one child paid total fees over$1150. Two of these paid $1800 while one family of five children whosefather was a post office manager contributed a total of $3150. 81Twenty-three families managed to pay their assessments in full bythe end of the year while another five families paid 80% or more oftheir fee. However, six families actually paid less than half of theirassessed fee and another five withdrew during the year. The debenturesystem was abandoned that year because no one could afford to pay them.Given this kind of uncertainty it was impossible for the teachers torely on income from school fees and the situation became even worse in2171976/77.^Yet, the teachers were not about to abandon families infinancial trouble and fought hard to keep them in the school. Asseveral teachers commented, \"we were carrying a lot of families.\"The financial problems were exacerbated by the deteriorating stateof the school building. The basement floor, back porch, and roof werein poor condition. 82 The play area and side yard were inadequate butthere was never extra money to develop them. The outside appearancewas shabby, the inside dark and dingy, and the roof began to leak badlyin 1974. 83 The frequency of work parties was increased to every sixweeks by 1973 84 , but even monthly work parties could not ameliorate thesituation. During the 1973 Christmas holidays, alone, the followingrepairs had to be done: repair the stage floor, replace kitchenlinoleum, re-gyprock one kitchen wall, repair and sew curtains, andpaint the kitchen, bathrooms, and stage room.\" Attempts to scroungereplacement furniture had some success but with little money to coveroperating expenses, there was nothing left for badly needed repairs.Mrs. Hansen describes:The building was slowly dissolving into a junk heap and gettingmore and more unattractive so we were losing the ability togenerate the parents that would have been beneficial to theschool's financial needs. There is a level of slum living thatbecomes really hard and produces emotional strain oneveryone--a building that you can't keep clean because thebuilding itself makes it impossible.\"Teachers found their work harder than ever with materials scarceand school equipment that was falling apart. Day care and gymnasiumequipment also needed replacing and the teachers requested help fromthe Vancouver School Board, Department of Education, and other agenciesto buy new equipment. Mrs. Currie applied to many government agencies218for grants towards building repair and equipment for both school andday care but with limited success.To make matters worse, the school began to suffer from considerablevandalism. In June, 1975 an arsonist set a fire that left the basementa \"charred wreck.\" 87 During the following year break-ins became aweekly occurence according to one of the teachers. \"Mostly, it'sneighbourhood kids who throw stuff around, spill paint, break windows,upset displays, and steal equipment such as tape recorders and slideprojectors. They destroy the students' work when they can find it.Our kids can't even leave their things here overnight. They're liableto find them stolen the next day and have them turn up in the second-hand store down the block.\" 88Theft and hooliganism were not the only motives for theseincidents, for there was a good deal of resentment towards the schoolin the local community. Another teacher reported at the time:We feel there is a basic antagonism in the neighbourhood to theschool. The (local) kids pick it up from their parents. Theydon't like the kind of school we are, they think we're toofree. They don't like the school's run-down appearance.\"Mrs. Hansen agreed that the vandalism resulted from antagonism on thepart of some neighbourhood residents to the loosely-structured andunconventional school.\" A spokesperson for the Central Mortgage andHousing Corporation (C.M.H.C.) told the Vancouver Sun that \"there wassubstantial opposition within the community to the New School becauseof its unorthodox approach to education.\" 81Attempting to solve the problem of the school's shabby appearanceand to make it more secure against vandalism, the teachers applied tothe Cedar Cottage Office of the Vancouver Planning Department for a219Neighbourhood Improvement Programme (N.I.P.) grant to finance painting,landscaping, and the installation of vandal-proof unbreakable windowsand doors. The application was supplemented by letters of support fromparents, members of the local community, and education officials. 92The application was approved in November, 1975 for an amount of $5,300.However, the N.I.P Committee and the C.M.H.C. made the grantconditional on repairs being made to the roof of the building, whichthe school could not afford.\" The teachers managed to raise enoughmoney to install unbreakable windows on the ground floor but could notafford to replace any others.The situation reached crisis proportions when the building washeavily damaged by a more severe fire on March 11, 1976. The damageamounted to $15,000 and, in addition, a major storeroom containingsupplies, valuables, and school records was destroyed. The studentshad to move to temporary quarters and spent much of their time on fieldtrips to museums and parks for the next six weeks. According to RobertSarti of the Vancouver Sun, the break-ins continued even while theschool was being repaired and parents had to take turns sleeping in thebuilding. 94The school reopened six weeks later. The insurance company wouldnot replace the contents of the supply room and an outlay of $1,000 wasrequired. Moreover, the City Planning Office continued to hold up theschool's Neighbourhood Improvement grant until $1,500 was spent on theroof. The teachers invited the public to an open house at the schoolin May, to establish better relations with the community. BarbaraHansen said, \"if they still don't like us, at least they'll know what220they don't like. All our kids will be there and the people from theneighbourhood will be able to see how we go about our business.\" 95Teachers went door to door to talk about the school. 96 They alsorequested local businesses to protest the holding up of the school'sgrant by the Neighbourhood Improvement Programme. The New School wasback in its building but it was short of supplies, short of money, andlow in morale. One parent put it well:I held the values but I couldn't live the marginal life. The chaosand burnout was not beneficial to the kids. David (her son) wantedout. I wanted out. 97The school never recovered from the fire or from its precariousfinancial situation, but it did begin the 1976/77 school year (itsfifteenth) with thirty students and a staff of five teachers. Workparties were convened during the first week of September to paint theoutside of the building, plant shrubs, build a woodshed, and clean upthe playground.\" During the summer the school had applied for andreceived a grant from the Vancouver Foundation to cover the roofrepairs. 99 This in turn finally allowed the N.I.P. grant to bereleased and security improvements were well under way by October.\"°These included vandal-proof steel doors, unbreakable windows on theupper floor, and floodlights. School life for students and parentsreturned to normal for a few months and parents held regular pub nightsand a Hallowe'en potluck party. 101However, part way though the year the financial situation becamedesperate. The school was running a deficit of almost $1,000 permonth, $2,000 was owing in back tuition, and $800 owing for studentactivities. 102 Since the teachers were also the owners any shortfall221reduced their income directly and several teachers took evening jobs tomake ends meet. The teachers were already working for less than aliving wage, and by midway through the year they were receiving theirsalaries two to four weeks late because parents were so far behind infee payments.'\" Even essential supplies and food for Friday feastwere often bought straight out of one of the teacher's pockets.'\"The school appealed for help in an advertisement in Makers magazinein October, 1976:The New School assumes that both children and adults arepeople. Our needs are the same. We need to eat. We need tohave shelter. We need to care for ourselves. We need to carefor others. We need to do meaningful work. We need to be withother human beings. We need to be alone. We need to learn.We need to teach. We need to change. WE NEED FUNDS. 105Parent/staff meetings in February and March discussed fund-raisingideas and March was declared \"responsibility month\" for parents tobring fee payments up to date. The March, 1977 edition of the schoolnewsletter informed the school community that some parents had not paidany fees since the previous September and announced an immediate 20%fey increase. This was a futile request given most family's financialcircumstances and the \"parent difficulty\" committee reported simplythat \"parents who aren't paying are broke.\" A \"mega-committee\" wasformed to brainstorm new fund-raising projects which included benefitconcerts, renting out school space, a rummage sale, movie showings,bingo, and solicting donations from corporations and foundations. 106Teachers and parents distributed leaflets and posters explaining theschool's plight throughout the community in an appeal for money,furniture, and equipment. They even requested help from a few foundingparents. Some support did materialize but it was not enough.222The school managed to limp through to the end of June and as lateas March the teachers were busy planning for the coming year. Theyadvertised in the Vancouver Sun for a staff position promising \"minimumsalary and maximum satisfaction at a co-operatively run elementaryschool,\" receiving seven replies. 107 However, the school could noteven pay its teachers by the end of the year, and Sandra Currie had\"half the staff living and eating at her house\" during the last fewmonths. 108 No matter how strong their political commitment may havebeen, the teachers could not continue to work under these conditions.Parents described the teachers as heroic. Mary Schendlinger, anactive parent during the last two years, reports that as many as halfof the parents were not paying anything in the last year. Shedescribes the demoralizing financial situation:We were asking the teachers to work for almost nothing. Wetook advantage of OFY and CYC when we could but they had shutdown by the mid 1970's and there weren't any more grants orsubsidies. There was no other way to finance the operationthan to get it off parents. There were a few of us paying whatwe could afford. We were paying a couple hundred a month whichwas a lot, but it was worth it to us. The teachers would haveto ask for it and they would divy up whatever came in.Everybody was goodnatured about it. There weren't any fights,it was just demoralizing. 109The teachers served notice at the end of March that \"the entire staffmay be leaving at the end of this year.\" 11° Parents were urged toattend a meeting in April \"devoted to talking about what kind of schoolwe want—if you have something to say, this is the time to say it.\"The school did not officially close in June, 1977, but had neitherthe money nor the spirit to reopen in September. Teachers and a fewparents met during the summer to decide what to do and it became clearthat everyone was just too tired to keep the school running. The group223decided to sell the school building and individuals expressed sorrow aswell as relief that the struggle was finally over. Some hoped that theschool would resurface in a \"new, revised, sensible, workable form.\" 111Mary Schendlinger talks about the fatigue and poverty that caused theschool's demise:We were desperate, hanging on by our fingernails. But the firekilled us. It was something from which we could not recover.We had faith and a belief that things could be better for ourkids. We were really crushed about losing our schoo1. 112She expressed admiration for \"the dedicated women who, for little or nopay helped with my mothering, to the parents who spent long hourspainting and fi-ing the place up, and to the kids who have been such apleasure for me. I have been so turned on by the sights and sounds ofchildren doing their work in ways they think are important.\" 113The students returned to a public school system that had becomesomewhat more flexible but many students from this period had difficulttransitions and most were too far behind in academics to make catchingup easy. Few could cope with traditional high schools and even thosewho could meet the academic standards found the size and structuredaunting. Sharon Van Volkingburgh estimates that 70% of New Schoolstudents from the later years went to alternative secondary schools—City School, Total Education, Ideal School, or Relevant High. Thefollowing parent's description of her daughter's experience is typical:She wasn't learning at the New School but when she went to apublic school in the neighbourhood she was worse there. Sheused to come home from school and cry every day. She wasmiserable until she was old enough to go to Idea1. 114Ms. Van Volkingburgh reports that at least ten students in theolder class were \"entrenched non-readers who had learned to get by224without reading.\" She believes that if students \"could read when theygot to high school they were okay\" for their research skills were welldeveloped from doing so many projects. 115 However, one former studentwhose reading ability was well advanced says the New School's neglectof other skills was the reason she did not finish secondary school:I did no school work for three years and went into grade sixwith a grade three education. High school was overwhelmingbecause I didn't have any mathematics or writing skills. Ijust gave up. 116The New School helped a few students even in these difficult years.Students were empowered to take responsibility for their own decisionsand were taught that they did have choices in their lives. One parentrefers proudly to her \"uppity, sassy, no-nonsense kids\" while anotherdescribes the students as \"undisciplined but spirited.\" 117 In March,1976, the Vancouver Sun published a letter from Mrs. H. Piltz, whoseson was a diagnosed hyper-kinetic. She described how an alternativeprogramme had been recommended by a physician, psychiatrist, and schoolcounsellor, but the few public school programmes that could help himhad long waiting lists. She enrolled her son at the New School eventhough he had to travel two hours a day on the bus. She wrote:In the past year at the New School, I have found an approach toeducation which I wish I had given to both my children. Thereis no separation between learning, working, and playing. Inthose walls he has developed into an outgoing, energetic, andresponsible young human being, no longer on medication. I amrelieved that neither he nor his skills will become obsolete inan ever-changing world because learning as a part of livingmeans his education will not stop at the end of his schooldays. 118Other than in a few such cases, the New School had outlived itspurpose. Its appeal had become too marginal, its financial base haddisappeared, and its students had not been given adequate academic225skills. Further, the burnout permeating the school was debilitating toeveryone. As the school system became more open, the New School eitherhad to find a place inside that system or carve out an even lonelierposition on the fringe. Its only other role could have been as arecognized therapeutic institution under the Human Resources Ministry.In the end, fatigue, bankruptcy, and a fierce streak of independenceleft the New School with no option but to close. 119EpilogueIn April, 1978, less than a year after the school's dissolution theNew School Teachers' Society sold the building for $105,000. A fund ofapproximately $50,000 was left after repayment of the mortgage and theimmediate creditors. 12° The society also had to return the N.I.P.grant that they had worked so hard for. The few remaining membersdivided up the required administrative tasks. Since the society hadfallen out of good standing, annual meeting reports and financialstatements for the past three years had to be compiled quickly beforethe sale could go through. Ms. Van Volkingburgh \"stayed up all nightwith boxes full of receipts\" and a parent negotiated with therealtor. 121 Another member undertook the time-consuming process oftrying to locate the many former parents, who had allowed theirbuilding shares to remain with the society when they left the school.Some of the original families had forgiven these loans several yearsearlier, but by the time of the school's closing, debentures were stillowed to more than eighty families amounting to over $9,000.226The society's directors have continued to administer the fund tothe present day. Each year since 1978 interest earnings of up to$6,000 have been donated to educational projects approved by thedirectors. Priorities have been given to projects involving childrenfrom low socio-economic backgrounds or with special educational needs.Sometimes the society's assets have been used to secure loans by smallorgnaizations such as co-operative day cares. True to their belief inco-operative structures and social change, the society directors havekept most of the money at the Community Congress for Economic ChangeCredit Union (C.C.E.C.). The society has also continued to maintainthe mine property which is used exclusively for children.The society has funded many projects. The first expenditures werethe purchase of a van so that Mr. Horner could continue to take youngpeople to the mine, and a moon ball for use by alternate schools. Thesociety guaranteed a loan to Theodora's restaurant, run by students atTotal Education, an alternative secondary school, and bought shares inIsadora's co-operative restaurant. The organization has made grants toa beginning tutoring service for special needs children, Arts Umbrellafor scholarships, and Kenneth Gordon School for dyslexic children foran individual tuition. It supports a variety of projects at SunriseEast, an alternate public school in east Vancouver, and donated $10,000to the Alternate Shelter Society to purchase land on Nelson Island forthe use of the adolescents in its care. The society has supportedprojects by Imagination Market, Maple Tree Pre-School, and FamilyPlace, as well as a concession run by students at the Children'sFestival and a walkathon to raise money for children with cancer. 122227NOTES1. Sharon Burrows, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.2. Margaret Sigurgeirson, quoted in the Vancouver Sun, March 15, 1976:p. 25, reported by Robert Sarti.3. School enrollment lists: 1962, 1964, 1965, 1971, 1973, and 1975.Addresses in West Vancouver, North Vancouver, and Richmond wereincluded in the totals for west of Cambie Street, while those inBurnaby and New Westminster were considered to be east of Cambie.As a general rule, families living west of Cambie tend to be more\"middle class\" and professional than those east of Cambie Street.4. New School Teachers' Society Brief, \"Request For NeighbourhoodImprovement Programme Funds,\" September, 1975, page 2. It shouldbe noted that some of the low income parents differed from theireast side neighbours in that they were middle class in origin.5. New School tuition records, 1975/76.6. Applications for Sarah French and Siobhan Devlin, September, 1973.7. Application for Jessie Smith, September, 1973, Randall Collection.8. This concurs with Daniel Duke's findings in The Retransformation ofthe School (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1978): 79-81. Over half of thenon-public alternative schools he studied had predominantly singleparent families. As well the parents \"share a pattern of livingmarked by social experimentation.\"9. Staff Meeting Minutes, January 8, 1974, Randall Collection.10. A funding request to the Children's Aid Society was unsuccessful.Staff Meeting Minutes, September 24, 1974.11. Financial Statements, 1970-1977, Registrar of Companies, Victoria.12. Joan Nemtin, tape recorded interview, December, 1987.13. Sharon Van Volkingburgh, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.14. Karen Schendlinger, tape recorded interview, May, 1991.15. Cara Felde, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.16. Jan Robinson, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.17. Margot Hansen, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.18. Funding Proposal to Ministry of Human Resources, December 3, 1975.22819. New School Teachers' Society Brief:^\"Request for NeighbourhoodImprovement Programme Funds,\" September, 1975, page 2.20. Fund-raising Brief, page 2.21. Fund-raising Brief, page 2.22. Fund-raising Brief, page 2.23. Sharon Burrows, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.24. Staff meeting minutes, September 6, 1973 and September 10, 1974.25. Staff Meeting Minutes, November 13, 1973, Randall Collection.26. New School Society meeting minutes, April 22, 1974.27. Staff Meeting Minutes, October 22, 1974, Randall Collection.28. Staff Meeting Minutes, November 13, 1973.29. Staff Meeting Minutes, February 12, 1974.30. Joan Nemtin, tape recorded interview, December, 1987.31. Sandra Currie, tape recorded interview, May, 1988.32. Mary Schendlinger and Nora Randall, taped interview, June, 1991.33. Mary Schendlinger, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.34. Barbara Hansen, tape recorded interview, October, 1987.35. Margot Hansen, tape recorded interview, July, 1991.36. Sandra Currie, tape recorded interview, May 1988.37. Sandra Currie, tape recorded interview, May 1988; Nora Randall andMary Schendlinger, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.38. Daniel Wood, Personal Journal, 1972.39. Sandra Currie, tape recorded interview, May, 1988.40. Scott Robinson, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.41. Sharon Burrows, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.42. Daryl Sturdy returned to the Vancouver School District in 1974where he has taught for many years and found more freedom forteachers in the public school system than there had been in 1968.Saralee James left to pursue a career in film and the visual arts.229Daniel Wood received a grant from the U.B.C. Educational ResearchInstitute where he worked with John Bremer, author of The School Without Walls, and later worked with the Community EducationProgramme in the U.B.C. Education Faculty.43. Joan Nemtin taught in Vancouver at Total Education, a secondaryalternate programme. Jonnet Garner moved to Ontario.44. Margaret Sigurgeirson, Sharon Van Volkingburgh, interviews, 1991.45. Fund-raising letter, 1977.46. Barbara Hansen, tape recorded interview, October, 1987.47. Dana Long and Karen Schendlinger each cite several classmates whodid not learn to read at the New School; interviews, May, 1991, andJune, 1987. Several parents interviewed cite examples as well.48. Sandra Currie, tape recorded interview, May, 1988.49. Nora Randall, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.50. Sandra Currie, tape recorded interview, May, 1988.51. Karen Schendlinger, tape recorded interview, May, 1991.52. Starla Anderson, telephone interview, April, 1987.53. Mary Schendlinger, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.54. Margaret Sigurgeirson, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.55. Sharon Van Volkingburgh, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.56. Roy Blunden of U.B.C. Professor Blunden was the last academicparent at the New School. His son left the school in 1974/75.57. Barbara Hansen quoted by Audrey Grescoe in \"Working Classrooms:Alternate Education in Vancouver, Vancouver (January, 1975): 29.58. See George Martell, The Politics of the Canadian Public School (Toronto: James Lewis and Samuel, 1974) and Jonathan Kozol, \"FreeSchools: A Time for Candor,\" in Troost, ed., Radical School Reform(Boston: Little Brown, 1973): 80-88, or Saturday Review Mar. 1972.Also Bowles and Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America (New York:Basic Books, 1976), and Berland and McGee, \"Literacy: The Atrophyof Competence,\" Working Teacher, 1, 1: 18-26 and 1, 2: 29-34 (1977).59. J. Donald Wilson, \"From the Swinging Sixties to the SoberingSeventies,\" in Stevenson and Wilson, eds., Precepts, Policy, andProcess: Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Education (London,Ont.: 1977): 21-36.23060. Sharon Van Volkingburgh, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.Also mentioned in Audrey Grescoe, \"Working Classrooms,\" page 29.61. Staff Meeting Minutes, October 9, 1973.62. Nora Randall, Can You Wear Earrings in the Wood?, unpublished shortstory, 1975.63. Staff Meeting Minutes, September 6, 1973, February 12, 1974, April,1975.64. Karen Schendlinger, tape recorded interview, May, 1991.65. Penny Ryan, interview, January, 1992.66. Sharon Van Volkingburgh, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.67. Sharon Burrows, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.68. Staff Meeting Minutes, September 10, 1974.69. New School Society Meeting Minutes, June 22, 1973, and school feeassessments in 1975/76 financial records, Van Volkingburgh Coll.70. Annual Financial Reports, 1973-1977; New School Teachers' SocietyFund-raising brief, 1975.71. Windsor House, an alternative elementary school in North Vancouverfounded by Helen Hughes joined the North Vancouver School Districtin 1975 after coming similarly close to bankruptcy. Ms. Hughesreports that the school board has left the school free to set itsown policy.72. Margaret Sigurgeirson, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.73. Nora Randall, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.74. Sharon Van Volkingburgh, tape recorded interview, November, 1991,and New School Teachers' Society Minutes, November 16, 1980.75. Funding Request to Education Minister, Eileen Dailly, July 7, 1975.76. Annual Financial Reports, 1971-1977.77. Annual Financial Reports, 1973-1975.78. Financial Statements, 1971-1977, Registrar of Companies, Victoria.79. New School Society Meeting Minutes, May 7, 1974.80. Fee Agreement, Randall Collection.23181. New School accounting book, 1975/76, Van Volkingburgh Collection.82. Staff Meeting Minutes, October 16, 1973.83. Staff Meeting Minutes, September 17, 1974.84. Staff Meeting Minutes, September 6, 1973.85. Staff Meeting Minutes, December 18, 1973.86. Barbara Hansen, tape recorded interview, October, 1987.87. Vancouver Province, June 11, 1975: 7.88. Sharon Van Volkingburgh, quoted in the Vancouver Sun, March 15,1976: 25, reported by Robert Sarti.89. Margaret Sigurgeirson, quoted in the Vancouver Sun, March 15, 1976:p. 25, reported by Robert Sarti.90. However, one long-time neighbour, Mrs. Mai Lai Wong, does notremember objections towards the school in the neighbourhood. Sherecalls being concerned about the childrens' safety because theywere allowed to \"play in the street.\" She also remembers \"hippiepeople going in and out,\" children with old and torn clothing, andthat the building was in poor condition. She didn't allow her sonto play there. (Interview, November, 1991)91. Mrs. F. Simatos, quoted in Vancouver Sun, March 15, 1976, p. 25.92. Gary Onstad, Education Ministry consultant during the N.D.P.government and later a Vancouver School Trustee sent a letter ofsupport to the N.I.P., September 3, 1975.^One neighbour andseveral local merchants also sent letters.93. Letter from the Cedar Cottage Planning Office of the Vancouver CityPlanning Department to the New School's lawyer, April 15, 1976.94. Vancouver Sun, April 30, 1976, p. 30, reported by Robert Sarti.95. Barbara Hanson, quoted in the Vancouver Sun, April 30, 1976: 30,reported by Robert Sarti.96. Nora Randall, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.97. Sharon Burrows, tape recorded interview, December, 1991.^Mrs.Burrows was atypical of parents from this period in that shemanaged to go back to university and acquire a profession.98. New School Newsletter, September, 1976.23299. Letters to the New School from the Vancouver Foundation, June30, 1976 and September 28, 1976.100. New School Newsletter, October, 1976, Randall Collection.101. New School Newsletter, October, 1976.102. Parent/Staff Meeting Minutes, February, 1977.103. Payroll Records, 1976/77, Van Volkingburgh Collection.104. Sharon Van Volkingburgh, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.105. Makara, 1, 6 (October/November, 1976): page 48.106. New School Newsletter, March, 1977.107. Applications to advertised staff position, April, 1977.108. Sandra Currie, tape recorded interview, May, 1988.109. Mary Schendlinger, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.110. New School Newsletter, March, 1977.111. Mary Schendlinger, Private Journal, entry for July, 1977.112. Mary Schendlinger, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.113. Mary Schendlinger, Personal Journal, entry for July, 1977.114. Nora Randall, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.115. Sharon Van Volkingburgh, tape recorded interview, November, 1991.116. Penny Ryan, interview, January, 1992.117. Mary Schendlinger, Personal Journal, entry for July, 1977.118. Mrs. H. R. Piltz, \"New School changes view of education,\" inthe Vancouver Sun, March 23, 1976, (letter) p. 5.119. None of the teachers from the 1973-1977 period remained ineducation after the New School closed. Barbara Hansen hasworked for many years with troubled adolescents and heads theAlternate Shelter Society.120. New School Teachers' Society, Financial Statement, 1977/78.121. Noral Randall, tape recorded interview, June, 1991.122. New School Teachers' Society, Meeting Minutes, 1978-1984.233MAPS= 6: CONCLUSIONSThe New School was a pioneering attempt by a group of \"courageousand foolhardy\" parents to establish a co-operative school based ontheir understanding of progressive educational theory and practice. Tovarying degrees throughout the school's three periods students learnedcritical thinking and problem-solving skills, enhanced their creativepowers, learned from the outside community, and developed socialskills, self confidence, and independence.However, the school existed primarily to fulfill desires of theadult participants rather than the children and in almost all cases,the adults were involved for their own reasons. Some were working outtheir romantic notions about natural education/natural living, otherswere trying to change society, others yearned for a close communityakin to an extended family, still others found a place to test out anddebate ideas, some used the school as an expression of counterculturevalues and styles, and some saw it as a political collective. Theadults, caught up in their own controversies and romantic dreams oftenforgot about the educational objectives of the school, leading oneformer student to remark that he \"sometimes felt that the school wasmore for the parents than the kids.\" 2 One parent writing to theteachers after another of the frequent personnel disputes put it well:\"Isn't it possible that these are difficulties in how things are workedout among the staff? This is the second year that this kind of thinghas happened. It can't be good for the kids—and the school is for thekids, isn't it? Or is it?\" 3 The different objectives of the parents234accounted for much of the political strife that characterized theschool.A similar inability to distinguish between an alternative learningenvironment for children and an alternative community for adultaffiliation led to the collapse of several parent initiated alternativeschools during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Daniel Duke found sixsuch examples in his study of American alternative schools. He reportsthat \"each constituted an admission by a group of parents or teachersthat a school cannot provide for the learning needs of students and theemotional needs of parents simultaneously. t14One of the most significant aspects of the New School during itsfirst six years was the parent co-operative form of governance. Theparents developed a highly participatory organization and worked hardtogether as a close community. They believed they were pioneering animportant new model for education and volunteered enormous numbers ofhours maintaining the school building, working on committees, andraising money. They read widely about education, conducted intelligentand lively debates, and were not afraid to plunge into unknowneducational subject areas and learn about them. The group was composedof both thinkers and doers although the academics clearly dominated.They established a unique system to ensure equality of opportunity forany families wanting to enrol their children in the school. Allparticipants considered the sliding fee scale fair and effective and itbecame a liability only in the last years when so many families had tobe subsidized that the school could not support itself. Many familiesformed close bonds with the community and many parents state that as235painful and exhausting as their involvement in the New School was, itwas one of the important experiences of their lives. 5The parent co-operative ultimately failed because it lacked astrong foundation. The original group of parents had not achievedagreement in three crucial areas: how they would make decisions, howthey would supervise the teaching staff, and most important, what kindof education the school would provide.One problematic area was decision making. The founding parentswere sympathetic to consensual decision making and were willing to putin the long hours of meetings necessary to make such a model work.However, at the same time, they instituted an elaborate majoritativeand representative structure, including an elected board to run theschool's affairs, and many parents were skilled in debate and meetingprocedure. But even with the representative structure in place, theparticipants did not allow the board to govern and decision making wasemotional and painful. Compromise was difficult and sometimes feelingsran so high that meetings deteriorated into personal and ideologicalattacks. This was a highly articulate group of people, some withstrong egos and others with doctrinaire political and world views.They discussed theory incessantly, rarely coming to agreement, andideological and personal conflicts \"raged with intensity.\" 6The parents attempted to find a compromise halfway between a broadbased consensual governing structure and a small formal decision makingbody, but this did not work effectively. Such solutions rarely do,according to Jonathan Kozol's analysis of parent operated alternativeschools in the United States. He wrote that \"there should either be a236total commitment to full democratic participation of all people in theschool or else there should be a straightforward, small, and honest\"power structure.\" 7 New School parents considered implementing a fullyconsensual, anarchistic system of decision making during the secondyear8 but many of the leaders feared they would lose control of theorganization. Moreover, most parents lacked the skills and experiencenecessary to make consensual decision making work. In their genuinedesire to be democratic, they merely replaced one type of hierarchywith another, a hierarchy based on eloquence and perseverance.The parents also neglected to develop procedures for integratingnew members effectively into the community so that as time went byfewer members were active and more were passive. Eventually, theleaders became burned out. As Ellen Tallman put it: \"We certainly hadno idea what we were getting into, how demanding it would be, and howmuch work it was going to be.\" 9Decision making difficulties were most evident when it came topersonnel decisions. Hiring and firing decisions were inconsistent,unsystematic, often based on personalities, and made by unqualifiedindividuals. Teachers were given no protection from parentalharassment while performing a difficult task in relatively unknownterritory. Phil Thomas' observation that he was \"more free in thepublic school system,\" where unreasonable parents must adhere to dueprocess, says a great deal about the teaching conditions at the NewSchool.There were several reasons for the parents' inability to let theteachers do their jobs. The parents had taken their children out of237the public school system--a courageous move in the early 1960s and,considering the amount of time, effort, and money they contributed tothe school, they felt they deserved the right to make all thedecisions. Moreover, since the school was experimental, many parentsbelieved it would fail unless the teachers were close to perfect. Thefounders of the New School felt passionately about their venture and itwas difficult for them to relinquish contro1. 1° The stakes were highinvolving money, ideology, and their children, three areas guaranteedto produce high levels of emotion and uncompromising positions.People did not understand the appropriate roles of parents andprofessionals. The parents should have given the teachers authority tomake the educational decisions and should have protected them fromunfair and unfounded criticism. The closest they came to doing thiswas from 1965 to 1967 when they gave Graham Smith considerable controlas school director. Even so, parental criticism created enough stressthat he left after two years. Even Lloyd Arntzen, who almost everybodyadmired as an excellent teacher, was given a difficult time by someparents and \"had no authority.\" 11 Parents without any qualificationsor experience were hiring and evaluating professional educators. Thiscertainly should have been done by outside professionals as a fewparents suggested. Norman Epstein, who was in the thick of many NewSchool battles, speaks for most parents when he says in retrospect, \"Ithink the idea of parents making the key decisions instead of theteachers is not the best way of running a school.\" 12Underlying these decision making difficulties was the fact that theparent group never did achieve agreement about what kind of school they238wanted. Most founding parents wanted a Deweyan progressive school thatwould challenge their children intellectually and stimulate themcreatively, while providing a good dose of freedom and responsibilityas well. They wanted the teachers to teach and their children tolearn. However, there was a romantic contingent in the community thatidealized Rousseau and A. S. Neill, and some parents continued to arguefor more freedom and less structure. Parents read and discussedNeill's Summerhill with excitement, and although at a conscious levelthey did not want a free school, emotionally many did.The result was constant tension between the two positions and thegroup hired teachers that they thought would be more innovative or moretraditional depending on which way the pendulum happened to be swingingthat year. Hiring was so undisciplined that, even though the schoolclaimed to be \"progressive,\" not one teacher employed during the sixyears of parent administration had been trained in progressive teachingmethods. The only teacher who did have formal progressive training wasDaphne Trivett, but by the time she was hired by the teacher co-operative in 1969, the school had moved so far in the direction of afree school that she was fired after one year.One parent put it well when he wrote to members in 1964: \"I thinkwe are obligated to settle on a straight course of action. If we tryto be everything to everyone well end up being nothing at all.\" 13Robert Stamp echoes this view in his book on alternative education inCanada. He wrote \"although financial worries plague new schoolsfounded by parents, the main reason for their all too frequent failureis conflict over philosophy and approach.\" 14 Allen Graubard, writing239about American free schools, also recognized this serious problem inparent founded schools. 15 The basic disagreement between progressivesand romantics at the New School was never resolved by the parent body.The issue was only settled much later by the teachers when the appealof free schools in the cultural mythology had become irresistable. 15The New School was heavily influenced by the volatile era in whichit existed. After a relatively calm and unquestioning decade in the1950s, the early 1960s gave rise to renewed political and intellectualactivity and an increasing dissatisfaction with a bureaucratic,competitive, and materialistic society. Many New School parents joinedin this activity. Some were socialists of varying degrees and mostwere libertarians opposed to restrictive, regimented, and impersonalinstitutions. Many of the founding parents saw their involvement inthe school as part of an attempt to transform society through theexample of their activities and by transmitting healthier values totheir children.But the New School could not avoid being influenced by many formsof political and social radicalism that emerged during the decade andthe resulting instability weakened the school's original thrust. Bythe late 1960s a myriad of counterculture beliefs, behaviours, andexpressive practices found their way into the New School: artisticexpression, drug use, individual freedom, personal transformation,sexual liberation, anti-intellectualism, feminism, and collectivism.This was a community of adults seeking a new system of values and theeducational goals became more vague. The fact that there were childrenaround was almost incidental.240This failure to maintain a strong professional orientation does notnegate a number of educational accomplishments. During the early yearsstudents were stimulated to think critically, express themselvescreatively, develop problem solving techniques, develop responsilibityfor their own learning and social interactions, and gain confidence andindependence. Even during the free school period, when (so far as onecan tell) little academic learning occurred, students benefitted fromthe extraordinary field trip programme, thus learning about the widercommunity. The New School put \"community education\" into practice morethan five years before the concept became popular in more mainstreameducational circlesSeveral students from the early years credit the New School withmaking them well rounded, tolerant, and socially critical individuals.Many of these former students, now adults in their late twenties andthirties, are well adjusted, creative individuals involved in a varietyof successful academic, artistic, or business careers. Students whoattended the New School during the free school years have not been assuccessful professionally, but made personal gains in social skills,verbal ability, critical evaluation, and self-confidence.It is difficult to assess how significant a role the New Schoolplayed for students in the early years who went on to have successfulschool and professional careers. Many of these young people grew up inhomes surrounded by books and intellectual stimulation and would likelyhave done well in almost any educational environment. Even so, theschool probably did contribute to critical thinking, problem solvingskills, creative expression, and independence. Some students found241similar alternative secondary school programmes, while others hadgained enough confidence to do well in traditional schools. Manyparents believe their children found that confidence at the New School.Others credit the school with stimulating artistic or dramaticinterests, and a significant proportion of New School graduates arepursuing careers in theatre and the visual arts. Still other parentsbelieve that the New School saved their children from unhappy publicschool experiences. Few former students from those early years reporthaving had problems adjusting to public school, and few sufferedacademically. Students developed an ability to evaluate the societyaround them and as one former student said simply, \"at the New Schoolwe learned how to learn.\" 18Basic skills were neglected during all periods of the school'slife.^In the progressive period these were usually limited tomechanical skills such as spelling, grammar, and handwriting. Butreading was not well taught and even in the early years severalstudents did not learn to read adequately. The majority of studentswho did read well learned at home or had learned at public school.The number of non-readers increased significantly during the freeschool and therapeutic periods. Emphasis on academic skills decreasedfurther, students received less academic encouragement at home, andmany stayed at the school for their entire elementary careers, thushaving no chance to catch up. The lack of basic literacy has affectedmany of those students. Alternate education became a way of life andmost attended alternative secondary schools. Very few attendeduniversity and almost none have professional careers. The assessment242of New School education by former students and their parents is farless positive for the post-1968 periods than for the progressive years.The lack of emphasis on academic learning during this period is notsurprising since only two of the ten New School teachers between 1974and 1977 had teaching certificates. 19 By the late 1970s most parents,particularly those of lower income, had come to believe that if theirchildren were to succeed professionally they would have to learn basicliteracy skills.The lack of attention to knowledge and skills was a familiarconcern at free schools across North America causing some former freeschool proponents to re-evaluate their positions. For example, GeorgeDennison wrote: \"If compulsion is damaging and unwise, itsantithesis--a vacuum of free choice—is unreal.\" 2° Jonathan Kozol putit more strongly, arguing that children deserve \"teachers who are notafraid to teach.\" Although he still believed that education should be\"child-centred, open-structured, individualized, and unoppressive,\" hewrote: \"there has been too much uncritical adherence in the freeschool movement to the unexamined notion that you can't teach anything.It is just not true that the best teacher is the grown-up who mostsuccessfully pretends that he knows nothing.\" 21 Thirty-five yearsearlier John Dewey had similar concerns. Near the end of his career hewrote: \"Many of the newer schools tend to make little or nothing oforganized subject matter of study; to proceed as if any form ofdirection and guidance by adults were an invasion of individualfreedom.\"22 This description applied all too accurately to most NewSchool teachers after 1967.243The New School ultimately failed because of financial difficultiesand a change in clientele partly due to its own success in stimulatingalternatives within the public school system. As the school moved morein the direction of a radical free school by 1970 many of the academicand professional families left. The families who replaced them were atthe lower end of the income scale, upsetting the balance by the earlyto mid-1970s. By 1975 almost all New School families existed on themargins of society—poor, single parent families, some on welfare.With almost everyone at the minimum fee there was nobody left to helpsustain the necessary cash flow. Even the most committed teacherscould no longer work for salaries far below the poverty line.The school's financial problems coincided with the increased intakeof special needs students. From a minority of less than ten percentduring the mid-1960s, the numbers grew to well over fifty percent adecade later. These were students unable to cope with the publicschool system due to learning disabilities or emotional problems thatoften originated with families in trouble. This influx created anadded incentive for families with normal children to leave the school,as the students with disabilities were making life difficult for theothers. The special needs kids severely taxed the time and energy ofthe teachers, many of whom were unqualified to help them anyway. Largenumbers of special needs students was a common problem in alternativeschools as there were few programmes for them in the public system.The factors that led to the closure of the New School in 1977 haveparallels in other alternative schools. One instructive example is theRussells' Beacon Hill School which closed in 1943 (sixteen years after244opening). Russell himself put forward four reasons for the closure ofBeacon Hill—the amount of his time and energy the school consumed, theteachers' failure to practise his theory of education, financialinstability due to a large staff and unreliable parents defaulting ontheir fees, and the \"undue proportion\" of Beacon Hill students who were\"problem children.\" 23 These factors are strikingly similar to thecauses of the New School's downfall some thirty-five years later.Brian Headley explains that the Russells did not expect \"suchlively and often destructive children, and they were not properlyprepared to handle them.\" Children with special needs were a concernin many progressive and free schools 24 as parents often sought outexperimental schools in desperation. In the early days of Summerhillmost of Neill's students were delinquents. 25 City and Country Schoolin New York had a large number of students requiring therapy by the1960s.26 Special needs students weakened Ontario's Everdale Place aswell. Everdale's 1969 brochure stated: \"the only entrance requirementfor students is that they be emotionally stable enough to cope with ourcombination of freedom and community.\" 27Although Summerhill and Dartington experienced similar problems offinance and a difficult student body, both schools flourished for manyyears largely because they were run by professional educators. Mostearly American progressive schools also drew their stability fromprofessional founders. 28 The New School, like Beacon Hill, wasweakened by its lack of a long term professional director.Former New School parents found that the public school systemoffered a wider variety of programmes by the mid-1970s and most could245find the kind of alternative education they were seeking in publicschools. Ironically, it was partly the appeal of alternative schoolslike the New School that forced the public schools to re-evaluate whatthey were offering. This was true in other Canadian cities besidesVancouver. 29 At the secondary level, most alternative schools wereintegrated into the Vancouver School District as satellite schools by1975. This did not happen at the elementary level,\" but a few schoolssuch as Bayview Elementary and Dickens Annex became known for theirless formal and more individualized programmes. The New School hadbecome redundant, but some of its ideas found their way into new publicschool programmes. Though a direct causal relationship cannot beproven, it seems obvious that the same factors that led New Schoolparents to seek a more child-centred education for their own childreneventually stimulated change in the public school system.246NOTES1. Cathy Gose, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.2. Stephen Brown, quoted by Julia Brown, tape recorded interview,April, 1987.3. Dorothy Smith, letter to the teachers, April, 1971.4. Daniel Duke, The Retransformation of the School (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1978): 128-129.5. Half of the private elementary alternative schools studied by Dukewere also parent co-operatives. He suggests this organization typewas intended to stimulate feelings of community and compensate forthe loss of control over modern bureaucracies. Daniel Duke, TheRetransformation of the School (1978): 57.6. William Nicholls, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.7. Jonathan Kozol, Free Schools (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972): 19.8. Werner Cohn's paper, \"On New School Governance,\" addressed thisconcern and was seriously debated at the New School in 1963.9. Ellen Tallman, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.10. Gwen Creech's comments about \"founder's syndrome\" were most helpful.11. Lloyd Arntzen, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.12. Norman Epstein, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.13. Charles Christopherson, \"Thoughts on Curriculum,\" 1964.14. Robert Stamp, About Schools (Don Mills: newpress, 1975): 147.15. Allen Graubard, Free the Children (New York: Random House, 1972):47-48. For example, Graubard describes a similar conflict between\"old-fashioned progressives\" and \"romantic anarchists\" at the NewSchool in Plainfield, Vermont.16. The popularity of free schools during the late 1960s was enormous.Graubard reports that over 250 free schools were founded in theUnited States between 1967 and 1970. Free the Children: 41.17. See Robert Stamp, About Schools (Don Mills: new press, 1975): 91-108, for more on early proponents of community education in Canada.18. David Levi, tape recorded interview, April, 1987.24719. A significant number of teachers without professional training wasanother common characteristic of non-public alternative schoolscited by Daniel Duke, Retransformation of the School (1978): 83.20. George Dennison, The Lives of Children (New York: Random House,1969): 110.21. Jonathan Kozol, Free Schools (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972): 31.22. John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1938):22.23. Brian Hendley, Dewey, Russell, Whitehead (Carbondale:^SouthernIllinois University Press, 1986): 65.24. Robert Skidelsky, English Progressive Schools (Middlesex: Penguin,1969): 153.25. A. S. Neill, Introduction to Homer Lane, Talks to Parents andTeachers (New York: Schocken, 1969).26. Aurie Felde, a New School parent, taught for a year at City andCountry School before coming to Vancouver. After her first day inthe classroom she recalls being asked by another teacher \"how manyof your students are in therapy?\" (interview, December, 1991)27. Bob Davis, What Our High Schools Could Be (Toronto: Our Schools/Our Selves, 1990): 41.28. For example, Shady Hill School in Massachusetts, Putney School inVermont, City and Country School in New York, and Peninsula Schoolin California, were all early progressive schools founded byprofessional educators.29. Robert Stamp describes the growing choice offered in the publicschool system by the mid-1970s as well as the increasing number ofpublic alternative schools in About Schools (1975): 127-142.30. However, Windsor House, a \"non-coercive\" independent school inNorth Vancouver, was integrated into the public school system therein 1975.248BIBLIOGRAPHYNew School DocumentsConstitution and Certificate of Incorporation: The New School, 1962.Revised constitution: 1964.Constitution: The New School Teachers Society, 1968. Constitutionalamendments: 1974, 1977. Legal Correspondence: 1968-1977.Annual reports and financial statements registered under Societies Act:New School 1964-1972, New School Teachers Society 1969-1986.New School Prospectus:1962, 1963, 1964, 1968, 1972. Application form: 1972.Teachers' Annual Reports:Lloyd Arntzen, 1963Joyce Beck,^1963Phil Thomas,^1965Doris Gray,^1965School Enrolment Lists:1962/63, 1964/65, 1965/66, 1969/70, 1973/74, 1974/75.Student Report Cards:Lloyd Arntzen, 1963/64.Adele Gabs, Mervine Beagle, 1964/65.School Newsletters: 1962-1977.Financial Records:Budgets, Expence and Income Statements: 1962-1966.Tuition Scales: 1962-1966, 1972.Employment, Payroll, and Income Tax Records: 1972-1977.Finance Committee minutes: 1962-1966.Thrift Shop Records and Receipts: 1968.Request for Neighbourhood Improvement Programme Funds, September, 1975.(Contains statement of school philosophy)Applications for Operating and Building Improvement Grants: 1975-1977.Minutes of Board and Society Meetings: 1962-1977.Staff Meeting Minutes: 1973-1975.Student Newspapers: 1970-71.Letter from Neville Scarfe, Dean of Education U.B.C., October 31, 1963.249Personnel Records:Personnel Committee minutes, notes, reports: 1963-1965.Teacher Applications: 1964, 1977.Job Description for Teacher-Director, 1965.Educational Statements of Graham Smith and Robert Barker(applications for Teacher-Director, 1965)Report of the Ad Hoc Committee (on teacher personnel), December, 1964.Statements on Personnel Crisis, 1964/65:William and Hillary Nicholls, Norman Epstein, Don Brown, Dal Town,Ruth MacCarthy, Maureen Beddoes, Gwen Creech, Alan Tolliday.Letters from ten parents on Personnel Crisis, 1970/71.Admissions Committee Reports: 1963/64.Student Application Forms: 1973-75. (thirteen students)Curriculum Committee Minutes: 1963/64.Curriculum Positions:Don Brown, \"Are We A Progressive School?,\" September, 1963.Charles Christopherson, \"Notes Re Curriculum,\" February, 1964.Pat Hanson, \"Thoughts Re New School Philosophy,\" September, 1963.Gloria Levi, Untitled Curriculum Statement, undated.Brief History of Administration of The New School: one page summarycompiled for parents'information, April, 1972.Planning Committee Proposals: 1963/64.Report on School Building Design and Use and Proposed Renovations,prepared by U.B.C. Architecture Students, 1971.Werner Cohn, \"On New School Governance,\" November, 1963.Fund-raising Announcements and Records: 1962-1968.Volunteer Records, Work Schedules: 1962-1966.Day Care Applications and Records: 1968-1977.Excerpts from personal journals:Julia Brown^1962-1965.Daniel Wood 1971-1973.Mary Schendlinger 1976-1977.Mr. Philip Thomas, Personal Correspondence: 1964/65.\"Can You Wear Earrings in the Woods?,\"^unpublished short story byNora Delahunt Randall, 1976. (description of camping trip)250Personal letters to and from members: 1962-1968.Don Brown to Norman EpsteinNorman Epstein to Don BrownNorman Epstein to the boardDal Town to Norman EpsteinGwen Creech to Phil ThomasNorman Levi to Barry PromislowPhotographs:^Daphne Trivett, Nora Randall, Margot Hansen, ScottRobinson.Saturna Island Free School, Prospectus: 1969.Minutes and Records of New School Teacher's Society Proceedings, 1977to the present.CKLG interview broadcast in 1972 with New School teachers and studentsBarbara Hansen, Dan Wood, Michael Shumiatcher, and Scott Robinson;tape recorded.251Personal InterviewsParents:Mrs. Barbara BeachDr. Don BrownMrs. Julia BrownMrs. Sharon BurrowsMrs. Gwen Creech (Setterfield) *Mrs. Sandra CurrieDr. Norman EpsteinMrs. Marilyn EpsteinMrs. Aurie FeldeDr. Elliot GoseMrs. Kathy GoseDr. Gerry GroweMrs. Nomi Growe (Promislow)Mr. Ron HansenRev. Philip Hewitt *Mrs. Margaret Hewitt *Dr. Stuart JamiesonMrs. Jean JamiesonDr. Ross Johnson *Ms. Jean Kamins *Mr. Roy KiyookaMrs. Gloria LeviMr. Norman LeviMr. Ken MacFarlandMr. Robert MindenDr. William NichollsMrs. Hillary NichollsMr. Barry PromislowMs. Nora RandallMs. Phyllis Robinson *Mrs. Mary SchendlingerMr. David Schendlinger *Mrs. Barbara Shumiatcher *Dr. Fred Stockholder *Mrs. Kay StockholderMrs. Ellen TallmanDr. Warren TallmanMrs. Hilda ThomasMr. Alan TollidayMrs. Elms TollidayDr. Ed WickbergDr. James WinterJune 6, 1991January 29, 1991April 12, 1987December 10, 1991February 15, 1991May 3, 1988April 16, 1987April 7, 1987December 2, 1991April 6, 1987April 10, 1987June 30, 1991June 30, 1991April 6, 1987June 13, 1991June 13, 1991August 11, 1990August 11, 1990November 26, 1991December 21, 1991May 29, 1991April 3, 1987April 3, 1987July 18, 1991August 15, 1988May 6, 1987May 6, 1987February 18, 1991June 7, 1991November 20, 1991June 7, 1991May 15, 1991May 1, 1987April 15, 1987April 7, 1987April 8, 1987May 3, 1988December 10, 1991April 9, 1987April 9, 1987April 29, 1988March 26, 1987Telephone Interviews (untaped)252Students:Mr. Eric EpsteinMs. Cara FeldeMs. Margot HansenMr. Mark JamesMs. Laura JamiesonMs. Kiyo KiyookaMr. David LeviMs. Tamar LeviMs. Dana LongMr. Rob MacFarlandMs. Dewi MindenMr. Paul NichollsMs. Aimee PromislowMr. Scott RobinsonMs. Jan RobinsonMs. Penny Ryan *Ms. Karen SchendlingerMr. Cal ShumiatcherMr. Peter Stockholder *Ms. Karen TallmanMs. Jill TollidayTeachers:Mr. Lloyd ArntzenMr. Phil ThomasMs. Mervine Beagle *Mrs. Else WiseMs. Ann LongMs. Beth Jankola *Ms. Rita CohnMr. Tom DurrieMr. Daryl SturdyMs. Barbara HansenMs. Daphne TrivettMs. Catherine Chamberlain *Mr. Daniel WoodMs. Joan NemtinMs. Margaret SigurgeirsonMs. Sharon Van VolkingburghJuly 18, 1991December 2, 1991July 16, 1991May 12, 1987June 6, 1991June 5, 1991April 16, 1987April 3, 1987June 30, 1987April 10, 1987August 15, 1988April 17, 1991June 12, 1991December 11, 1991December 11, 1991January 14, 1992May 27, 1991April 4, 1987April 15, 1987March 30, 1987April 12, 1987April 6, 1987April 3, 1987June 1, 1991April 14, 1987April 23, 1987June 15, 1988March 30, 1987August 1, 1988April 13, 1987October 22 and 29, 1987October 14, 1987May 15, 1991June 23, 1988December 31, 1987November 14, 1991November 18, 1991Other IndividualsMs. Starla Anderson *^ April 30, 1987Ms. Helen Hughes * January 6, 1992Dr. Peter Seixas April 5, 1987; January 5, 1992Mrs. Mary Thomson *^ April 15, 1991Mrs. Mai Lai Wong * November 15, 1991253Newspaper ArticlesVancouver Sun and Vancouver Province, 1961-1976\"Four Profs Plan Own School,\" Sun, Feb. 7, 1961, p. 1.\"New School Bases Fees on Income,\" Sun, March 29, 1961, p. 12.\"City Progressive School Waives Rules,\" Sun, Sept. 10, 1962, p. 11.\"Exams Passe for Children at New School,\" Province, June 12 1963, p.17.\"School Hires Boss,\" Sun, June 22, 1965, p. 9.\"Conservative England Liberal in Education,\" Sun, July 8, 1965, p. 38.\"No Exams, Reports at New School,\" Sun, April 26, 1966, p. 27.\"It's Recess All Day at Vancouver's New School\" Sun, May 12 1967, p.14.\"Far-Out School to Be More Free,\" Sun, August 17, 1967, p. 20.\"Free School Surge Spontaneous Development,\" Sun, Dec. 28, 1967, p. 16.\"Freedom Itself Not Enough\", Sun, Dec. 28, 1967, p. 16.\"Free Schools Swap Ideas,\" Province, Dec. 29, 1967, p. 6.\"Boss System Hard to Shake Free School Teacher, Sun, Dec. 29 1967, p.13\"Public Schools Turning Out Slaves or Rebels,\" Sun, Dec. 30, 1967, p.13\"Free School Head Asks for Apology,\" Sun, Feb. 8, 1968, p. 11.\"MLA Erred\" (letter), Sun, Feb. 14, 1968, p. 5.\"Parents Split School, Disagree With Methods,\" Sun, June 1, 1968, p. 7.\"We Took 24 Kids 1,500 Miles Across B. C.,\" Sun, July 6, 1972, p. 41.\"Students do the Talking at New School,\" Province, Oct. 4, 1972, p. 41.\"Arsonist Burns School,\" Province, June 11, 1975, p. 7.\"Public Invited to New School,\" Sun, April 30, 1976, p. 30.\"Vandal-damaged School Struggling to Survive,\" Sun, March 15 1976, p.25\"New School Changes Education View\"(letter), Sun, March 23, 1976, p. 5.254Related Newspaper Articles New School \"Tell CYC to go, says Socred,\" Sun, Feb. 7, 1967, p. 14.\"Day Care Group Sues,\" Sun, March 25, 1974, p. 70.Barker Free School \"School Never Like This,\" Province, Feb. 14, 1968, p. 21.\"Money Aid Denied,\" Sun, March 18, 1968, p. 56.\"Column, Bob Hunter,\" Sun, Sept. 5, 1969, p. 19.Saturna Island Free School (partial listing)\"Curriculum Unwanted,\" Victoria Colonist, Aug. 4, 1968, p. 25.\"Salt Air Forest,\" Colonist, Sept. 22, 1968, p. 25.\"Health Inspector Visits School,\" Victoria Times, May 14, 1969, p. 11.\"Head Hints Persecution,\" Sun, May 23, 1969, p. 2.\"Free Schools Doomed,\" Times, May 29, 1969, p. 23.\"Free School Conditions Set,\" Province, June 12, 1969, p. 51.\"School Running Despite Decree,\" Times, June 14, 1969, p. 2.\"Two Views on School,\" Times, June 24, 1969, p. 5.\"Order Disputed,\" Times, Aug. 1, 1969, p. 19.\"Let Children Decide,\" Colonist, Aug. 7, 1969, p. 23.\"Artificial School Environment Avoided,\" Times, Aug. 7, 1969, p. 16.\"Red Tape in Schoolhouse,\" Times, Aug. 8, 1969, p. 4.\"No Closure Yet,\" Times, Aug. 23, 1969, p. 12.\"School Opening on Schedule,\" Colonist, Aug. 28, 1969, p. 40.\"Controversial School Enrols 20 Students,\" Province, Sept. 11 1969 p.17\"Informal Learning Best Way,\" Sun, Nov. 24, 1969, p. 18.\"School Completes Year,\" Times, June 27, 1970, p. 12.255Articles by New School Teachers Durrie, Tom. \"Free Schools: Threat to the System or Harmless LunaticFringe.\" First published in The B. C. Teacher. Vancouver: B. C.Teachers' Federation, May, 1969. Reprinted in The Best of Times/ The Worst of Times Contemporary Issues in Canadian Education,eds., Hugh Stevenson, Robert Stamp, and J. Donald Wilson.Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1972: 474-479.Durrie, Tom. \"Free Schools: The Answer or the Question.\" In MustSchools Fail? The Growing Debate in Canadian Education, eds.,Niall Byrne, and Jack Quarter. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart,1972: 33-44.Long, Anne. \"The New School—Vancouver.\" In Radical School Reform,eds., Beatrice and Ronald Gross. New York: Simon and Schuster,1969: 273-296.Wood, Daniel. \"The New School.\" Georgia Straight, Vancouver: 1972.Wood, Daniel. \"The Fears of Public School Teachers.\" In The B. C. Teacher. Vancouver: B. C. Teachers' Federation, February, 1974:170-172.MethodologyBarman, Jean.^\"Accounting for Gender and Class in Retreiving theHistory of Canadian Childhood,\" Canadian History of EducationAssociation Bulletin, V, 2 (1988): 5-27.Barman, Jean.^Exploring Vancouver's Past.^Vancouver: CentennialCommission, 1984.Reimer, Derek, ed. Voices A Guide to Oral History. Victoria: B.C.Archives, 1984.Sutherland, Neil.^\"Listening to the Winds of Childhood: The Role ofMemory,\" Canadian History of Education Association Bulletin, V, 1(1988): 5-29.Thompson, Paul. The Voice of the Past. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1978.256BooksEarly Formative WorksDewey, John. Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan, 1916.Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan, 1938.Day, Thomas. History of Sanford and Merton. London: 1786.Darwin, Erasmus. A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools. London: 1797.Edgeworth, Richard and Maria. Essays on Practical Education. London:1822.Freinet, Celestin. Co-operative Learning and Social Change. Trans.Clandfieild and Sivel. Toronto: Our Schools/OurSelves, 1990.Lane, Homer. Talks to Parents and Teachers. New York: Schoken, 1928.Neill, A. S. Summerhill. New York: Hart, 1960.Priestley, Joseph. Miscellaneous Observations Relating to Education.London: 1778.Rousseau, J. J. Emile (1762). Trans. B. Foxley, London: Dent, 1911.Smith, J. W. Ashley^The Birth of Modern Education (London:Independent Press, 1954).American and English Progressive and Free SchoolAshton-Warner, Sylvia Teacher. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1964.Barrow, Robin. Radical Education: A Critique of Freeschoolinq andDeschoolinq. London: Martin Robertson, 1978.Bowles, Samuel and Gintis, Herbert. Schooling in Capitalist America.New York: Basic Books, 1976.Bremer, John, and von Moschzisker, Michael. The School Without Walls.New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.Clark, Ronald. The Life of Bertrand Russell, London: Jonathan Cape,1975.257Cremin, Lawrence. The Transformation of the School. New York: Knopf,1961.Cremin, Lawrence. American Education: The Metropolitan Experience.New York: Harper and Row, 1988.Dennison, George. The Lives of Children. New York: Random House, 1969.Duke, Daniel. The Retransformation of the School. New York: NelsonHall, 1978.Greenberg, Daniel and Hanna.^The Sudbury Vally School Experience.Framingham, Mass.: Sudbury Valley School Press, 1985.Featherstone, Joseph.^Schools Where Children Learn.^New York:Liveright, 1971.Friedenberg, Edgar. Coming of Aqe in America. New York: Vintage,1965.Goodman, Paul. Compulsory Mis-Education. New York: Knopf, 1964.Graubard, Allen. Free the Children. New York: Random House, 1972.Greenway, Robert and Rasberry, Salli. Rasberry Exercises. Freestone:Freestone, 1971.Hendley, Brian. Dewey Russell, Whitehead: Philosophers as Educators.Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986.Herndon, James.^The Way It's Spozed to Be. New York: Simon andSchuster, 1968.Holt, John. How Children Fail. New York: Pitman, 1964.Illich, Ivan. Deschoolinq Society. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.Katz, Michael.^Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools: The Illusion ofEducational Change in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart, andWinston, 1971.Kaye, Michael. The Teacher was the Sea. San Francisco: Links, 1972.Kozol, Jonathan. Death at an Early Aqe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1967.Kozol, Jonathan. Free Schools. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972.Kohl, Herbert. The Open Classroom. New York: New York Review, 1969.Kohl, Herbert. 36 Children. New York: New American Library, 1967.258Leonard, George. Education and Ecstacv. New York: Dell, 1968.Lloyd, Susan.^The Putney School: A Progressive Experiment. NewHaven: Yale, 1987.Mayhew and Edwards. The Dewey School. New York: Appleton-Century, 1936.Postman, Neil and Weingartner, Charles.^Teaching as a SubversiveActivity. New York: Delacorte, 1969.Silberman, Charles. Crisis in the Classroom. New York: Random House,1970.Simon, Brian.^Studies in the History of Education.^Vol. 1, 2.London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1960, 1965.Skidelsky, Robert. English Progressive Schools. Middlesex: Penguin,1969.Snitzer, Herb. Today is For Children. New York: Macmillan, 1972.Stewart, W. A. C. The Educational Innovators: Progressive Schools1881-1967. London: Macmillan, 1968.Canadian Alternative EducationBarman, Jean, Growing Up British in British Columbia, Vancouver:U.B.C. Press, 1984.Burton, Anthony. The Horn and the Beanstalk. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart,and Winston Canada, 1972.Byrne, Niall, and Quarter, Jack, ed. Must Schools Fail? Toronto:McClelland and Stewart, 1972.Davis, Bob. What Our High Schools Could Be. Our Schools/Our Selves,1990.Kirsh, Levin, and Simon.^Directory of Canadian Alternative andInnovative Education. Toronto: Communitas Exchange, 1973.McKague, Ormand.^Socialist Education in Saskatchewan:^1942-1948.Ph. D. diss. University of Oregon, 1981.Martell, George, ed.^The Politics of the Canadian Public School.Toronto: James Lewis and Samuel, 1974.Morrison, Terence, and Burton, Anthony, eds. Options: Reforms andAlternatives. Toronto:^Holt, Rinehart, and Winston Canada,1973.259Myers, Douglas, ed.^The Failure of Educational Reform in Canada.Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973.Novak, Mark.^Living and Learning in the Free School.^Toronto:McClelland and Stewart, 1975.Repo, Satu, ed. This Book is About Schools. New York: Random House,1970.Stamp, Robert. About Schools. Toronto: New Press, 1975.Stevenson, Hugh A., Stamp, Robert M., and Wilson, J. Donald, ed.The Best of Times The Worst of Times Contemporary Issues inCanadian Education. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.Sutherland, Neil. Children in English Canadian Society. Toronto:University of Toronto Press, 1976.Welton, Michael. To Be and Build the Glorious World. Ph. D. diss.,University of British Columbia, 1983.Willinsky, John.^The Educational Legacy of Romanticism. Waterloo:Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1991.Wood, B. Anne.^Idealism Transformed: The Making of a ProgressiveEducator. Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1985.Institutional and Royal Commission ReportsChant, S. N. F.^Report of the Royal Commission on Education.Victoria: Government of B. C., 1960.Hall Dennis Report.^Living and Learning.^Toronto: Government ofOntario, 1968.B. C. Teachers' Federation. Involvement: The Key to Better Schools,Vancouver: 1968.American AnthologiesCarr, John C., Grambs, Jean D., and Campbell E. G., ed. Pygmalion orFrankenstein: Alternative Schooling in American Education. NewYork: Addison Wesley, 1977.Gross, Beatrice, and Gross, Ronald, ed.^Radical School Reform.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969.Troost, Cornelius J., ed.^Radical School Reform: Critique andAlternatives. Boston: Little Brown, 1973.260ArticlesBerton, Patricia. \"A Choice in Schools: Free—Everdale Place.\"^InThe Best of Times, The Worst of Times, eds. Hugh Stevenson, RobertStamp, and J. Donald Wilson, Toronto: Holt, Rinehart, and WinstonCanada, 1972: 470-473. First published in Miss Chatelaine, 1969.Cremin, Lawrence.^\"The Free School Movement: A Perspective.\"^InPygmalion or Frankenstein: Alternative Schooling in AmericanEducation, ed. Carr, Grambs, and Campbell. Reading, Massachusetts:Addison-Wesley, 1977: 223. First published in Notes on Education2. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, Oct., 1973.Egan, Kieran. \"Relevance and the Romantic Imagination.\" In CanadianJournal of Education 16:1 (1991): 58-71.Greer, Colin.^\"Romanticism, Rheumatism, and Public Education.\" InPygmalion or Frankenstein, op. cit:^173.^First published inGreer, Cobweb Attitudes. New York: Teachers College Press, 1970.Hentof, Margot and Hentof, Nat. \"The Schools We Want.\" In SaturdayReview, September 19, 1970.Hook, Sidney. \"John Dewey and his Betrayers.\" In Radical School ReformCritique and Alternatives, op cit: 57. Originally published inChange, November, 1971: 22.Kozol, Jonathan. \"Schools for Survival.\" In This Magazine Is AboutSchools, Toronto: Everdale Place, 1971: 37-43.Kozol, Jonathan. \"Free Schools: A Time for Candor.\" In Radical SchoolReform Critique and Alternatives, eds. Cornelius Troost, Boston:Little Brown, 1973: 80-88. First published in Saturday Review,March 4, 1972: 51-54.Kozol, Jonathan.^\"Free Schools Fail Because They Don't Teach.\" InPygmalion or Frankenstein: Alternative Schooling in AmericanEducation, ed. Carr, Grambs, and Campbell, Reading, Massachusetts:Addison-Wesley, 1977: 192.Mann, Jean.^\"G. M. Weir and H. B. King: Progressive Education orEducation for the Progressive State.\" In Schooling and Society in20th Century British Columbia, J. Donald Wilson and David Jones,eds., Calgary: Detselig, 1980: 91-118.Myers, Douglas. \"Where Have all the Free Schools Gone? A conversationwith Bob Davis, Satu Repo, George Martell.\" In This Magazine Is About Schools. Toronto: Everdale Place, Winter 1972/73: 90. Firstpublished in Canadian Forum. Also in Myers, ed. (1973): 75-94.261Patterson, R. S. \"Progressive Education: Impetus to Educational Changein Alberta and Saskatchewan.\" In The New Provinces: Alberta andSaskatchewan, eds. Howard Palmer and Donald Smith, Vancouver:Tantalus, 1980: 169-191.Patterson, R.S. \"Hubert C. Newland, Theorist of Progressive Education.\"In Profiles of Canadian Educators, eds. Chambers and Friesen,Toronto: Heath, 1974: 292-305.Patterson, R.S. \"The Implementation of Progressive Education in Canada\"In Essays on Canadian Education, 1986: 79-93.Stamp, Robert M.^\"Paying for those Free Schools.\"^In Macleans.Toronto: May, 1973: 100.Sutherland, Neil.^\"The New Education in Anglophone Canada.\" InThe Curriculum in Canada in Historical Perspective, ed. GeorgeTomkins. Vancouver: 1979: 49-59.Sutherland, Neil. \"The Triumph of Formalism Elementary Schooling inVancouver from the 1920's to the 1960's.\" In B. C. Studies,Vancouver: University of B. C. Press, Spring, 1986: 175-210.Wilson, J.Donald. \"From the Swinging Sixties to the Sobering Seventies\"In Precepts, Policy, and Process: Perspectives on ContemporaryCanadian Education eds. Hugh Stevenson and J.Donald Wilson, London,Ontario: 1977: 21-36.This Magazine Is About Schools, 1966-1972, for numerous articles aboutEverdale place and other Canadian alternative schools.British Columbia Alternate EducationAnderson, Starla. \"Mainstreaming Progressive Education.\"^In WorkingTeacher, 2, 3 (1978): 8-15.Berland J., and McGee D. \"Literacy: The Atrophy of Competence.\" InWorking Teacher, 1, 1 (1977): 18-26, 1, 2 (1977): 29-34.Bloomfield, Rate.^\"Free and Easy Sundance.\" In The B. C. Teacher.Vancouver: B. C. Teachers' Federation, 1974.B. C. Teachers' Federation, Essential Educational Experiences, 1977.Durrie, Tom.^\"Saturna Island Free School:^Learning how to live;learning how to learn.\" Victoria: Social Science Research, 1969.Durrie, Tom.^\"Saturna Island Free School. \"^(school prospectus)Saturna Island, B. C.: Free School Press, 1969.262Grescoe, Audrey. \"Working Classrooms Alternate Education in Vancouver.\"In Vancouver, January, 1975: 24-29.Hughes, Helen. \"Windsor House: A History\". Unpublished, 1975.Jackie. \"School's Out. A Review of Free and Alternate Schools.\" InThe Grape, June 28, 1972.Matas, Robert. \"Echoes of Experiment Still Heard.\" The Globe and Mail,January 4, 1991, p. A3.Minden, Robert. \"Sitting on the Bookshelf.\" This Magazine is aboutSchools. 3, 4 (Autumn, 1969): 112-117.Sarti, Robert. \"Decision Making in a Vancouver Alternative School,\"U.B.C., Unpublished undergraduate research paper, 1974.Young, John. \"A Rural High School Tries Freedom.\" This Magazine is about Schools. 1, 3 (Winter, 1967): 63-70.263APPENDICESAppendix 1:^New School TeachersLloyd Arntzen (head teacher) 1962-1964Joyce Beck 1962-1964Carol Williams 1963-1964Phil Thomas 1964-1965Mervine Beagle 1964-1965Adele Gabs: 1964-1965Graham Smith (director) 1965-1967Else Wise 1965-1966Doris Gray 1965-1966Anne Long 1966-1969Beth Jankola 1966-1967, 1968-1970Margo Morgan 1966-1967Tom Durrie (director) 1967-1968Rita Cohn 1967-1971Diane McNairn 1967-1968Daryl Sturdy 1968-1973Kate Barlow 1968-1969Daphne Trivett 1969-1970Barbara Hansen 1969-1977Catherine Pye 1969-1971Katherine Chamberlain 1969-1970, 1971-1972Saralee James 1970-1973Geoff Madoc-Jones 1970-1971Tim Frizell 1970-1971Claudia Stein 1970-1973Joan Nemtin 1971-1974Dan Wood 1971-1973Jonnet Garner 1971-1974Margaret Sigurgeirson 1973-1976Ellen Nickels 1973-1976Steve Rutchinski 1973-1974Dan Morner 1974-1976Kathy Stafford 1974-1975Margaret Rey 1974-1975Sharon Van Volkingburgh 1975-1977Linda Proudfoot 1975-1976Judy de Barros 1976-1977Jill Fitzell 1976-1977Janet Robinson 1976-1977Appendix 2: New School Parent Boards 1962-19681962/63 ^ 1963/64 ^ 1964/65 Elliot Gose (president)Don BrownCharles ChristophersonGwen CreechNorman EpsteinPat HansonEan HayKen McFarlandAlan TollidayEan Hay Gwen CreechDon Brown^ Marc BeachCharles Christopherson^Michael BeddoesGwen Creech Norman EpsteinNorman Epstein^Pat HansonElliot Gose Ellen TallmanPat Hanson Alan TollidayAndy Johnston^Dal TownEllen Tallman Jim Winter1965/66 Elliott GoseNorman EpsteinNorman LeviKen McFarlandDoug McGinnisWilliam NichollsDaphne ShawMarvin StarkAlan Tolliday1966/67 Barry PromislowKathy GoseHank HansonH. HillSaralee JamesJean JamiesonAlice McFarlandEllen TallmanElma Tolliday1967/68 Jean KuytKay StockholderDon BabcockA. DorlandSaralee JamesKen McFarlandG. RobertsDoris RogowayAlan Tolliday265Appendix 3: Interview QuestionsParents 1. What aspects of the public school system caused you to look for analternative kind of education for your children?2. How and when did you become involved in The New School?3. What do you remember about your child's teachers, the curriculum,classroom activities, memorable educational experiences?4. Describe decision making, meetings, committees, and finances.5. What do you remember about the hiring and supervision of teachers?6. Tell me about the school community—maintaining the building,transporting children, social events, and personal interaction.7. What do you remember about philosophical and administrative debatesand where did you stand on these issues?8. Describe any specific crises and events that you remember.9. What do you remember about some of the other parents and children?10. When did your children leave The New School and why?11. Describe your childrens' subsequent education and present career.12. What were the results of The New School experience for you and yourchildren?Teachers 1. Why were you interested in teaching at an alternative school?2. How and when did you become involved in The New School?3. Describe your philosophy, the curriculum, and classroom activities.4. How much freedom did the students have and in what circumstancesaid you make the decisions?5. What was it like being employed and supervised by the parents?6. Tell me about decision making, meetings, and staff relations?7. What do you remember about specific events and philosophical oradministrative debates.2668. What do you remember about specific students and their parents?9. Describe the circumstances of your leaving the school.10. What is your present assessment of your New School experience?Students 1. Why do you think your parents looked for an alternative school?2. During which grades did you attend The New School?3. What do you remember about your teachers?4. Describe specific classroom activities and subjects you remember.5. How much freedom did you have in the classroom and in general?6. What do you remember about creative arts, co-operation, playgroundactivities, field trips, and the school building?7. Describe relations among the students and how it felt to be part ofthe school community.8. What do you remember about the reading programme? Was reading aproblem for you at the New School or for other students you knew?When and how did you learn to read?9. What do you remember about other individual students?10. Do you remember when and why you left The New School?11. Did you have any problems re-adjusting to public school?12. Describe your subsequent education and what you are doing now.13. How do you think you benefited most from your experience at The NewSchool and what were the negative aspects?267Appendix 4: New School Parents and StudentsThis is close to a complete list of parents and students. Parentsare listed according to the first enrolment list on which they appear.Students are listed according to period although there is some overlap.New School Parents1962/63 Thomas BalabanovOlive BalabanovMarc BeachBarbara BeachDon BrownJulia BrownDouglas CameronAnne CameronCharles ChristophersonWerner CohnRita CohnRobert CreechGwen CreechJoseph CustockPeggy CustockHoni EngineerMrs. EngineerNorman EpsteinMarilyn EpsteinBrian EthridgeMrs. EthridgeJoyce FoxJames GarnerMrs. GarnerAlexander GeddesMrs. GeddesHarry GomezHelen GomezElliott GoseKathy GoseHank HansonPat HansonEan HayMary HayJack HiltonAndrew JohnstonNorah JohnstonNorman LeviGloria LeviMac McCarthyRuth McCarthyKen McFarlandAlice McFarlandEdward MartinMarion MartinRene MontereyWilliam SmithNancy SmithAndrew SniderDorothy Davies (Snider)Warren TallmanEllen TallmanAlan TollidayElma TollidayBryan WilliamsMrs. WilliamsJim WinterRuth Winter2681964/65 Michael BeddoesMaureen BeddoesRhonda BilnCharles BurtinshawAnne BurtinshawNancy ButlerJack CaplanIrene CaplanLouis DelacheroisPeggy DelacheroisDarrell DrakeDoris DrakeHarry GardnerEmily GardnerLeslie HartJean HartPeter IrelandMarlene IrelandStuart JamiesonJean JamiesonMarie Janssen (Berg)George JohnsonElla JohnsonBernie KeelyAudrey KeelyDouglas McGinnisAlice McGinnisWilliam MundyAnne MundyWilliam NichollsHilary NichollsKenneth PinderHannelori PinderJohn ReddenJean ReddenBert RogowayDoris RogowayRobert ShawDaphne ShawJudah ShumiatcherBarbara ShumiatcherMarvin StarkLois StarkHamish TaitGraeme TaitHilda ThomasDal TownMargaret TownDoug Worthington1965/66 David BergGlen CrawfordJean CrawfordRonald CrossViolet CrossPercy De KovenAudrey De KovenW. J. Ferguson Jr.Sharel FergusonPhillip HewettMargaret HewettRobert HillHelen HillMichael JamesScotty McIntyreShirley McIntyrePatrick MurphyMarion MurphyCorinne ParkinBarry PromislowNaomi Promislow (Growe)Harry ScarlettGrace ScarlettRoy SlakowJo SlakowJoyce SmithMiriam Ulrich1967/68 Don BabcockA. DorlandGerard FarryRoss JohnsonOlive JohnsonJean KuytYope KuytGuy RobertsLili RobertsWendy SchoenfeldFred StockholderKay StockholderDonna WarnockJoe Warnock2691969/70Don BurbageWilda BurbageJim CarterRaids CarterDarcy CavanaughLorilie CavanaughPierre CoupeySuan CoupeyAnn DerdynConrad DerdynVictor DorayAudrey DorayRoy EkPat EkMax FeldeAurora FeldeHelen FriedsonGillian FrithJohn FrithBob GillilandGwyn GillilandGina GoodmanB. GoodmanGerry GroweSarah Jane GroweJoan HaggertyRon HansenMary HartPeter HartMina HilckmannBert HilckmannClaire IronsideJames IronsideRenee JacksonSherill JacksonJoe JankolaJacqueline LaugfordKen LaugfordTed KirwinMelissa KirwinRoy KiyookaLuke LeePauline LeeJack LipskyJune LipskyDavid LongJulia LevyLeo McGradyDenise McGradyMarg MurrayKenneth MurrayBob OrdJune PasseyTom PasseyArkene RainLloyd RainMaxwell RedmanPearl RedmanSidney SimonsBeverley SimonsDorothy SmithLynn StewartVaughn StewartJoyce TempleCampbell TrowsdaleAnnette TrowsdaleNick TroobitscoffElizabeth TroobitscoffTom WarrenEd WickbergEllen WickbergErnest ZachariasJoyce Zacharias2701971/72 Roy BlundenPatricia BlundenBill BissettJames BurrowsSharon BurrowsHarry DicksonVirginia DicksonMarie GeorgeJohn GillespieIngrid GillespieSally GrundyPeter HartMary Louise HartStoner HavenNorine HavenPhilip HenwoodDonna HenwoodPatricia HoganGeorge HurstThelma HurstCarolyn JeromeRolla KromhoffLois KromhoffPaul LaeserLouise LaeserRon LinesLinda LinesOlive LyreVictoria LyreRobert MindenMaureen MindenRichard NannBeverly NannSondra NelsonSharma OliverJerone ParadieBarbara ParadieSally PatersonKris PatersonArthur ProsserMarilyn ProsserFrank QuimbyAlexandra QuinbyBarbara ReichPhyllis RobinsonBasil RobinsonKris RobinsonJeri RileyDayle RobertshawEa RockwellLouise SchmidtBeverly SteelDianne StephensThomas StormChristine StormPeter TattersallKristina TattersallBryce ThompsonElizabeth ThompsonBonnie TownsendBeverly TurnerBeverly WatlingWilliam WatlingMaree WebbGordon WhiteJudith WhiteAnne WingVicki ZerbaTony Zerba2711973/74 Shirley AndersonAlvin AndersonSonia AndersonSusan BarrieTeresa BledsoeColleen BourkeMary CaleyJosie CookNadine CrawfordSandra CurrieDean CurrieColette FrenchMichel GoyerAndree GoyerPat GrovesJan LyonDorrie HomuthVeronica HookerBill HookerHilda KellingtonElizabeth KennyJean KnaigerPhil KnaigerRose LongeniMary MurrayRichard NeilElizabeth NeilBill NemtinMavis PareisNick PareisEsther PhillipsPeter ReadChuck SigmundJudy SigmundJudy SmithWayne SmithJoyce StewartJohn Van de WeteringRia Van de Wetering1975/76 Zaria AndrewMs. AppelbeDenise ChattenMaralynn CobbMargaret CohenSheila DelanyPaul DelanyMarie DeschampsGraham DeschampsEllen FrankRalph FrankJutta GautreyJudy GoodrichPenny JoyAnnabelle LawrenceLeona LeachJudith LynneDorothy MacArthurJeannie MacGregorM. MaiserGwethalyn MorangBetty PerdueDorothy PhillipsIrene PiltzHans PiltzNora RandallLark RyanMary SchendlingerDavid SchendlingerJudi VerkerkMary WertheimBarbara WrightNew School Students: 1962-1967 Holly ArntzenJenny ArntzenAlbert BalabanovThomas BalabanovKatrin BergBritten BeachGalen BeachAndrew BeddoesPaul BeddoesJohn BilnDarcy BilnBarbara BilnJulie BurtinshawChristopher ButlerStephen BrownClaire BrownGary CaplanSandra ChristophersonJudith CohnJonathan CohnRachel CohnNaomi CohnLeslie CrawfordPhilip CrawfordAndrea CreechJuliana CreechCandy CrossSusan CustockDebbie CustockMichael De KovenSheri De KovenDana De KovenDavid DelacheroisBilly DrakeMerwan EngineerMichael EpsteinRachel EpsteinEric EpsteinKatherine EthridgeJohn FergusonRachel FoxJoan GardnerTed GarnerLance GeddesThomas GomezPeter GoseSally GoseKarl HansonKathleen HansonNadine HartColin HayToby HayPeter HewettLisanne HillPeter HiltonTara IrelandJonathan JamesMark JamesLaurie JamiesonDouglas JohnsonGraeme JohnstonHeather KeelyDavid LeviTamar LeviWayne LeviDermot McCarthyLorrie McFarlandRob McFarlandRay McGinnisCharles McIntyreAndrew MartinDean MontereyMichael MundyPaul MundyMichele MurphyPaul NichollsVincent ParkinLillian PinderThomas ReddenLaurie RogowayJeffrey RogowayEric PromislowStacey ShawGlen ShawCal ShumiatcherKeith SmithDrew SniderAndy StarkKaren TallmanKen TallmanJohn TaitMichael ThomasJill TollidayChris TownRandy TownBarbara TownCatherine TownJason UlrichBryan WilliamsRobert WinterJan WorthingtonLynn Worthington273New School Students: 1967-1972 Christopher BlundenUlia BissettJustine BrownAndrea BurbageSuzanne BurbageHeather CarterStephanie CarterBronwen CavanaughMark CavanaughRomilly CavanaughMarc CoupeyStuart DerdynShelley DicksonSilvia DicksonJason DorayKurt EkHeather FrithWilliam FriedsonMenoa FriedsonCara FeldeGalen FeldeDamion GeorgeBen GerwingSean GillespieMia GillispieBrian GillilandStephen GillilandJoey GoodmanJessica GroweAdam GroweMichael GrundyTeresa GrundyMargot HansenNicki HansenRobin HansenLisa HartGregory HartAnn HavenCurtis HenwookNucho HilckmannJaime HoganKathi HurstAndrea IronsideCybele lronsideJody JankolaJohn JankolaDavid JamesSusan JamesRobbie JacksonKim JacksonWren JacksonAndrea JeromeLeslie JeromeChris JohnsonSean KirwinFumiko KiyookaKiyo KiyookaTim KromhoffBrian LaeserNic LaugfordMichail LeeBenjamin LevyMichael LinesDana LongJohn LongShannon LyreLaura MacDougallTim McGradyAndrea MindenDewi MindenBruce MurrayAnnie NelsonAndrea NemtinAngela OliverMichael OrdLia ParadieGordon PasseyCameron PatersonAimee PromislowDaniel PromislowOthes ProsserAlison RainDhana RedmanTimshell RileyLesley RobertsDonald RobertshawJan RobinsonPaul RobinsonRick RobinsonScott RobinsonDawn RockwellAudrey RumbergerTom SchmidtMichael ShumiatcherKarl SigurgiersonDarien SimonsKeiron SimonsParis SimonsDaryl SmithSteven SmithTony Stark274Jennifer Steel^ Jill TownsendPeter Stockholder Ohad TownsendNicholas Storm David WattlingJason Tattersall^ Martin WebbGarrick Trowsdale Andrew WhiteGavin Trowsdale Laurel WickbergStuart Temple^ Dan WickbergJesse Thompson Eric WickbergChad Townsend Karen TroobitskoffDirk Townsend^ Martin WingNew School Students: 1972-1977 Fane AllenChristian AndersonKaare AndersonMaya AndersonSkeeter AndrewMary BakerAndrew BarrieNathan BledsoeAdam BourkeDominic BourkeIrene BurrowsDavid BurrowsEvan BurrowsRachel CaleyLeanna ChattenNicky ChattenRonnie ChattenTammany CrawfordAndrew CrossRobbie CrossLouise CurrieMichael CurrieTom CurriePaul CurrieSteven CurrieSiobhan DevlinJesse FrankSarah FrenchNatalie GoyerSusannah GrovesPeter HahnTed HeyesDarren HomuthLorna HomuthJessica HookerMichael KellingtonRachael KnaigerMeika KnaigerKerry LangakerTristan LarkBo LonginiLydia LonginiLee LonginiBrendan NeilJohn MacGregorDarren HeiserStuart MurrayBruce QuinbyGreg QuinbyHeath QuinbyRohan QuinbyBrian PareisBrad PareisGreg PareisRicky PeakeDeiter PiltzDominic ReadNick ReadOna ReadPenny RyanAlex RyanFrankie RyanTristan RyanKaren SchendlingerDavid SigmundTeddy StevensDavid StevensBrad StewartJessie SmithLynn TaylorChris TurnerDavid TurnerMarion Van de WeteringAnita ViganegoTerri WrightHo-tai Zerba275"@en ; edm:hasType "Thesis/Dissertation"@en ; vivo:dateIssued "1992-05"@en ; edm:isShownAt "10.14288/1.0086416"@en ; dcterms:language "eng"@en ; ns0:degreeDiscipline "Social Studies Education"@en ; edm:provider "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en ; dcterms:publisher "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:rights "For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use."@en ; ns0:scholarLevel "Graduate"@en ; dcterms:title "The New School, 1962-1977"@en ; dcterms:type "Text"@en ; ns0:identifierURI "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/1847"@en .