Montreal Freeschool

Home school, un-school, de-school, free school!

Aimée van Drimmelen

Organizers of the Montreal Free School meet at a local café to discuss their next moves. (photo: Aimée van Drimmelen)

Things can move quickly outside the system. It’s been but a few short months since a group of 30 parents, children and community members first met in NDG to discuss starting a Free School in Montreal. Today they are a third of the way through their first trial semester and have catered to an estimated 100 participants.

“A lot of us feel there’s a need for an alternative, and we’re trying to provide solutions,” says Naomi Lasry, an initiator of the Montreal Free School. “In the public system, children seek validation to feel successful through marks, grades, tests. Free School is self-driven.”

Following models like the Albany Free School in New York and the Tatamagouche Summer Free School in Nova Scotia, the MFS takes a “popular education” approach, avoiding the hierarchy of talking-head lectures and encouraging students to drive their own learning process as much as possible.

Workshops are currently geared towards both children and adults, and include titles like Learning to Draw, Theatre and Improvisation, and Community Radio as Direct Action. There is no set curriculum, and anyone is welcome to come forward with a course or workshop proposal, or get involved in co-ordinating the project.

Once the trial semester is complete, organizers will meet and decide how to move forward with the project, including funding, finding a centralized space for their operations, and continued outreach to Montreal’s diverse communities. “Everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn,” says Lasry. “What you put in is what you get out of it.”

(You can read the original article on the Hour website.)