Free Skool Meeting
Minutes for Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Attendance: Kiran, Zoe, Shawn, Casey, Erin, Anthony, John N., John F., John H., Anders, Christ, Caitland, Robert, Emma, Rusty
Checkins
Kiran: I work in an after school program and I found out that the curriculum is very flexible, e.g., we can we can invite speakers and other people to teach classes. Contact me if you want to get involved. I also looked up City College and found a bunch of super cool free classes. We may have some problems promoting it though. We should talk to people and see how they do it, and see if any of the teachers would be willing to do anything for free.
Zoe: I got good vibes from Tinkers, the Cogs, Cycles of Change, Youth Bike Adventures and Missing Link. The bee keeping workshop looks like a one-day event. There maybe other things from me. I know somebody doing free Jazz Classes for kids by the lake.
Shawn: I'm in contact with Launchpad to do a welding class. Stay tuned...
Anders: I know somebody that wants to a firearms FreeSkool (very legal). I also know somebody that wants to do a glass blowing workshop, but this may be difficult because you can only teach one or two people at a time. I also know somebody interested in art, literature and ESL tutoring/teaching. There is breakdancing at Dwinelle Hall Tuesdays and Thursdays. Still talking to Tinkers. Looking into adult schools which mostly deal with GED, ESL, arts and crafts and general computer literacy.
Anthony: I have access to beer-brewing equipment from King Street. Let's do this!
Chris: Holly is helping us set up a freeskool web site. I'm still figuring out weaving. Alameda County composting has a bunch of free events. Check out: http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp.
Caitland: I know two people are involved in helping out the French class, but not teaching it. I know a girl from Apgar interested in teaching Yoga.
Rusty: Girl Army is starting again. See: http://www.girlarmy.org/
D.I.Y. Festival Madness?
Chris reports that the U.S.C.A. and U.C. Berkeley are planning (separate) D.I.Y. Festivals. The U.S.C.A. bureaucracy wants B.C. to give advice. People were generally appalled by obvious attempts at appropriation. People suggested that U.S.C.A. and U.C. Berkeley representatives are more than welcome to attend B.C. meetings.
35th (or 36th) People's Park Anniversary
The event will be on April 24, 2005 between 11am and 6pm. There are currently financial problems related to insurance. There is interest in getting B.C. people involved. (Kiran, Anders and Erin volunteered to go to the first meeting.) For more information, call Robert at (510) 595-8950. The meetings are scheduled as follows:
- Friday, March 18, 7pm at 464 24th St., Apt. 1, Oakland
- Sundays, 12pm at Cafe Med. (March 27 - April 17)
Robert is also interested in working on a comprehensive free calendar for the East Bay, as well teaching a Free Skool class on world governments and power systems.
Erin's After School Classes
Erin is interested in a lot of things. She is most specifically interested in starting a free, after-school program, e.g., tutoring, for kids.
A lot of discussion ensued that centered around the difficulty of working with schools, especially the legal and bureaucratic hurdles. There would also be difficulty attracting kids to attend classes, as kids generally dislike notions of "school," "studying" and "tutoring."
A few existing practices were noted:
- Challenge Day: Students would take a day off from school to talk about school and do fundraising.
- Theatre: There's a program in San Francisco that takes interested Middle and High School students to shows (theatre, art, music).
- No Child Left Behind: After school programs funded by NCLB seem to be fairly flexible and might be something to explore, even if it is temporary.
General consensus said that we (Erin) need to do more research before doing an after-school tutoring class.
Mother of All Meetings
There is a general desire to have a meeting of Free Skool folks and all the community folks participating in Free Skool. Discussion initially centered on when the meeting should take place, i.e., before or after the completion of the Free Skool calendar. Rusty pointed out that it would most practical to generate a best-effort Calendar before the meeting, so that it could presented to all in attendance. "Instead of just showing that we're crazy, we can show everybody that we can get shit done and that we're crazy." Everybody agreed.
General Free Skool Items
- The mission statement needs an author. Anybody?
- We need to make sure that it's "cool" to promote each class that is listed on our calendar.
- There was agreement that classes should have a minimal audience. For that reason, classes that are completely impractical or obtuse, e.g., "Learn Russian in One Day" will be highly discouraged.
- Kiran slammed her mighty fist to the ground and demanded that all class finalizations be made with her. So if you confirm a teacher/facilitator, you need to inform her so she can record it. She doesn't have computer access these days so you need to find other ways to get in contact with her.
Flyering
Anders pointed out that the ongoing Santa Cruz Free Skool is fairly successful -- the classes are well attended by a diverse group of people. One reason seems to be due to the crazy amount of flyering done by the Santa Cruz folks.
Zoe wants to have as much community involvement as possible, and in particular, to decide which classes to offer. Others felt that as more people become involved, the more complicated things will become (geometrically or even exponentially). More discussion ensued and the following was worked out:
- Kiran will make a flyer that basically says "Wadd'ya want to learn?" It will include a web (or email) address where people can write in comments and/or suggestions. Here is a list of people that will be flyering and their areas of responsibility:
- Anders: Downtown Berkeley
- Chris: Berkeley Student Areas
- Rusty: Oakland Fruitvale
- Zoe: Oakland Temescal
- Caitland: West Oakland
- Once we get enough information we can use it in a meeting to plan classes and finalize the calendar.
Timeline
After some discussion, it was agreed that the Free Skool calendar will start the beginning of May and run through the end of August. Classes can be any length of time but common sense should dictate an appropriate time length. People need to ask teachers/facilitators when they are available to teach classes.
The Copy Machine is Dead
Chris has reported the B.C. copy machine is dead. ..sob.. Anthony has volunteered to fix the copy machine. Yeah!
Email and Web Stuff
The Free Skool email list will be retired. Its members will be be merged with the discuss list. Email going to freeskool@barringtoncollective.org will be archived and sent to interested parties.
John is organizing a Wiki class to encourage more people to add and update content on the B.C. website.