This past weekend was the 50th Anniversary Reunion of the Lehman Alternative Community School {LACS] where I taught for 27 years. It’s a school that gives students, and it gave me, the opportunity to figure out who we were. For me, it was where I spent many of the best years of my professional life. It provided the chance to learn how all the disparate aspects of my life made sense and showed me how to pull all those aspects together. Just when I needed it most, and maybe when the school most needed me, we found each other.
The event began Friday night with a meet and greet dinner. Saturday, we gathered in the gym for welcome activities, photos, a talk from all 4 principals of the school⎼ the one who founded the school and led it for 30 years, and then the 3 principals who followed him.
Then there were school tours, art shows, and workshops; examples included The Seeds of Pedagogy, Climate Activism, Work in the Garden, etc. And the one I helped plan, on how our experiences in theatre classes and productions at the school and elsewhere empowered our lives.
On Saturday afternoon, a movie on the school was shown; there were meet ups for different groups, and an All-School Meeting was held. At night, a talent show hosted by graduates. And on Sunday, a lunch together at a park⎼ that nobody wanted to end until we were all exhausted.
The theatre workshop was a panel of graduates discussing two questions:
How has theatre helped you in your life?
What has been your experience pursuing your passions and exploring your career since leaving the school?
The panelists covered almost 45 years of our history. The moderator was a contemporary senior. 4 of the panelists were theatre professionals or studying in college to be one. The 5th used their theatre experience in their corporate career.
I was totally engaged with stories by graduates about how theatre, and the school in general, shaped and benefitted them, including how to face adversity and pain. There were stories about how theatre prepared one panelist to testify to congress and directly face all the giant cameras focused on them. Another panelist discussed how their experiences at the school showed them how to love auditions and be successful in movies and tv. Another talked about how it prepared them not only to direct theatre productions in Manhattan, but also to teach acting to college students. Or to follow their hearts and act to benefit others and society in general. An audience member, who is a medical examiner in New York City, shared how theatre prepared them to testify in trials.
Democratic decision-making is at the heart of the school. All the students have a family support group and belong to a committee. The committees help plan activities, research environmental issues and actions, run meetings, care for the grounds, choose murals, support different identity groups, etc. The All-School Meeting is the core of this structure. Sometimes, in the past we had felt these meetings were a chore and took too much time. But during the meeting at the reunion, we all could feel the benefits of having participated in such a process. There was such feeling there, cooperation. Joy.
A student, Susanna Pearce, described the meeting thusly:
It was so very moving to watch this respectful and inclusive process unfold. I don’t recall exactly how it worked when I was a student at ACS/LACS in the ‘80s …, but the principles of respect, inclusion, agency and listening were all there, held within a functional structure. And clearly, it’s continued to evolve and develop wonderfully since then.
As I overheard someone saying… as I was leaving, if 6th graders can learn to do this, why not the rest of us and our society?
This is what the school was and still is about. What the weekend celebrated. Community. Mutual respect. Compassion. Truthfully studying both the natural and social worlds. Taking responsibility for self and being mindful of our effect on others; celebrating the agency that a democratic school, that democracy itself, can ideally foster.
Another graduate, David Love, who now teaches high school music, said the following:
There are truly no words for how meaningful this weekend was. Seeing so many old friends from over 30 years ago was deeply lovely and moving. LACS is truly a special place, and I don’t know if I realized how much it had shaped who I am as both a person and a teacher. Getting to talk to so many of my former teachers was absolutely amazing. They are a huge part of why I am the teacher I am. I hadn’t realized that until this weekend, that my teaching style was founded in learning from these amazing people and how they related to and worked with their students.…
I’m grateful every day for being able to have attended such a special place. And no matter what’s happening now or in the future, what [this school] has been, and will be, won’t be going anywhere. All of us who went there are that legacy.
Certainly, this school, like schools, like children and adults everywhere, has suffered through so much recently ⎼ the increased stress and anxiety brought on by threats to democracy, to our rights, and to public education itself; the inability to pass serious gun control legislation; the weaponization of hate and the acceptance of violence against those of a different political party or with “different” points of view or identities; the pandemic and climate emergency, etc.
When the world seems so on edge, so threatened, such a weekend, such an example, such community was never more important, and so in need of sharing, and protecting.
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Internal image courtesy of author
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
