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66 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
66 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
REPORT ON THE MODERN SCHOOL REUNION
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By Jerry Mintz, Director, Alternative Education Resource Organization
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516 621-2195 Fax 516 625-3257 e mail: jmintz@igc.apc.com
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The members and friends of the Modern School had their annual
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reunion on Saturday September 24th. The Modern School Movement
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is based on the work of Anarchist Francisco Ferrer, who was
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executed in 1909 in Spain over the protests of Emma Goldman and
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others. In his name, Ferrer Modern Schools were established around
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the world, including on founded in 1911 in New York. Attending this
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reunion for the first time was 100 year old Alfred Leavitt, who was a
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student under one of the early teachers at the Modern School, Will
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Durant. He remembers Durant first meeting a student at the Modern
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school, who eventually became his wife, Ariel.
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Leavitt went on to become a well known artist, who has 20 of his
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works in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Leavitt said that
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he remembered important luminaries of the time such as Jack
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London, Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, and Peter Kropotkin when
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they visited the school. In a rousing speech, congratulating the group
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for their tenacity, he said he "intends to slide into the 21st century"
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and is still a romantic. This was attested to by Eleine Shappel, a 30
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something Director of the United States Branch of the Eureka Free
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University of Moscow. She sat next to him. She is from Harkov,
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Ukraine, where, also originally from the Ukraine, Leavitt once lived
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Nellie Dick, 101 year old former teacher at the Stelton, New Jersey
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Modern School and a founder of other Modern Schools was also a
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participant in the reunion. She was born in the Ukraine of Jewish
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Anarchist parents. A book entitled "No Master, High or Low" has
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recently been published about some of her early work in England,
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when, at the age of 13 she started the Anarchist, Socialist,
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Communist Sunday School in 1907.
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Nellie's son Jim also attended. He grew up as a Modern School
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student, with freedom at attend or not attend classes. He was never
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interested in learning how to read until he was ten years old. "By
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that time I could put together a radio, but I just hadn't been
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interested in reading. If I had gone to a public school they would
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have failed me and told me I had a learning disability. When I
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decided to learn to read, nothing could stop me. I went on to get
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scholarship all the way through Columbia Medical School." At 73, Jim
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Dick is still a practicing and well respected pediatrician.
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Others attending the reunion included Fernanda Barone, who is the
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archivist for the special collection of Modern School documents at
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Rutgers University. She is seeking funds to preserve the materials,
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which are falling apart from extensive use. Leonard Schear, 85, told
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about how he became a well known architect after he started
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apprenticing at the age of 14. Also Jerry Mintz reported on the
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Publication by Macmillan of the Handbook of Alternative Education
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of which he was Editor in Chief. Co-publisher and packager of the
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book is the Solomon Press. The Solomons, father and son Sidney and
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Raymond, attended the reunion along with Sidney's wife, Clara, a
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former Modern School student. The Handbook lists 7300 educational
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alternatives. Mintz has also produced five videos on the Modern
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School.
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The Reunion opened with the singing of old Modern School songs, and
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concluded with a spirited discussion and debate on current issues in
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education.
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