Alpha_Alternative_School_1972–2012-Yumpu

facing page clockwise
from top-left:
Mock election, circa 1979.
L–R: Flannery, Emma,
Jamie, Melanie
Looking at something
really interesting, circa 1979.
L–R: Max, an ALPHA parent,
Justin, Michael, David,
Morgan.
Daily meeting, late 1970s.
L–R: back row: Tim, Stefan,
Jeremy, Susan, Jenny,
unknown baby, Elaina,
Emma, Maggie (edge of
photo).
L–R: front row: Amber,
Alice (behind Michael), Yaleh,
Joseph, unknown child,
Karen.
Dance party, circa 1979.
L–R: Chanel, Amber,
Jonathon, Elaina, Vincent,
Andrew, Jason, Flannery
Sugarbush, probably at
Horton’s Tree Farm, late
1970s or early 1980s.
Decorating wooden
sculptures they have carved
themselves, late 1970s.
L–R: Chanel, Flannery,
Marianne.
ALPHA Alter na tive School, one of the oldest alternative schools in
Canada, celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2012. It seemed like a good time
to take a look at the lives of some of its earliest students in order to get
a sense of the long-term effects of this radical experiment in education.
ALPHA—A Lot of Parents Hoping for an Alternative—was unique in the
Toronto public school system when it was founded in 1972. It had none of
the usual paraphernalia of mainstream education: no homework, grades,
or tests. It was taken for granted that children do much of their learning
through play. Students explored their own interests organically, beginning
with something they wanted to learn about or something they wanted
to make or do, and enlisting the support of their teachers and friends in
finding the answers to their questions. In addition to daily one-on-one
or small-group lessons in reading, writing, math, and French, an ALPHA
student in the 1970s and early 1980s could learn to take photographs with
a pinhole camera she had built herself, then develop her pictures in an
onsite darkroom; build a kid-size wooden fort using saws, hammers, and
nails in a vast and muddy Adventure Playground; make stop-motion animated
films; construct and paint a schoolyard-sized snow sculpture of a
dragon; incubate an egg and raise the resulting chicken; write an original
musical and perform it for a rowdy and enthusiastic audience; buy and
care for tropical fish; research and write essays about art history; plan and
cook a meal for fifty people and offer it for sale at a lunchtime store; read
all the books in the school library; redesign a computer game, or any number
of other imaginative opportunities for learning.
A typical day at ALPHA in its first decade started with quiet work in the
mornings; students were separated into two broad groups by age. From
lunchtime onward, the entire school functioned as one community,
with older students serving as mentors and role models to younger ones.
Afternoons were taken up with special projects, field trips, playing inside
or outside, or walking to a local community center for swimming or gym,
followed by a collective cleanup of the school and an all-school meeting.
The daily meeting was led by two students on a rotating basis: a chairperson,
who moderated the discussion and ensured that those who had something
to say got a chance to speak, and a “separator” or “shutter-upper,”
who kept order. Meetings were where students raised and discussed issues
of importance to them, made announcements, or proposed and voted on
school rules. Children as young as four years old could learn to be active
participants in this democratic process. There was also a school judicial
system, the Committee, where students could address grievances against
other students (and, in theory, teachers) before a rotating jury of their
peers, empowered to determine guilt or innocence and impose
appropriate penalties.
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