Alpha_Alternative_School_1972–2012-Yumpu
ALPHA Alternative School—A Lot of Parents Hoping for an Alternative—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. Our idea was to place black and white childhood portraits taken by F. Robert Openshaw in 1978 alongside present-day portraits of the same people taken at ALPHA during the 40th anniversary reunion by Michael Barker, and to contextualize the photographs with portraits in words contributed by the subjects and shaped by Ariel Fielding. The result is a sort of ethnographic art project or a personal history. It was not commissioned by ALPHA, nor was it conceived with any particular agenda in mind, except to present portraits of some interesting people with a common educational background.
ALPHA Alternative School—A Lot of Parents Hoping for an Alternative—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. Our idea was to place black and white childhood portraits taken by F. Robert Openshaw in 1978 alongside present-day portraits of the same people taken at ALPHA during the 40th anniversary reunion by Michael Barker, and to contextualize the photographs with portraits in words contributed by the subjects and shaped by Ariel Fielding. The result is a sort of ethnographic art project or a personal history. It was not commissioned by ALPHA, nor was it conceived with any particular agenda in mind, except to present portraits of some interesting people with a common educational background.
- TAGS
- education
- alternative
- toronto
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There were so many oppor tu ni ties to orga nize things that inter ested
you that it gave me a fun da men tal feel ing that if I wanted some thing to
hap pen, I should just make it happen. I defi nitely came away with out
a fear of author ity figures.
I think my Dad grew tired of dri ving me across the city, and I switched to
my local school for grade 4. I did well in the rest of ele men tary school.
I tested above grade level in every thing but math. I’m actu ally quite good
in math now. I didn’t fin ish high school. I was a few cred its short and
didn’t want to con tinue after grade 13; it felt like enough school ing at the
time. I went to York Uni ver sity as a mature stu dent for one year to study
lan guages and lin guis tics. After my first year, I thought it would be more
ful fill ing to con tinue the same line of study, but in French, so I trans ferred
to Uni ver sité du Québec à Trois Riv ières. I didn’t speak French, but fig ured
an immer sion pro gram would fix that pretty quick. I worked as an actor,
drama teacher, and direc tor for many years until 1999 when I decided
to become a para medic and went back to col lege. I worked hard and was
a good stu dent. I had good grades in col lege. I’ve been a para medic in
Toronto ever since.
I’ve also writ ten a book called The Emer gency Mono logues about my
expe ri ences as a para medic. I have a one-person show with the same title.
I remem ber that I used to tell jokes to the other kids at ALPHA in the
morning. They weren’t my jokes—I used to stay up and watch Dave Allen
at Large with my Dad, and I’d just repeat the same jokes the next day.
It’s funny, because my dream was to be a stand-up comic and I basi cally
started doing that in the last few years with my show.
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