Alpha_Alternative_School_1972–2012-Yumpu

Maggie Marrelli (née Garrard)
“ALPHA was a home to me,
and my classmates were a family.”
Mag gie Marrelli
ALPHA 1976 to 1984, ages
4 – 12. Stud ied Fine Arts.
Works in Home Improvement.
Cre ates art.
I’d say ALPHA gave me a sense of com mu nity and of myself as a val ued
per son, with things to con tribute, and also the abil ity to explore and learn
in an inde pen dent fash ion. The dis ad van tage was prob a bly that, as a kid
who really hated aca d e mics, I took every chance I could to avoid the for mal
learn ing ses sions, and thus have some holes in my foun da tional knowledge.
I went to extremes to avoid my work, such as hid ing my math book,
a ploy that was side stepped with amaz ing cun ning on my teacher’s part
by pre sent ing me with mimeo graphed work sheets. Foiled again! When I
wasn’t slav ing over frac tions I was usu ally play ing G-Force or turn ing bookshelves
into apart ment build ings for toys with my friends. I also spent
a lot of time in the craft cup board mak ing boats out of milk-cartons or
some such, a pre cur sor to the art work I do as an adult. There were also the
par ents who came in and taught us cook ing, sewing, car pen try, singing.
There was a space cap sule full of tog gle switches and a life size por trait of
the Queen we all col lab o rated on where some one painted her neck green.
There was always some thing going on.
I always felt val ued—despite the fact I was a rot ten lit tle shirker—but one
time that springs to mind is when I wrote, directed and nar rated a skit for a
potluck night. I lost the script at the last minute and it was a total dis as ter,
but every one cheered at the end and I felt great.
For me ALPHA really was an exten sion of home and fam ily, as my mum was
a teacher and my sis ter went there as well, but beyond that I have always
thought that my rela tion ship with the other stu dents was more like cousins
than class mates. The school was so small that we were always together,
many of us from the begin ning to the end of our time there, so we had our
good times and our bad, friend ships and con flicts, like any fam ily. The
teach ers and other adults inter acted with us in a warm and acces si ble way,
like aunts and uncles.
I spent a year at Hori zon Alter na tive School, a year at Cen tral Tech ni cal
School, and a year at Inglenook Alter na tive School before drop ping out. At
my main stream high school I was quite shocked by the stu dents vs. teachers
men tal ity, which seemed like such a bar rier to learn ing. In my early
twen ties I returned to school as a mature stu dent and stud ied Fine Arts,
which I still prac tice but haven’t made into a career. I infor mally apprenticed
as a handyper son and have run my own home improve ment company
for the past decade and a bit.
I believe the demo c ra tic nature of ALPHA has made me a more sen si ble
per son. I also see that qual ity quite strongly in the peo ple I went to ALPHA
with, now that we are all grown up. I just wish I could still call Com mit tee
on people.
ALPHA was a home to me, and my class mates were a fam ily. I don’t think
you can have a bet ter start in life than that.
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