Alpha_Alternative_School_1972–2012-Yumpu

Ste fan Lynch Strassfeld
“I never got a grade or a report card
or was pitted against my peers. I got to
be interested in things and was given
the time and resources to learn more.
We were so spoiled in such rich ways.”
Stefan Lynch Strassfeld
ALPHA 1977–1984, ages 5–12.
Ran an inter na tional organi
za tion for kids of LGBTQ
par ents. Stud ied Nurs ing
at Uni ver sity of Cal i for nia,
San Fran cisco. Works as
the direc tor of the health
clinic at Juve nile Hall, San
Francisco.
One for ma tive ALPHA expe ri ence I remem ber was mak ing lunch with
Bar bara Klun der to sell to the rest of the school, as part of a reg u lar activ ity
called “store”. The lunch itself was easy. But Bar bara—a par ent—made
it not into a cook ing les son but a nav i gat ing-the-world les son. A hand ful
of us decided as a group what to make for lunch—I think it was ants on
a log and milk or some thing like that. Then we all—prob a bly five 6-to-8
year-olds—walked down Queen Street to a lit tle mar ket and decided as a
group who would buy what item. Bar bara gave us each some cash, and we
each went in on our own and found our item on our own and paid for it
on our own, and then came back out and counted change with Bar bara—
I remem ber her being nice to me about my fear of the stern shop keeper—
then walked back to ALPHA. We added up how much we had spent, tried to
fig ure out how many “orders” it would make, and then (with Barbara’s
help) fig ured out what to charge for each order. Then we made the food,
sold it from a lit tle table in front of the kitchen at lunch, counted what
we had made, and com pared that to what we had spent.
This was an hours-long focused project—for six-year-olds. The main thing
I got out of it was more con fi dence in deal ing with shops and count ing
my change but more impor tantly I remem ber the sense of own er ship I had
over those lit tle ants on the log.
I also have so many mem o ries. When we broke into the wine boxes on an
all school camp ing trip. When I brought a water gun to school from my
sum mer on Fire Island shaped like an erect penis with the balls as han dle.
When I was refus ing to learn to tie my shoes at seven years old because that
was what Vel cro was for. When I first learned to spell and went around
typing/writing “You are a pig!” on every thing I could. There was a real
sense of account abil ity and con cern and a lot of ask ing for my thoughts
and opin ions. It felt lov ing in a way because my teach ers really knew me.
My par ents, from vol un teer ing at the school, knew the issues and the
teach ers and the processes.
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