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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Acknowledgements
Thank you to everyone who helped to make this project happen:
Laura Jones, who identified the photographer of the black and white
pictures seen here as her friend Bob Openshaw and hunted in her basement
for the (still lost) negatives; Laura’s son Morgan Jones-Phillips,
who supplied a contact sheet of Bob’s photographs and agreed to be a
part of the project; Lucy Falkner, who flew across the country from
Vancouver to come to the reunion, and whose brother Neil, who died in
2002, was also an ALPHA student; Jennifer Ferrari, who went to ALPHA
with her sisters Elaina, Vanessa, and Natalie; Flannery Fielding, one of
three siblings who went to ALPHA over a span of 14 years, during which
time their mother Marjory went to scores of parent meetings, created art
for school auctions, and spent many hours working on art projects with
students; Kether Graham, who had a vast collection of Archie comics in
her ALPHA years; Jamie Leonard, who went to the school with his brother
Jonathon, and whose dad John was beloved for projecting movies and
making popcorn on Wednesday afternoons during his weekly parent
shift; Maggie Marrelli, sister of Emma Garrard and daughter of legendary
ALPHA teacher Susan Garrard, who taught generations of kids to
read, organized the mammoth annual school camping expeditions, and
threw fabulous school Hallowe’en parties, complete with bobbing for
apples and eating donuts from a string while our hands were behind our
backs; Stefan Lynch Strassfeld, who travelled from San Francisco to be at
the reunion, and whose late dad, Michael Lynch, was a noted gay rights
activist and the director of many an ALPHA musical; and Crocky Teasdale,
who went to ALPHA with his brothers Andrew and Jason, and whose late
mother Linda spent many hours making art with kids at the school. Last
but not least, thank you to Deb O’Rourke, retired ALPHA staff member
and scholar of ALPHA, for planting the seeds for this project through her
inspiring research, and to current teacher Emily Chan for carrying the
ALPHA torch. Thanks to both Deb and Emily for being fantastic humans
who helped to make this project happen.
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