The New School: Newark, DE

The sunny, airy art room

The New School in Newark, DE, occupies a large, rambling farmhouse in the heart of Newark, DE. A "liberty-based" school, it builds on the successful foundations of the Summerhill & Sudbury Valley schools. Summerhill, universally hailed as the grandparent of the free/democratic school movement, still maintains a similar model that was created in the 1920s as an intentional departure from the punitive schools of the time, with the intention and reality of childhood emotional & social health as the primary goal. Sudbury Valley, a successful democratic school in Massachusetts, was founded in the late ‘60s on the Summerhill model, with an additional intention of instilling consensus-based and democratic living techniques.

The New School builds on these celebrated, time-tested institutions by adding a third piece, that of deep intellectual stewardship. Melanie, the founder of the school, attended St. John’s College, along with two other charter teachers, and brought with her the college’s commitment to intellectual rigor. “In order to be free, you have to think well,” she says. Rather than the pursuit of happiness, the students & staff strive foremost for the pursuit of truth; as Melanie reminded me, “doing good doesn’t always mean doing what makes you happy.” The teachers have also grounded the school in a St. John’s-style rigorous intentionality around wording. They call themselves a “liberty-based” school instead of a "democratic" school, for clarity. (This was after a many-months long study of the etymology & history of the words “liberty” and “freedom”).


Classes, or meetings as they’re called here, are offered every day, approximately three times per day, and students attend if it holds interest for them. All meetings arise organically from teacher & student collaboration and shared interest, for instance, Euclidean Geometry, Theology, Film, Human Relations, & Writing. However, students may spend their time however they see fit: when I visited, many students were working independently, and two young girls were activity working on building a cozy new home for the school’s guinea pigs.

The true liberty that permeates this school nurtures truly incredible young people. One young man, Mike, I met at the beginning of my tour as he politely interrupted to ask a few questions about his day’s work—completing the refinishing and sanding of the main stairwell. Because of his poise, and the confidence with which he was completing a sophisticated task, I immediately pegged him as a teacher. As I came to discover, he is an 18-year-old young man who plans to defend his thesis next year, and like the other “students” and “teachers” in the school, defies that classification system. He teaches, and works, and learns, like everyone else.

Mike joined the school in after increasing frustration and behavior issues through elementary school—his favorite class was recess. Once at The New School, he threw himself into hands-on learning and play: farm work, carpentry and blacksmithing (he’s since built himself a homemade forge, using a vacuum motor that’s been reversed to blow air). As he found himself needing increasingly sophisticated math to complete these self-directed projects, he developed an interest in Euclidean Geometry, and Euclid himself. As he told me, “when I wasn’t being forced to do it, I found needs for it. Like in carpentry. You need some trigonometry to figure out angles….” Later, while hearing some of the older students engaged in philosophical discussions with the teachers and eager to participate, Mike began pushing himself to read sophisticated texts. He’s now studying Ancient Greek & Latin, attending most of the meetings, and intends to defend his thesis next year.

Instead of following prescribed coursework, the diploma process requires the student to defend the following statement:

I am ready to take full responsibility for myself & the community at large

Their “diplomates,” as the graduates are called, are encouraged to return to the school, and many do regularly.

The back porch was designed & constructed by a diplomate as part of his thesis

The teachers at this school all agree to receive no funding in direct exchange for teaching, a decision made in part to protect the liberty with which they choose to come to work. I greatly respect this decision, as I’ve found that receiving money for teaching can confuse and blur the point for me— that of an authentic and deeply gratifying mutual knowledge exchange. This agreement spurs great creativity on the part of the school; the art teacher, for example, is a professional dress-maker & fabric designer who does her work out of the art room. The students benefit from being around an adult engaged in authentic, fulfilling work, while she benefits from potential apprenticeships (if the students feel so called), and space to do her work.

Stairway Mural-- it's huge and full of mermaids!

Thank you for your inspiration, New School!



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Still curious? So am I! Next week I will be proposing a two month residency at The New School for the coming fall. My understanding is that I will present & defend my proposal at the community meeting, and try to convince the students & teachers to vote me in. Fingers crossed!

See below for information on what the some of the diplomates are up to:

Manhattan Country School

Entrance and inspiration

The Manhattan Country School is a pillar of the small, progressive school movement. Inspired by the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it was founded in the 1960s with the mission that "equality, social justice, and a diverse community" would root the community and provide the foundation for authentic, multicultural education.

Almost 50 years later, their widely replicated sliding-scale tuition policy allows for a truly diverse student body, with no racial majority and broad economic diversity. Their 180 acre working farm campus upstate affords their intensely urban student body significant time in the natural world, instilling deep environmental literacy and stewardship. Their environmental justice commitment extends to the city campus as well, where students work on recycling, composting, and tending to the rooftop garden in addition to their classroom work.

During my visit, I was able to see each of the classrooms, housed in a beautiful and historic building a block from Central Park on 96th Street. Student aged four through nine are grouped into overlapping mixed-aged classes, where teachers move students along as they are ready (classes are 4-5  year olds, 5-6, 6-7, etc).  In grades five through eight, more sequential topics such as Spanish and mathematics are taught in grades, but students still have mixed grade classes that are less sequential, such as social studies.

School-to-prison-pipeline work

The social studies curriculum is a highlight and an area in which the school really shines; each class takes on a year long research question and deeply and authentically explores the topic. The seventh and eighth-graders are studying for the entire year access to education and the school to prison pipeline. The fifth-grade is studying ancient Egypt, and has a Skype-facilitated relationship with a school in India. The nine and 10-year-olds study immigration; they began the year collecting oral histories, then began to visit places in the city with a large influx of different immigrant populations. The Spanish language program dovetails well with this exploration, as is as much about being bicultural as it is about being bilingual, according to my guide.

The working farm upstate offers a unifying experience for the students. Beginning in the second grade, students visit the farm, working up to spending three non-sequential weeks a year there. Seven staff members live and work on the farm. Students build connection with the local community during their visits; they have pen pals with the local public schoolers, and they visit their school as well as host those students in New York City.

This deep bond that begins in the youngest grades as students learn about each other, continues beyond the 8th grade into a committed community of alumni. Many graduates come back to the school to educate students on the kinds of social justice work they're doing in the world. One graduate is a civil rights lawyer who came recently to talk with the students about his work, as well as how he uses statistics to support his arguments. This math lesson was then rolled back into their activism project as well as the math curriculum itself.

Post office supplies

The founder of MCS was a student at the City & Country School in the West Village, and borrowed their tradition of class jobs for the Manhattan Country School. The sixes and sevens have a city study and then they take what they learned to create a post office that works with both students and parents and teachers. I also saw that the classrooms with young children had a generous supply of wooden unit blocks, another inspiration from City & Country. (I blogged about C&C back in December!)

Thank you for the inspiration, Manhattan Country!

Mountain Road School: New Lebanon, NY

Mountain Road School is a small, Pre-K to 8th grade currently occupying a two-story, airy farmhouse. Originally housed in a nearby Sufi community, the school has inherited some of the ethos without identifying itself as a Sufi school, and lives true to its mission of providing "heartfelt" education.

Teacher/student relationships are the foundation of the classroom work, and the whole school strives toward continuous community building: the middle school is involved in a year-long "Compassion Project," there are weekly whole-school circles and "buddy days," where older children play & learn with younger for a morning, and an all-school recess. In addition to these codified community-building structures, there is an expectation that everyone will treat each other with love and respect, explained Anne, a co-director and parent.

View from the play yard

Students have daily access to the outdoors, as the school's land includes both a play yard and open fields as well as a wooded area. In addition, they partner with Flying Deer Nature Center to expand their Nature Curriculum; for six weeks in both the fall and the spring, students spend one full day per week outside. Throughout the year there is a daily 45 minute outdoor recess except in the case of the most extreme weather. Hand-crafted tools & toys abounded in the space.

Homey Hallway

Even more than the one-room-schoolhouse feel presented by the farmhouse, the clear delight present in the students and teachers in the classrooms was indicative of the loving family atmosphere of the school. Teachers have small classes-- 8 to 12 students-- so that they become intimately acquainted with each child's learning style, and individualize curricula and lessons. Teachers are encouraged to teach to their passions as well as those of the children, within the guidelines of the flexible curriculum maps.

During my visit I saw deeply personal and authentic work happening, I think in part because of this flexibility. The 7th-8th graders were involved with a theater project: writing their own play and planning all aspects of the production, with the support and guidance of their teacher, a trained theater professional. The 4th-6th grade teacher's passion led him to pursue and receive funding for creating curriculum around Compassion. He and his students have spent this year exploring compassion, through history, culture, and personal growth work.

4th-6th grade classroom: Compassionate Communication

I sat in first on the 4th-6th grade, who were beginning their Social Studies/Compassion class. The nine students sat companionably around a central table. I learned that the class had been exploring the Haudenosaunnee culture; in particular, their values, ethics, mores, and council structure. The class began with recalling their learning journey so far, and then their teacher Jon prompted, "OK, what is strong self-worth?" No one responded at first; I think some of the students may have been affected by my presence. To break the silence, Jon joked, "I mean, you know what strong means, right? Look how strong I am!" and quickly bent down to lift up a chair with a little girl in it a few inches off the floor. She squealed in delight, the other children relaxed and started up a lively conversation. One little boy across the table volunteered, "People are literally priceless!"

Art Room/Library: No chairs!

After the review, students broke into groups of 2-3 to discuss and reteach their understanding of the previous day's content. Two little boys immediately squirreled themselves under a table in the corner, a few clustered at the main table, and others darted down the hallway to the library/art room. Their teacher circulated between groups, encouraging, questioning and pushing the students' thinking.

In an adjacent room is the 7th-8th grade classroom, separated by a door which allows for occasional student flow between classrooms & regular sharing of teachers. The students were sitting around the central table, working in Google Docs to collaboratively edit their near-complete script. The teens wrote the play collaboratively as well, based off their study of mythology through the lens of compassion. The document was full of notes from their teacher, prompting deeper thinking of certain lines, questioning word choices, clarifying, prompting. She sat with the students, laughing, answering questions, challenging them, ("That's telling, not showing... "). The atmosphere was almost giddy with excitement; it was clear that the students were very involved with the work they were doing, and had created a hilarious and wonderful play from the pieces I was able to read: witty and thought-provoking writing, clever word-play, interesting characters. I was impressed.

I snagged a few of the children from the 4th-6th grade class at the end of the day to ask them about their experience. The consensus? The children don't want to go home at the end of the day. They LOVE their school. And from my quick snapshot, it was clear why-- the school community is like a big, supportive and loving family.

Downstairs meeting room

Thank you, Mountain Road!