During the introduction of this film where it states that there are no compulsory classes and that kids are free to choose what they want to do each day, I expected a school of students who took the initiative to learn about things they had interest in. Perhaps my expectations were too high, or it was simply idealistic. A majority of the time I only saw the kids playing. I also expected with how self-aware they learn to become at The Free School (ex. when we learn at the council meeting [25:42] that Max scares Chloe because he’s angry with her for being mean to him), that they would be more curious about everything, including nature. The kids may have been curious about learning more, but some of the adults seemed to take a back seat altogether to the learning process, specifically when one of the adults says that kids will develop an interest in learning by observation [50:19]. You can only learn by observation to a certain extent. I was surprised and encouraged by what two of the kids had to say about learning. Dearon, who broke the wall and had to fix it [21:10] and then broke a window and had to fix that [38:34], said, “After a while of doing what you want to do and fooling around and just horseplaying, you kinda do wanna learn at a certain point” [22:15]. Miles, who was making a movie, said, “You never do anything, well that’s your problem” [19:46]. I found it interesting that the attitude that one of the adults took when they were in the park shooting a fight scene for Miles’ movie was so nonchalant. However, it occurred to me that he was indirectly encouraging him to be more assertive by reminding them that he’s the director, also a form of leadership initiative [34:26].
I thought there was an interesting point that one of the former students, Tiffany Saxon-Davis, made in the beginning of the film when she said, “You get to do what you want to do and have a childhood” [10:58]. The concept of a childhood (as Americans tend to define it, by being free to play) is an interesting one and relatively recent. However, it is a very ethnocentric concept and mostly applies only to Western culture, but I see it as playing a very significant role in this film, as it is assumed that all children deserve to play all the time and be free to make their own choices. Overall, I saw some value in the type of learning that occurs at The Free School, but it was portrayed as more emotional development and conflict resolution learning than learning about the physical world.
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