NEW WEBSITE

We are transitioning over to our new website!!!!
Please start visiting the new site:

freescool.com

Particularly, check out the calendar: http://www.freescool.com/calendar/ for all our upcoming classes, events, and meet-ups.

And, the forums: http://www.freescool.com/forum/  - for discussions and to get involved in organizing!

If you would like to get involved in the website development, email us, or come out on Thursday to our Zine Making and Website Teach-in Party (location TBA, please check calendar on new website!).

with love,
free'scool

Tomorrow - Monday August 20th - work party in Trinity Bellwoods

Hi Free'scoolers,

even though we're taking Sundays off, there loads of planning and contacting that has to happen for September.
Tomorrow, for all who are free, we're meeting in Trinity Bellwoods Park around 2pm, near the Queen St. gates entrance, to do some work and hang out.

list of topics that we can potentially cover tomorrow: Website, email list-serves, space, teachers/classes, community outreach, zine, human rights framework, collaboration with Anarchist Free University

bring: paper, pens, computers, phones, food, music, good cheer :)

Meeting Meeting Meeting!

There's yet another meeting this lovely tuesday the 14th of rainy rainy august. It is at 6pm in the 5th floor lounge of OISE (Bloor and St. George in case you are not familiar).

We highly encourage everyone to come who is interested in finding out more about the free'scool, getting more involved, leading a class, etc. We also highly encourage people to come who have space and are interested in holding free'scool classes and workshops.

If you have suggestions for agenda ideas, please submit them to our email - thefreescool@gmail.com

Our facilitators tonight will Laura and Arestia.

Peace, Love & Learning!

Article on The Free'scool by Krystalline Kraus in Rabble

An amazing woman, Krystalline, wrote a beautiful article on the Free'scool.
Activist Communique: Occupy the Activist Free'scool

Sunday August 12th

Reminder, we are spending the day tomorrow at the Zeitgeist Annual Media Festival in Kensington Market - Augusta Street across from Freshmart.

For those interested, we will meet at 11am in Bellevue Park (Kensington Market) to finish the half hour workshop we are presenting at the festival. We will walk over at noon together.

August 7th Student Union Meetings, and August Plans

Agenda:

1. This Sunday and Zeitgeist

2. Free Art'Scool 

3. Proposal for summer hiatus, last two weeks of August

4. Fall workshops and planning

In Attendance: 9 people

Facilitator: Laura

Note taker: Roxy

Decisions:

1. This Sunday Classes are Suspended, instead, we have a field trip to the Zeitgeist Media Festival (website), which is running from 12pm-8pm in Kensington Market (on Augusta street across from Freshmart). 

2. We have been invited to run a half-hour workshop at the Zeitgeist Media Festival for a half hour; the first 10 minutes will be a dramatic/artistic presentation of our framework and what it means to be a part of free'scool; then, we will run a short critical thinking exercise/discussion. All those interested in helping with this workshop/presentation, we are having the planning meeting on Friday August 10th at 3pm in Bellevue Park in Kensington Market

3. The last two Sundays of August (19th, and 26th), we will take a break from classes, to allow free'scoolers a chance to enjoy the last 2 weekends of the summer. All other free'scool activities will continue (free art'scool wednesdays, student union meetings, outreach, work meet-ups); we will resume Sunday classes in September. 

4. In September, we will host a workshop series (2 Fridays of the month) on the following topics: popular education teaching methods, facilitation and non-violent communication, cross-cultural conflict resolution, anti-oppression, and two possible workshops: bringing a human rights framework into the classroom, and taking back power. 

Discussion:

1. Zeitgeist

- we have been invited to do a workshop; at the last meeting it was suggested that we suspend classes for the day to attend the festival

- There were some concerns raised about Zeitgeist, as many of their 'solutions' to capitalism, and structure are questionable

- Perhaps we should run a critical thinking workshop with them

- We definitely have to go in with a critical mind - there are some really great things they are doing, and some things to be questioning

- It is a really great outreach/networking/educational opportunity

- Some were under the impression that we were going to run classes in Bellevue Park and float in and out of the festival

- We wanted to continue classes for continuity, and because all the courses are in the middle of their teachings

- but we can learn from zeitgeist

- we don't necessarily have the capacity to have some of our people at the festival and others in class

- it is not the best impression if we show up just for our half an hour session and nothing else

- "While i love classes, I think this opportunity for a full day of networking and learning is too good to pass up"

- see decisions - we couldn't make a decision by discussion because most saw the value of both continuing classes, and simply going to zeitgeist. We put it to a vote. 1st was asked if we wanted to do classes in Bellevue park - there were 4 'maybe' hands, no definite yeses. Next option was to go to zeitgeist all day: there were four clear yeses. 

- What are we going to do for our half an hour presentation?

- Ideas: critical thinking, something participatory to give them the 'free'scool experience', a theatre of the oppressed piece on free'scool to be developed in the Drama club on Wednesday evening

- after hemming, and hawing, and almost having to vote....we reached a collaborative compromise!

- 5-10 minute dramatic presentation; 20-25 minute critical thinking discussion/exercises. 

* note: drama class did not prepare presentation on Wednesday the 9th - open preparation is Friday, August 9th at 3pm in Bellevue Park. 

2. Free Art'Scool Updates (by Veronica):

- everything is going well

- the schedule for tomorrow (wEdnesday August 8th) is very open; especially because it is the first one. We will have visual arts and crafts starting at 5pm, drama at 7pm, and and ceremony and music at 9pm

- In a week or two, we'll start holding clear classes with instructors from a variety of diciplines

- Word of the day: Perspective for this Wednesday 

- I have one of the best thespians in Toronto wanted to hold a drama workshop

- Someone thinks they might be able to get a ballroom dance instructor

- Open to help, suggestions, and participation

- very excited to start!

3. Proposal: 2 week Sunday Hiatus August 19th and 26th. 

- everyone was ok with this...didn't take us more than 2 minutes

4. The Fall

- workshop series in decisions was discussed

   - location suggestions: OISE (need to pay), Friendship house with a 'pay-what-you-can'

   - think on this for a week and come back

   - Dates: to be decided based on availability of facilitators

- other topics/concerns mentioned but not fully addressed:

  - need to make material more accessible for those who cannot attend events/meetings - this concern was diverted to the website production, which is still under process and aims to be very clear and accessible with loads of resources

 - we need space! pretty soon winter is coming. 

    - recognition that we've been deliberating on this for a while

   - space proposal still in the works

   - we need any and all space we can get! 

   - We need a big advertising and class 'blitz' in September

   - because of space constraints and growth, we need to change up when we run classes

 - It's great to focus inwards, but I want this group to do more with what's going on in the world!

   - recognition of our limited capacity at the moment and slow growth process

closed the space by moving into Human Rights class. 

Economics Class, Alexandra Park Sunday August 5th

Texts for the economics class on August 5th are posted at
http://occupyeconomics.ca/pdf/memetics.pdf

Introducing: Wednesday Free Art'Scool

Very exciting news!!!! The Free Art'Scool starts this Wednesday (August 8th) in St. James Park. All musicians, actors, craftspeople, and artists are welcomed to the park during the evening to create art together, and teach their skills! These Wednesday evenings will be a collaborative gathering of artists for the purposes of creating and teaching!

Here is the loose schedule:
5-7pm - visual arts, and crafts
7-9pm - drama club
9pm - art share and ceremony
9:15-11pm - Music jam and skill share

We will be in St. James every Wednesday - hope to see all you artists out there...there!

Sunday August 5th Schedule

Sorry for the late schedule post - there were some proposed changes in the last student union meeting, that took some time to work out. So without further a-due.....

12:00pm - Set up Library and Opening Ceremony
12:30pm - Kung Fu (last week of Kung Fu before September)
1:15pm - Community Resilience
3:15pm - First Nations History (Last week with Brenda!!!!!!!!)
             - Real Democracy
5:15pm - Potluck and Social
6:15pm - Economics (now with Dix AND Laura)
             - Understanding Resistance
8:00pm - pack up and head out!

Freescool Mtg Notes - Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

Agenda
-expanding classes
-the free art’scool
-required/recommended courses and student groups
-ongoing projects; space prop, video proj, website, databases, econ classes
-red square idea

Expanding Classes
- Having free’scool most days of the week, do more things, more varied, make sundays more of a regroup day. Maybe core classes or ongoing discussion, or vote on what we work on that day
- There are other projects we can do on other days. What days work for people for different things
- The Free Art’scool class will happen on Wednesdays 5 pm - 11 pm at St. James Park, starting August 8th
5 pm - general visual art period: different artists with different styles. People can participate with the artists or just watch. Some artists are good instructors, some more just doing their own thing. There will also be crafts.
7pm - structured drama class, lead by Veronica
9 pm - ceremony and then music jam
- Supplies will come from the artists themselves and a bit from Veronica
- i thought it was interesting we talked about before to talk about ceremony, and at 9 we can do something simple, acknowledge censorship and issues of free speech. i feel the drama class will come up with it, and then after the music jam. good place for people to gather with their instruments and be welcoming for amateurs, not a lot of structure. Just the drama class and ceremony would be structured. Artists could start a structured course from there.
*careful of noise complaints

- Other than that, we should wait to change too much for this September because it will be taking on too much too quick
- However we can consolidate some ideas for the future, such as...
monday have various classes, and also semiotics and also graffiti or street/interactive art
-could bring things like economics into it with elitist and confusing academic language to discourage people from entering a certain topic
tuesday - human rights and mtg
wednesday - arts’cool and project building day
thursday - various classes
friday - feel good day, yoga, spirituality
saturday - field trips

Space and Outreach
chris- alternative thinkings has space where they often have free classes, and also gets into comm they are building. important to think about what we want to create and what we need to create it. we should talk to org.s and communities that we know and talk about expanding and report back here. i will talk to ____ for example.
Veronica - Sketch was busy with expansion and grants - i’m just waiting for the email to meet.
jo - what differs free artscool from sketch is that we are more intergenerational -  can use that as an argument
roxy - we should talk to idea sessions


This Sunday
Roxy - i want to move Understanding Resistance to 6-8 slot because we usually have two classes there anyways and people usually disappear after 8

Dix - i wanted to talk about the structure of the economics class, problem with talking about how important it is to have it, but no one follows through. Not good to have these class conflicts, people are tired, etc. i don’t think it should be my responsibility to push this class because i have a language barrier. i have been very frustrated with how things have done. i want to bring economics into a wider perspective. Can’t do it when no one wants to join the discussion.
Laura - i think also, it could help to have it as an indoor class and we can also have more than one facilitator
chris - maybe it should be shorter because attention span seems to wane
jo - economics relates to many other topics, maybe run econ through other lenses, agree with suggestions, also having readings. i’d like to collaborate with you - how to get out of just theory, similarities with human rights
L- we did interdisciplinary education at my school, works very well
roxy - applies to the freescool trying to build our economy as an organization
nico - what if econ was one hour sometime during the week and then a half hour on sunday
Dix - what if democracy was only an hour and a half and econ is 4:30 - 5:30
Chris - i want to have projects that the students decide themselves
Roxy - we should dialogue with economists
jo- can provide readings too
Dix - we could move it to 4:30 for now, and i would do mimetics, put up article, discuss how politicians use propaganda, i would like someone to co-facilitate
chris - problem with base knowledge of econ, people don’t know, joined with problem of regular attendence. I want to go more classes
jo - you can help with facilitation, don’t need to know the expertise
nico - i think what needs to change is that theres no concurrent class
roxy - there were requests for multiple classes so there were more options at a given time
wilsun - we can chill if we don’t want to take a class. bottom line we are too low numbers for multiple classes
chris - democracy is a strong class, maybe a later slot for that and have econ earlier and see if that makes a difference
r - had this issue before
v- you suggested shortening classes, maybe this sunday for one hour this is a good discussion and those that want to more on to next class can move on to that, and the more dedicated students will be more committed that way.
dix - the most important thing is to be able to discern what is bullshit in the economic discourse today
jo - so why don’t we have two classes : big brother econ and creative econ
dix - i worked in international trade and ran entrepreneurial
laura- i’ll help facilitate econ

*need to confirm changes with TLs not present before finalizing next sundays schedule.

Website
nico - people in Montreal did something similar and there is a really good website platform for this kind of thing
chris - site will have resources and courses