A Narrative of the NCACS Conference 2009!!!!

The National Coalition for Alternative Community Schools has been meeting for over three decades.   The NCACS conference is an annual gathering between alternative learning schools, schools where kids love to learn.

A lady said, “At the school I used to teach at, when the kids heard the bell for the bus, they would literally scatter into the woods and run away because they loved school so much!” 

Some of the schools included in this year’s conference were The Farm School, Little River School, ClonLara in Michigan, and then there is Upattinas’ sister school in, surprisingly, Japan!  And there is also one in Vermont.  They had to fly on a plane for this one.  There are more schools, which shall not be listed, for there are too many. 

Upattinas has a woods with a little creek, a huge high school that is mostly gymnasium, and a little farmhouse that hosts the lower school and the middle school.  Ages from ten to five have classes there in the lower school together.   Upattinas school hours are from 9-4.  

I was walking around the eating tent, and I heard some adults talking.   Another man said, “At a school I taught at, once, they had a meeting and the staff said ‘We need a longer winter break.’  But the kids argued back, ‘We don’t need breaks at all!  We’ll just keep going all year long!’”  It must be great when kids love school, because then they can just do it, and it’s all over and then they can go play. When I got there, I was instantly engulfed in a hug from Jackie, my friend.  Then I was chased all around school campus by my friend Rachel.  And then I was engulfed from behind by my other friend, Alice, who now goes to middle school, but didn’t while I was at school there. It was kind of overwhelming, but fun at the same time.

I also saw a girl I used to play with, well, tag along with, really, from the Farm School, which I mentioned earlier.  She had changed her hair, so I didn’t recognize her at first.  Last time I saw her she had long, brown hair, and now she had short blonde hair.  And when I say short, I mean SHORT! 

Oh, and by the way, the official title of the NCACS conference is “Own Your Education NCACS 2009.” When I hear that title, I think it means “We’re going to the NCACS Conference!”  Actually, I never usually hear the title.  It’s more like, “It’s the NCACS conference.  I’m going.  Want to come?”

If you’re thinking, “I have no idea what the NCACS conference is, I have no idea what you are talking about at all,” let me make things more clear.  It’s a thing where all the schools I’ve been talking about travel for long distances to gather all in one place, go to workshops, see old friends and meet new people.  You might be thinking, “Why do these people want to get together?  What do they have in common?”  They all go to alternative learning schools, which means the learning isn’t quite the same.  You have some control over what you do.  For example, at Upattinas - it’s not like this anymore - you kind of have to do things, but back when I went to school there, we used to have complete freedom.  We didn’t have to go to classes if we didn’t want to.  We designed our curriculum, practically.  We didn’t get in trouble for not going to our classes as long as we told our teacher.  Instead of going to class, we played games.  And if we didn’t want to interrupt it, we didn’t have to go to class. But the problem was, the kids just didn’t go to class.  By the way, this is also the reason they changed it.  Nowadays,  you can still design your own curriculum, like you pick your classes, but you have to go to the classes.  Well, you have to go to, like, math and reading and writing, but it’s still not like rushing here to there.  I’m not quite sure, but I think you can skip classes that aren’t those classes.  

It’s funner, and nicer and you have freedom.  It builds your social interactions about ten-fold!  Going to Upattinas makes you completely not self-conscious!  Well, most of the time.

There’s one workshop that comes back most times.  It’s a workshop where we make hula hoops and learn how to use them.  Usually, the people who lead the hula hooping workshop are local kids that know how to hula hoop really well and know how to make one.  This year I learned how to make a hula hoop.

                  HOW TO MAKE A HULA HOOP

First, you need PVC pipe.  Then you fit it in a loop to about the height of your belly button.  Then you need a connector and a blow dryer.  A connector is a little plastic thing that fits in the end of the PVC pipe.  After you warm the PVC pipe with the hair dryer, you stick the connector in one of the open sides and bend the pipe around to attach the other side.  Then you wrap the connection with black electrical tape.  Then you can decorate with all different colors of electrical tape.  And there you have a hula hoop ready to take home!  One of the hoops I made was black, the other was white and green overlapping spirals.

An Education Bomb

The annual meeting of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS) met April 30th to May 3rd, 2009 at Upattinas School in Glenwood, PA.

One young girl said, “It was like a tent forest, no, a tent city!”  There were over 200 people who traveled from as far away as Japan at the conference.

The NCACS has been meeting for over three decades.  Students and staff from all the schools in the NCACS travel for long distances to gather all in one place, go to workshops, see old friends and meet new people.  You might be thinking, “Why do these people want to get together?  What do they have in common?”  They all go to alternative learning schools, which means the learning isn’t quite the same.  Students have some control over what they do.  This conference is about knowing there are other people who own their education.  

A group of people at the conference were talking about the schools they taught at.  A lady said, “At the school I used to teach at, when the kids heard the bell for the bus, they would literally scatter into the woods and run away because they loved school so much!”  Another man said, “At a school I taught at, once, they had a meeting and the staff said ‘We need a longer winter break.’  But the kids argued back, ‘We don’t need breaks at all!  We’ll just keep going all year long!’”  

People of all ages learn and play together at these alternative learning schools and at the NCACS conference.  The NCACS conference will explode again next year at another alternative learning school!

The Cherry Blossom Race

Rushing going faster faster gaining speed.

Zooming through the cherry blossoms faster.

The finish lines in sight and

yes, I've done it! My greatest dream.

I've won the race!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Swift

Swift the arrow flies through the air.

Swift the sword flashes silver.

Swift the ax goes down.

And then...

It all stops as quickly as it had started.

Newest Stuffy Additions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Snowcap the mountain goat webkins

Sagittarius the Red Tailed Hawk

The Clouds Part

The clouds part for her

The wind dies for her

The storm stops for her

Who is she?

She is the cloud princess

Blue Skirt

Once there was a girl and her skirt

She loved her skirt

Her skirt was an ocean wave

She twirled

The wave splashed on the sand of the couch

The foam lace rippled 

The blue cloth wave withdrew

And was gone

Anna!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heracles the Jerkales

You know how everyone thinks Heracles was a hero? Well, try thinking of it this way: what if Heracles was a jerk? In this essay, I will be telling you how Heracles was a jerk and three reasons why. The examples I’ll include are that he killed his music teacher, murdered his wife and kids, and denounced the gods’ authority. By the end of this highly persuasive essay, I will probably have convinced you that Heracles was indeed a jerk.

The young Heracles was of noble birth, so he learned music and the lyre. His music teacher’s name was Linus. One day Heracles was having a music lesson, and Linus criticized him for singing off-key. In retaliation, Heracles bashed him over the head with a lyre, killing him!!

As a young man, Heracles became famous by killing the terrible beasts in the hills around his city. He was so strong he could strangle the animals with his bare hands. Hera, the queen of the gods, was mad because Heracles was one of Zeus’ many sons by mortal women. When Hera made him insane in order to punish him for being the son of Zeus, he mistook his family for beasts. He was already crazy for fame, so he killed them without even thinking. People who are insane hardly ever kill their family. All the time, he used brute strength to get what he wanted.

There were two ways that Heracles demonstrated a disrespect for the gods. First, Heracles was walking on the dock trying to find a boat to steal. But the only boat on the dock belonged to Helios, the sun. So, Heracles got his bow and pointed it at the sun! Heracles threatened to shoot Helios down from the sky if he did not lend him his boat. The sun quickly gave Heracles the boat. A second example is when Heracles went to the underworld. He put on a hideous leer and even the king of the underworld was scared, so he let Heracles borrow Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog of the underworld.

Therefore, given the information that I will restate, Heracles was a jerk. He killed his music teacher, murdered his wife and kids and disrespected the gods. He used brute strength to solve almost all of his problems.