Farewell to Free Skool Santa Cruz Celebration

Yes, it's true, we are officially bidding farewell to the current incarnation of the Santa Cruz Freeskool, but we'll be sending it off with a bang! Join us for a First Friday event that will be part art exhibit, part skillshare, and part party at SubRosa.

There will be food and drinks, fun workshops, a bar-b-q bonfire, Free Skool calendars on display, and good company!

If you have ever taught a class, attended a class, or wished you could attend a class, join us! Bring your stories, your memories, and your wishes for the future as we reminisce and relive the ways this project has changed our lives.

Free Skool Santa Cruz: Beginnings and Endings and New Beginnings (some background for this event in short story form)

The five of us are gathered outside, just past dusk and before the moon rise. One person hands us old Free Skool calendars from a flat cardboard box. Each of us has a small stack.

“Look, Spring 2007!”

“I’ve got Winter 2010!”

Each of us holds up the calendars we are naming, and we see the distantly familiar header and display of class names, before we ball up the paper and place it in the center of the dark fire ring.

“This is a fitting way to begin our talk,” another one of us remarks, as the calendars are set aflame to start our fire, “very ritualistic.”

We, who are in the Free Skool collective, are gathered to talk about the project: beginnings and endings and new beginnings…?...

Some themes emerge: a couple of us remember the Free School that preceded Free Skool, a different project but still an inspiration…we remember the people we met for the first time and who became good friends…the engaging classes we attended and/or taught…we trace back the last eight years or so of our shared history in Santa Cruz, struggles and celebrations…

And one of us quietly offers an idea that catches fire among us, just like the old calendar pages in the fire ring…how about if we have an event for everyone to do some of what we are doing tonight, to remember the project and people…

And so we invite you to SubRosa, Friday December 5th at 5pm, for a Farewell to Free Skool Santa Cruz Celebration, as we let go of this current version of the project.

The What-and-Why of Free Skool Santa Cruz: A radically different approach to living and learning, Free Skool Santa Cruz is a decentralized grassroots educational project with classes held in homes, social spaces, and parks. It is an opportunity to learn from each other and share what we know, with a focus on self-reliance, community, do-it-yourself culture and creating a new and beautiful world.

The project strives to blur the lines between teacher, learner, and organizer while posing a direct challenge to dominant institutions and coercive power structures. Part of creating a new world is resistance to the old one. Through Free Skool, we strive to change the way we learn, teach, and relate to each other.

Love,
Free Skool Santa Cruz