Cool idea, but my guess is that forms of authority and division will begin creeping in over time.

Yeah, but the football team will have a cool looking helmet logo!

Anarchists teaching social sciences and the humanities, huh. That's kind of like an on-line university that teaches nothing but Java programming.

LOVE the course listings btw:
The Russian Revolution
Experimental Literature
Radical Perspectives On Sexuality
Politics Through The Media

That sounds a lot like the Ivan Illich stuff I've read. Ivan passed away recently by the way...

He might wanna do some research on a thing that was happening here in San Francisco in the late 60's/early 70's. There was a free, open, random 'university' called 'communiversity' that basically was an extention of another local City College. Anyone could teach a class on anything; just list it in the course catalog and have at least four people show and you're good to go. It had classes on everything from cooking to auto repair to pratical jokes to performance art to really experimental stuff. It sounded way cool.

Edited by author 07-22-2003 12:12 PM
I'm a big fan of Ivan Illich! I'm not sure how many other AnarchistU members are. I attempted to start an Ivan Illich discussion group a while back at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illich/, but it hasn't really taken off (at least not yet).

About time-creep; I think Craniac is likely correct. I've certainly seen various projects break up into various angry camps over time. However, I don't think that that danger is a reason to not attempt such an effort; nor that one year of success is worse than zero years of success. We'll do the best we can to resolve authority and division issues. One thing I'll try to encourage at such a time is to have the school split into two separate entities. I figure two free schools are better than one anyway.

CowboyX is correct. I think that the current definition is too limited. I'm going to attempt to get it changed in the next meeting. While it reflects what the school is currently offering, those are based on the people we've found that are willing and able to teach courses. I know of at least one lead for a Calculus teacher though.

However, as with CowboyX's Java on-line university, people are of course able and encouraged to fill in any learning gaps elsewhere.

Edited by author 07-23-2003 03:14 AM
The creative writhing course looks awesome.
Credits apply to Theatre, Law, or Political Science.

I hope the writing courses can strike a blow against the stifling bourgiouse oppression of correct speling and punctuashin;

My school was 100% Toronto Free, too.