Tyree Scott Freedom School

The Tyree Scott Freedom School (Freedom School) is an educational program in Seattle, Washington, with a curriculum on social justice issues and anti-racist community organizing in Seattle.[1] The project also holds a monthly gathering of anti-racist educators, whose goal is to end institutional racism in the education system.

Purpose

The mission of the Freedom School is to be a community-driven school where powerful and transformative popular education and learning are the norm and not the exception; where the whole person (body, heart, mind and soul) and the whole community are supported and challenged; where undoing racism, social justice, experiencing new worldviews, nonviolence and environmental sustainability are the curricular focus; and where diversity among individuals and communities and the unique developmental journey of each person is honored and celebrated. The South Seattle Emerald said the school "focuses on community organizing, learning a deeper analysis about racism and systems of oppression, and undoing racism in our society."[2]

The school's training method is called "power analysis," demonstrating how institutions affect people of color. Its purpose is raising students' consciousness of social justice issues, to create young anti-racist community organizers, according to Washington.[3] The International Examiner reported the school "validates student experiences with racism and ties it with the structural context that students can see reflected widely in enduring racial gaps in food security and income, and racial dis-proportionality in school discipline and juvenile detention."[4]

Most Tyree Scott Freedom School students are enrolled in the Seattle Public School District, which is the largest public school system in Washington State, having 45,572 students enrolled for the 2008–2009 school year. Of those students 43.0% are White and 57.0% are non-white. 35.8% of students do not live with both parents, 39.2% are eligible for free or reduced-lunch, 23.7% of students are Limited English and Equal English, and 14% of all students received special education services. These numbers are based on enrollment in 12 regular high schools, 10 middle schools, 9 K-8 schools, 58 elementary schools and 15 self-contained alternative schools including special education programs.[5]

History

American Friends Service Committee

Freedom Schools were started in multiple states in the Civil Rights era, based on Charles Cobb's proposal for a nation-wide network of Freedom Schools in 1963.[6] In 1964, activists had startet 30 freedom schools in Mississippi highlighting racial inequalities in the state's educational system.[4] In the late 1990s, due to the efforts of the People's Institute in Seattle, the City of Seattle Undoing Institutional Racism Group, and their allies, there was renewed interest in challenging racial disparities within the education system. In 2001, the staff the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) along with The People's Instititue of Survival and Beyond, established the Seatle Freedom School.[7]

Two local groups which emerged from that effort were Youth Undoing Institutional Racism (YUIR), workshop’s activist arm,[8] and Taking Care of Kids is Power. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) was among the community organizations that mentored YUIR, which conducted regular sessions with youth on a variety of issues relevant to their lives. YUIR and Taking Care of Kids is Power tackled the lack of multicultural curriculum, and racial disparities in discipline and achievement in the Seattle Public Schools. Youth trained themselves and testified to City Councilmembers[9] and at School Board Meetings. Successful citywide teach-ins organized by scores of parents, teachers and activists were conducted to focus on these issues.

Seattle Freedom School, 2001–2003

These early efforts built momentum, and AFSC launched the first Seattle Freedom School in 2001.[8]

Dustin Washington, Community Justice Program Director (AFSC), and Katie Wepplo, Program Assistant (AFSC), served as the primary organizers.[10] Washington said, "We were inspired by the Freedom Schools taking place in Oakland and New Orleans... we saw that our young people were not being exposed to the social justice issues that effect their lives and wanted to offer an alternative to the mainstream public and private education experience."

The 2001 Seattle Freedom School was a five-day organizing workshop which taught about 20 youth and young adults about racism, sexism, homophobia, and social justice. Organizers worked to develop anti-racist community organizing skills in young people and develop their leadership in a respectful and caring environment.[11]

Tyree Scott Freedom School, 2003–present

In 2003, Freedom School was named in honor of the community organizer Tyree Scott, who died that year. For five decades Scott worked as a community organizer in Seattle, fighting discriminatory hiring practices, breaking through racial barriers in the trade unions, starting worker-to-worker programs which linked the struggle of American workers to workers overseas, and co-founding the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office (LELO). In 1970 the American Friends Service Committee gave Tyree Scott financial support to start a new community-based organization that organized workers of color to fight discrimination in the unions and in the construction trades, called the United Construction Workers Association.[12]

The school's lead organizer Senait Brown said, "We’re not here to teach kids what to think, but how to think... Most education doesn't provide kids with a racial or structural analysis of the world they’re living in, so they just accept what they’re told."[10]

Today Freedom School is facilitated almost entirely by former participants who have taken leadership over its development. Former Freedom School students and facilitators are engaged in anti-racist community organizing at Stanford University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in Camden, New Jersey, at Western Washington University, at the University of Washington, and elsewhere.

According to The Seattle Times, funding agencies include AFSC, Youth Undoing Institutional Racism, and The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond Northwest.[10]

Curriculum

The Tyree Scott Freedom School workshops are offered during winter and summer breaks and on several weekends. Curriculum follows in the footsteps of the Freedom Schools of the 1960s and learns from current Freedom School programs in other cities around the country. Whereas civil rights era Freedom Schools dealt primarily with legalized segregation, Tyree Scott Freedom School focuses on addressing the culture of institutional racism.[13] Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, "At the core of the institute training is a method called 'power analysis,' an examination of how institutional structures such as schools, housing and the prison system affect people of color."[3] Curriculum also incorporates understandings of internalized racial oppression developed by the People's Institute, based on Joy Leary's research on post-traumatic slavery, and Edwin Nichols' model for understanding cultural racism.

Curriculum is based around the Undoing Racism principles of the People's Institute including learning from history, sharing culture, developing leadership, maintaining accountability, networking, understanding power and gate keeping, and undoing internalized racial oppression. Participants analyze why people are poor; develop power analyses; define racism; learn principles of organizing; learn African American, Native American, Latino and Asian history; and discuss intersections of racism with sexism and heterosexism (homophobia).[14]

Freedom School students participate in various field trips.[8] An environmental-justice tour of South Seattle exposes the effects of environmental racism to local communities. Youth visit a Duwamish river Superfund site, Mara Farms community garden, and the former site of Longs Paint Co. in South Park, a factory that local residents (suffering from asthma and other pollution-related health problems) organized to have removed. A tour of the International District (historic Chinatown) visits Danny Woo community garden, the Bulosan Memorial Exhibit, and the Panama Hotel, which provides a unique glimpse at items left behind by Japanese Americans who were interned during WWII and never returned to Seattle to claim their belongings. A tour of El Centro de la Raza exposes youth to the rich local history of Latino organizing, including the peaceful occupation of the Beacon Hill School in 1972. A Black Panther Party tour of the Central District takes youth to the former headquarters of the party, exposes them to the Ten Point Platform, and gives them the opportunity to questions of Aaron Dixon, former Black Panther and founder of the Seattle chapter.

Curriculum is specifically designed to reflect the needs of the participants, young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one. 85% of the youth who attend are low-income and are youth of color. Although the majority comes from Seattle, youth from across Washington State often come as well. Freedom School is free to attend, and breakfast snacks and lunch are provided each six-hour day. All participants must stay the entire time, because each activity builds on the previous one and an important goal is for the group to develop a common language and understanding around the issues they discuss.

Freedom School curriculum is inclusive and interactive with small breakout groups, physical activities, and much discussion time. Freedom School also presents opportunities for young people to meet with and hold discussions with community and national leaders. In 2006, for example, Freedom School students met in small groups with Seattle City Council members; King County Commissioners; representatives from the foster-care system, and experienced community organizers. This gave the young people a chance to speak truth to power, ask hard questions of community leaders, and utilize the information that they learned through Freedom School.

In the future

Tyree Scott Freedom School organizers work towards making Freedom School a year-round, institutionalized alternative school using its own methodology of popular-education-style teaching that will truly engage young people around their experiences. Organizers are working to develop a core of teachers fully equipped as multicultural educators, involve families and community in the education process, and advocate a holistic approach to education which incorporates service learning and a global perspective. In a community-driven process, Freedom School organizers are developing a curriculum for accreditation by the Washington State Office of Public Instruction.

References
  1. Henry, Mary T. "Scott, Tyree (1940-2003)". www.historylink.org. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  2. Oron, Guy (September 12, 2018). "Civics, Education, Opinion, Social Justice a Day at Freedom School: Hpw Could Other Education Models Transform Our Public Schools?". South Seattle Emerald. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  3. Andom, Mary (2006-07-22). "Freedom School teaches what others don't". seattlepi.com. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  4. Nguyen, Minh (August 21, 2013). "Tyree Scott Freedom School Brings Civil Rights to the Classroom, Youth to the Mic". International Examiner. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  5. "Seattle Public Schools : Data Profile: District Summary : December 2008" (PDF). December 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 30, 2009.
  6. Perlstein, Daniel (Autumn 1990). "Teaching Freedom: SNCC and the Creation of the Mississippi Freedom Schools" (PDF). History of Education Quarterly. 30 (3): 297–324. doi:10.2307/368691. JSTOR 368691.
  7. "Freedom schools teach history of race, racism, local racial justice organizing". American Friends Service Committee. 2015-02-02. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  8. Bernard, Sarah (September 1, 2016). "Freedom School Aims to Teach What Public Schools Don't : Seattle's long-running workshop for teens has a lofty goal: dismantling systemic racism". Seattle Weekly. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  9. "Letter to Councilmember Larry Gossett | Tyree Scott Leadership Institute". web.archive.org. 2014-11-28. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  10. Green, Marcus Harrison (2018-08-11). "Before Charlottesville and since, students in this Seattle summer school urge everyone to unlearn racism". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  11. Editor (2014-12-28). ""Freedom Reigns" at Beacon Hill's Tyree Scott Community School". South Seattle Emerald. Retrieved 2020-11-14.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  12. Henry, Mary T. (2007-07-24). "Scott, Tyree (1940–2003)". HistoryLink.org- the Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History. Retrieved 2009-02-08.
  13. Goddard, Tim; Myers, Randolph R. (April 2013). "Youth Justice Innovation on the West Coast: Examining Community-Based Social Justice Organizations through a Left Realist Lens" (PDF). Journal of the Western Society of Criminology. 14 (1): 53.
  14. Washington, Dustin; Schaefer, Madeline (2014-01-16), Tyree Scott Freedom schools: An interview with Dustin Washington, American Friends Service Committee, retrieved 2020-10-21

Further reading
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