Free Schools and Freedom Schools: Hippies and Black Radicals in the Berkeley Experimental Schools, 1968–1975

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

This study examines two contradicting priorities that have always stood at the heart of liberal democratic pedagogy and continue to be prominent in curriculum theory, “social justice” education, and teacher education today. The first is the task of cultivating students’ commitment to democratic values and challenging inequality, and the second is the task of fostering the capacity of the individual for autonomous critical thinking. Both are expressed within critical pedagogy, which seeks to teach “social justice.” Critical pedagogues advocate a constructivist approach to learning – which emphasizes the autonomous, self-directed construction of knowledge from the learners’ experience – while at the same time expecting students to develop an explicit critique of the social order. However, the use of a constructivist approach for the pursuit of explicit ideological goals leaves educators with a dilemma: what happens when students’ reflections don’t lead them to conclusions that challenge oppression? In other words, how should educators respond when “critical” thinking does not lead to the “critical” conclusions that social justice teachers advocate (i.e., ones that challenge capitalism, racism, sexism, and other systems of oppression)?

My research interrogates how teachers and students navigated the tension between constructivist learning and explicit ideological critique in the Berkeley Experimental Schools Project (BESP), a public educational program that existed from 1968 to 1975, and sought to actualize the goals of both the Free School and Black Power movements. This historical case study sheds light on the autonomy-critique dilemma with particular clarity, because the Free Schools represent one of the U.S.’ most radical experiments in constructivist pedagogy, and the Black Power movement one of our most heightened efforts to challenge systemic oppression. By studying the contradiction between constructivist learning and explicit ideological critique in its most radical form, my research elucidates tensions at the heart of liberal democratic pedagogy, and continuing gaps in our theorization of critical pedagogy and “social justice” education today.

This study relies primarily on archival data – pamphlets, newspaper clippings, photographs, and government reports – found in the Berkeley Public Library, Berkeley Historical Society, Bancroft Library, and Berkeley High School. Oral histories were also conducted with key actors from this time period, including major public figures in education, New Left and Black Power educators and activists, and people who attended school in Berkeley during the 1960s and 1970s.

Author

• Joanne Tien, University of California - Berkeley