SEED alternative school is the oldest public alternative school in Canada, and I'm a proud alum. For me, the school's benefit was defined by the teachers' brave willingness to allow their students to fail — I got two credits in my first two years at SEED (and fourteen the next year, graduating as an Ontario Scholar). Students were encouraged to take experimental charge of their education, sourcing "catalysts" (outside experts who'd donate instructional time), designing "SEED equivalent credit" curriculum for courses of study that fell outside of the Ministry of Education's guidelines, and often running peer-led classes. The writer's workshop at SEED had been founded by legendary feminist sf editor/writer Judith Merrill and, ten years later, was still running as a professional-quality workshop that was attended by students, alumni, and young writers from around the city who'd heard about it.
Now, SEED is under attack. The school that graduated the first woman Nobel physics laureate, the school that was co-founded by MacLuhan the Younger, the school that made me the person I am today is being systematically undermined and destroyed by an uncaring Board and Ministry that have no idea of the treasure they hold in their hands. The administrators are playing divide and conquer with the staff, bait and switch with the students, and duck and weave with the parents.
I dropped in on SEED yesterday to sit for a student documentary on SEED grads and was, as ever, mightily impressed with the wit, intelligence and drive of the students. I can only hope that they take this opportunity to organize against adversity and seize control over their educational destiny, tell the Board and Ministry to toss their collective salad and get a white-hot education in direct action, PR, and radical pedagogy.
