What would life be without art?

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Beginning in May, the Progress Energy Art Gallery in downtown NPR has offered us space twice a month (3rd Wednesday afternoon and 2nd Friday evening) to host art demos/classes/make and takes. WE ARE IN DESPERATE NEED OF TEACHERS!!! Come show us how you create or let us try our hand at it. How about a big class collage May’s gallery theme is “My favorite things”… The afternoon spaces would be perfect for a teen or young adult to showcase their talent and artistry, while the Friday night spaces would be ideal for adult themed “make and take” activities for the date night crowd. What a great way to promote your art and craft items for sale. Please email us at “nprfreeskool@gmail.com” right away to sign up to teach a class. And please spread the word – did I mention were were DESPERATE?

Weed Dating- meet your match in the veggie patch!

Becoming self reliant is sometimes difficult to do alone. Homesteading is much easier with a partner. But, finding that special person that shares your views on life can be frustratingly difficult. NPR Free Skool wants to help. Come out to the Habitat for Humanity Kinship garden and meet lots of singles who share your passion for healthy food, gardening, and sustainable living. After the weed dating session, we’ll visit the Suncoast Co-op market cafe for snacks and coffee. While you’re there, you can pick up some locally grown, chemical free veggies. Who says dating can’t be fun and fruitful?

What is weed dating?

Weed dating is speed dating, only instead of being held in a smokey bar or crowded coffee shop, we’ve moved it out into the garden. No more weeding through a field of singles – weed dating makes it easy to meet the cream of the crop. (For more gardening puns and a better explanation of weed dating, check this out: http://www.damemagazine.com/2012/07/16/weed-dating-new-speed-dating)

So mark the date, April 27th, and pick out your spiffiest gardening outfit. Come make some great new friends and, who knows, maybe find a little romance among the weeds. Details on the calendar.

“I don’t trust a skool that can’t spell school!”

 

I’ve heard quite a few times that a school that can’t even spell school can’t be trusted. Half the time it’s a joke, but I’ve found that a few people are legitimately so turned off by the spelling that they won’t come to classes. While I’m sure that their minds can’t be changed (the spelling even still makes me cringe a little), I thought it would be nice to provide some insight into the reasons why NPR Free Skool is spelled with a ‘k’.

To quote West Marin Free Skool, “[NPR Free Skool]  is part of a larger network of [about thirty six] Free Skools located throughout the US, Canada and abroad. We share a very distinct philosophy and are identified by the intentional misspelling of the word school. Free School is NOT simply a “free school” (a regular school that is free in cost, of which there are many). The educational network that we have started here has it’s own definition: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Skool).”

As the wikipedia article points out, the “free” part of free skool also has an unconventional meaning. While NPRFS tries to make all it’s classes free of monetary cost, the word is also meant to convey a freedom from the rigid structure and bureaucratic nature of a regular school environment. We do not believe that the only way to be an expert on something is to have been formally schooled in it, and acknowledge that everyone has something of value to share.

Lastly, “skool” is way easier to find in a search engine. Without the “misspelling” the NPRFS website would be lost forever in a sea of articles about college tuition and free community schools. A quick search of “free skool” in google brings up 7 major free skools onthe first page, as well as an article on how to start one in your own community.

Radical Parenting

Parenting philosophy certainly has changed since I was a child. That’s a really good thing. More of us are trusting our instincts and parenting from a child-centered philosophy and doing away with those old ways of aggression and hierarchy. Whether you come from the school of attachment parenting, un-parenting, peaceful parenting, anarchist/libertarian parenting, or a unique mix, you can find yourself feeling alone in your decisions. The Radical Parenting group is where you can feel supported and inspired, without the judgement or “good advice” reserved for grocery store strangers. Every month this group meets to share insights, discuss parenting books, gain support, and enjoy the company of like minded parents at a local park for lunch-time with our families. The first group meeting is coming up on April 16th. Check the calendar for more information and bring a friend.

Get your hands dirty!

A recent study proved that getting your hands dirty in the garden will boost happiness hormones in the brain. Come on out to the Habitat for Humanity garden and get your hands dirty every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Rick, the lead gardener, will be there to answer your gardening questions and offer advice. Do good and feel good at the same time! Check the calendar for details.

New Book Discussion Group Added

Join us at the New Port Richey Library for the Critical Thinkers Book Discussion Group. We will be meeting the first Tuesday of every month. We will focus on topics that shape our views of the future like Permaculture and localization. We’ll look at economic, social, political and philosophical issues that prepare us to be active participants in creating a better world.

The book for April is

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True

Richard Dawkins

Come one, come all!

NPR Free Skool will be holding an interest meeting on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, noon-ish at the Peace Garden in Sims Park in beautiful downtown New Port Richey. We will discuss the history and philosophy of free skools, begin brainstorming our local educational needs and wants, and begin planning classes for the month of April. Everyone has something to offer a free skool and we hope to have a great turnout. See you there.

UPDATE: We’ve added a 2nd meeting for those unable to attend the Wednesday mid-day meeting. The 2nd meeting will be held Friday, March 15, 2013, from 6pm to 8pm at Oasis Coffee Spot 9213 Little Road New Port Richey, FL 34654

 

Welcome to New Port Richey Free Skool

Welcome to the community’s first ever Free Skool for New Port Richey! New Port Richey (NPR) Free Skool follows in the vein of other Free Skools across the nation and the world. We believe that true community power resides in the peoples’ unconstrained access to knowledge and education. As such, we are striving to create a decentralized network of community citizens of all ages in the Tampa Bay area who want to both teach and receive teaching by freely sharing our combined skill sets, knowledge, and information. Our intention is to encourage self-reliance in the community, develop a consciousness of alternative methods of education, and create a non-authoritarian learning environment outside of the widely-accepted monetary economic education system. We do this for the greater good of creating stronger and deeper community roots and enlightenment.

A Free Skool is not an institutionalized structure that disseminates knowledge in a traditional academic manner. A Free Skool maintains a philosophy of non-hierarchical, open-structure collaboration between community members who simply find importance in freely sharing knowledge with one another. Our idea of “free” refers not only to freedom from financial payment for knowledge, but also to the freedom to participate in mindful speech, peaceful assembly, and the birth of new ideas. There is no centralized location for a Free Skool — any Place in the community can be a classroom in the Free Skool. Community members can open their homes to conduct cooking classes, discussion groups, and workshops. Free Skool teachers can also use free public spaces and parks to conduct dance classes, music workshops, or environmental education courses. Business owners in the Tampa Bay community can open their space to host Free Skool courses. The Place does not matter — only the presence of community members, and a willingness to both offer knowledge and mindfully receive it in return.

We in the Free Skool truly believe that Tampa Bay possesses an amazing potential to be a leader by example in our nation. We believe that our city, with us taking an active part in it, can become a national example of a fair, just, and conscious political system, of real Community, and of green and sustainable growth. Our hope is to manifest these things in any way we can, and we believe that the Free Skool will facilitate the growth of these already-existent ideals.

We are all teachers, we are all students; we all have something to share with our friends! Won’t you join us on our journey toward Community?