Hippie Kid

Recently I found a bunch of people I went to an alternative school with, on Facebook.
Through this, I was directed to an online group for the school-Daybreak School -Los Gatos, Calif. Started by one of my childhood buddies David. We were in the "middle school" together, the school had no grades, no traditional grading system of any kind. So, I was about 10 years old when I started there, he was older, maybe 12, his sister also went there, she was younger and I think was in the "little school".
Daybreak was in the Santa Cruz mountains, on an old Novitiate property, there were large buildings, a chapel, and a 160 acres of redwoods. The property was surrounded by grape vineyards and had an old cemetery with a broken down really old house. It was leased by a group of Hippies in the '70's, to start this alternative school.

The reasons I went to Daybreak, mostly, were due to my mom. She had recently divorced my dad, and moved up to Los Gatos (where she was from originally) from Monterey, Calif. I think she was kinda "finding herself." She had me when she was just 19 years old, and now divorced from my dad, had a new boyfriend, who was a writer. I went to a public school there, briefly, having lived in Europe when I was in the first grade, I was a year older than most of the kids in my class. I remember taking an "IQ" test and it said I had a very high "IQ". I was pulled out of class and went to talk to the councelor, she explained that they needed me to take some other tests. After that, the teacher told the class I was "special"; and the kids all called me retarded at recess. I went home crying. My mom had heard about Daybreak and had some inheritance money, so off we went. I think I started right away, I don't think I ever told her about the "IQ" test cause it was very embarrassing, and it didn't seem like a good thing.

So, after finding my friends on facebook, I watched a movie that was taken by someone who was there, I don't really remember him. But, the movie comes off as sort of a study on the alternative education methods our teachers employed. When I found Davids Group, he asks-how we thought our alternative education effected us. So many thoughts went through my head, especially after watching the movie, I decided to write a blog about it.
I have to be brutally honest here, the movie kinda bothered me, because the teachers talk about how they let us do anything we wanted to do. The camera man who filmed the video at one point focus' on this one little girl she is quite beautiful, and wide eyed, but to me she looks kinda sad, a little spaced out. Not sparkling like small children I come in contact with now. I think she wanted direction, she wanted someone to tell her what to do. Perhaps I am projecting, perhaps I wanted someone to tell me what to do more, my mom was busy going back to college, my grandmother, who I spent a lot of time with thought I hung the moon, and pretty much let me walk all over her.
Later in my older teenage years I was taken to "Rainbow Gatherings" those are gatherings of "the people" much "sufi" dancing goes on, meditating, and communal cooking, learning of the hippie arts: making herbal tinctures, polarity healing, and while I was there, drinking of Peyote tea, fires and drum circles. Being about 14 when I went to these things, I landed up baby sitting the kids, in the "kid" village. I have fallen into that role a lot in life, watching kids of adults who are partying. One time at a "Rainbow Gathering" I saw this 11 year old boy sticking a stick in the fire and getting it red hot, and chasing dogs and other kids around. I watched him for a while, remembering how we used to love to do that at Daybreak. Play with fire, me and my buddies (I was one of only a few girls there) would build fires in pie tins, and catch things on fire all the time. But, eventually I had to tell this kid "Hey, what are you doing?" he stopped, "huh?".
"What are you doing, your going to hurt someone or a dog, what are you a pyromaniac?" He didn't answer me, he put the stick in the fire and we watched it burn up. He went somewhere, but I will always remember that, I really think he wanted someone to tell him to stop that, he didn't mind that I told him to stop at all.

After Daybreak I went to Public School in Carmel, California, 45 minutes from where my dad lived in the country. He also was a confirmed Hippie, although if you asked him he would turn Zen on you and ask "what's a hippy?" and wink. It was pretty hard for me to adjust, I went from wearing levi's with a skirt over it, being a girl, but needing the jeans to climb trees and such. To dressing like a "normal" girl, had to brush my hair everyday. That was a problem, since I had a large dreadlock- rats nest in the back of my head. Little lost braids with feathers sticking out of them. Toe rings, we didn't wear shoes much at Daybreak, moccasins accommodated toe rings. And to top it all of "normal" at this school was RICH!, Carmel, California, the median income I would imagine, was over 300, ooo a year. That school also included few rednecks from Carmel Valley, where I lived, I fell in with them at least they shared my love for tree climbing and were in the same income bracket, or close. I got very bad grades, except in subjects I liked, art, crafts, home ec. Drama and English/ Foriegn Language. Social Studies seemed like a no brainer. Science would have been cool, we did a lot of hands on science at Daybreak, however, the teacher was boring in Carmel. So, I just didn't do any homework, I didn't feel like I had to do anything, I didn't feel like doing. I found friends in Drama class and became a "drama kid'.
At home, my dad was also "finding himself" he was doing a ton of art, drinking a lot of beer and I guess pissing his girlfriend off. I baby sat for the whole neighborhood, and my little sister, who was born in '76.

My point in writing this blog? How did my "alternative education" effect me? And more interestingly how did it affect all of us kids that were raised by hippies in the 70's?
I complained to my mom one time, that I don't feel that going to Daybreak prepared me for the real world. For instance, I was fired from my first "real job", and it was a "head shop" a place that sold pipes and incense! The manager (who was on a power trip) told me straight up, "I ask you to do things, and you always have an answer or another way to do things. I don't have time to listen to your ideas, I've been running this place for a long time." After that, I learned to just say, "O.K." and do it my own way if that is better.
My mom thought for a while, and replied "But, you have to realize, you look at everything differently." Great mom, that's just great, it would be great if I had decided to be an artist, like my parents when I grew up. If I believed that art was even a viable way to make a living. Instead I saw my parents burn through, hundreds of thousands of dollars in the name of art. That's why we went to Europe, to see all the great works of art. We saw Picasso's house, the Louvre, etc. I don't want to appear thankless, my parents taught me a lot about how to get along with any kind of people anywhere. I am educated in the area of art, and foreign language and other cultures. I just am not sure how that prepared me to deal with this culture, that I live in on a daily basis.
I have found other old friends on Facebook, some from where I went to High School, after Daybreak, and Carmel, which was Santa Fe, New Mexico, which also had a private "alternative school." It appears, to me, like a lot of us went kind of a more disiplined hardcore "Punk" route. I wonder how many kids like us, that were raised by hippies also went this way? I, for one, know that I am way more hands on with my son. He does his homework, I make sure he brushes his teeth (every night) , and generally keep him pretty well reigned in.....of course I think everyone of this generation agrees, there are a lot more weird things that can happen to a kid now days. The days of wandering around in forests, and going wherever you want are gone for most kids.

Now, I am 45 years old, I work in a sandwich shop, it is hip as hip can be, I work with a bunch of young people who also were told they have high "IQs" in public school, but they just didn't want to do anything they didn't have to do. So, here we are making sandwiches listening to cool music.
I guess that's all I have, not much of a conclusion, but these are my thoughts on the subject.