Inside PFS

Today our hosts Grace and Tori are interviewing one of our staff Simon about his experience with alternative education being both a staff, and a student.

After almost a year of no podcast we’re back with Rosemary and Arika to talk about COVID-19 and how it affected our school with hosts Grace and Tori.

Join us for the first episode of the 2019-2020 school year with new hosts! Students Tori and Grace have decided to take over the podcast to create a whole new perspective. This episode is centered around age mixing at PFS. Enjoy!

For our final episode of the Inside PFS podcast for the 2018-19 school year, we offer you a fun and insult ridden conversation between Tori, Maddy, and sometimes Luke. 'Sometimes Luke' because Tori and Maddy only seemed to want Luke in the conversation as a whipping boy. It's a lovely end to this year of conversations inside Philly Free School. Tori and Maddy discuss the development of the school since its opening, sticking with the announcement committee project they started for the entire school year, and much more. Enjoy!

This concludes our series of conversations with students moving on from PFS this year. This is another student created podcast between two friends. Marley went through the diploma process this year and was recently approved by the Assembly for a diploma. Kyran is simply moving on. Kyran and Marley discuss - in their pleasant, silly way - clerkships, gender and trans dynamics at the school, using public transit to get to school, and more. Enjoy!

Continuing with our project to record and publish conversations with all the students aging out or receiving a diploma this year, we caught up with Laadah. Alone time and solitude are one of the great luxuries at PFS and Laadah has taken full advantage of their use here, and we discuss what that has meant to her. We also discuss the subtle and not so subtle differences of being a black person in Philadelphia public schools and PFS, spirituality, and what it's been like having younger sisters at school. Enjoy!

We are excited to offer our first podcast composed entirely of student voices. This fun and profound episode is a conversation between three young men. Preyton, Noah, and Ian discuss a wide range of topics including race dynamics at Philly Free School and in the world, the differences they see between democratic-free school students and their conventional school peers, the role of older students, Garfield, and more. Enjoy! DISCLAIMER: This podcast contains some profane language. Those of us involved with producing this episode have chosen to publish it unedited. We believe it is valuable and beautiful to hear the way this group of friends speaks openly with each other. Applying a filter would muddle their voices. Listener discretion is advised.

This was a fun interview because it was the first one that was genuinely student driven. Tahj persisted in getting this episode recorded, and we're very glad he did! He describes his experience of conventional school as being 'separated', while Philly Free School allows him to move freely from person to person and room to room. This episode is filled with these sorts of rich insights from Tahj as we discuss judicial committee, how the layout of the physical space affects things, and more. Enjoy!

In this episode, we caught up Grace, a rare journey-person of democratic free schools. She currently splits her time between Philly Free School and Spring Valley School in Florida. We managed to sit her down for a conversation before she flew South for the winter. PFS is the third democratic free school Grace's has attended as a student. We talk about her experiences at the different democratic free schools and her various pursuits during her time at Philly Free School. Enjoy!

In this episode of Inside PFS we wanted to get a look at the school through the eyes of a newly enrolled student. Christy was kind enough to speak with us after having only been part of Philly Free School for a few weeks. We discuss her difficulties at her last school, struggles with mental health, the challenges and joys of discovering PFS, and more. Enjoy!

In our second episode of Inside PFS, we get the opportunity to hear from Benett Bloom. Benett's willingness to discuss his struggles and triumphs with autism and his plans for his life as he prepares to leave the school are touching and show how much he has developed his communication skills in the years he's spent at Philly Free School. Enjoy!

We are very excited to share the first of what we hope will be an ongoing series of podcast/audio recordings produced by Philly Free School that take our audience 'Inside PFS.' Our debut episode is Luke Byrnes interviewing Naia Marr. Naia and Luke discuss growing up at Philly Free School, boredom, committee work, and more. Enjoy!