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In 1955, my father Peter Kawecki was 18 years old and living in Regensburg, Germany. But, displeased with the prospects of two more years of formal schooling there, he thought fondly of free America. Unfortunately, immigration to America was determined by quotas according to the country of birth - and Poland, where Dad had been born, was ``booked'' years in advance. Yet the Lutheran Church somehow managed to arrange a one-time quota of its own - and my father was a Lutheran. A few months later, he and his mother boarded a ship for the journey across the Atlantic, destined for the Land of Milk and Honey.
Thirty-six years later, the next Peter Kawecki was ready to find an external solution to his most pressing questions and distresses. This Peter Kawecki was me, though I was fully convinced of a separate identity as Chris Kawecki, and fully convinced that finally in the year 1992, I had discovered the real Eden. A real community existed that would release me from a repressive society, embodied in my high school. I would no longer have to struggle to do what was right for me. I was going to attend Hampshire College - utopia, at last!
In the winter of 1992, I was sixteen years old, and has a year and a half left of high school. I was a junior at Northfield Mount Hermon, the only New England prep school that had accepted me three years before. But I was ready to move beyond this source of my dissatisfactions - dissatisfactions like not being permitted to drop a two-term course between terms. I had to learn commitment, I was told. Well, that is precisely what I proceeded to do. However, I was going to learn commitment not to some external measures of what I ought to do, but to my own.
Perhaps, I thought, I could graduate a year early. I met with my guidance counselor, who was surprisingly supportive. But Apparently, eleven terms of English were required in order to qualify for a Northfield Mount Hermon diploma. We decided to petition the Academic Dean for an exemption. Unmoved by our request, she suggested that I complete three separate English classes my final semester, and thus qualify for graduation. No thank you, I responded. It felt to me at the time that these requirements were not helping me at all.
I wrote to several colleges, and one responded with interest to my letter (requesting admission, after the admission deadline and without a high school diploma): Marlboro College. My mother also suggested I consider Hampshire College. Initially, of course, I was very hesitant about going to school in New Hampshire. I would certainly prefer Vermont. But my mother insisted that, in fact, Hampshire College was in Massachusetts. I agreed to visit.
My interview at Hampshire was amazing, and the tour was absolutely breathtaking. The tour-guide, first of all, was a beautiful woman who paid attention to me. This was something I was not used to, and (although I am ashamed to admit it) I think I may have been converted, based largely on her flattery. However, there was also topping to this cake - or cake to this topping: my interview. I don't particularly remember anything exciting that I said, but what I heard made my jaw drop. I was prepared with a list of the most important questions. At that time, I believed I knew how to ask questions that would get to the heart of the matter.
``How do the professors grade the students - based on papers, participation...?''
``There are no grades at Hampshire.''
I was already a goner. Hook, line, and sinker. ``Aren't there some standards for judging success in classes?'' I prepared myself for the standard answer, because for years I had never had the opportunity to fulfill my curiosity without the significant added hindrance of grades and requirements.
``Actually, no classes are required at Hampshire.''
Nothing more need have been said. But one thing did worry me. In this interview, I heard that just as I would have the opportunity to educate myself in exactly the way that was right for me, I would also have to learn to write contracts to reflect what I was going to do.
``You get both sides,'' he had said. ``You learn the way that is right for you, and you also learn how to be formal in your proposals.'' I had a bad feeling about that one. I was definitely not interested in ``contracting.'' I was interested in ``learning.'' And any formality like contracts seemed to be designed to meet the needs of the institution, needs which I historically had never felt were harmonious with my own needs.
Between the tour and the interview, I learned everything important: anytime Hampshire students did not approve, they held a sit-in; students were respected participants at every meeting; problems were resolved. My tour guide gave an example. She was in a class taught by the President. In protest of some of the College's investment choices, all his students boycotted class. Wow. Not only was I going to encounter an enlightened faculty and sensible regulations, but an enlightened student body ready for action as well. I was hooked on Hampshire.
Convinced about the wisdom of my choice, I skipped my two Advanced Placement exams, U. S. History and German. After all, I heard that Hampshire would simply give me an exam in each area, passing me out of the ``division 1s.'' And I would be on to my self-designed education. Later, I found out that in fact ``exams'' rarely resemble anything I would have called an exam. They have to be designed by the student, in collaboration with a faculty member. And it takes a lot even get a faculty member to agree to give you an ``exam.'' So much for that easy solution.
With blissful high spirits, I was ready. My final term at NMH was, as far as I was concerned, the beginning of Hampshire. I was taking only four credits (down from 6-7 every other term): two APs (which both had the last month off), as well as an independent study and junior English. For junior English I had a very wonderful teacher, Bill Batty, about whom I wrote my application essay for Hampshire. Bill had also been my teacher in Freshman English. He had made a real difference to me, not only in terms of my writing but in my life. With such an introduction, it might seem a little strange, then, that part way through my final semester at NMH I explained to Bill that my needs had changed. I explained that I was a different person now. ``... and so, you see, that is why I cannot come to English class any more this term. This is what's right for me. You'll have to trust me.'' He did. Instead of going to class, I took my education to a new level. I read several books outside of class, and wrote my first essay on education, ``Form'' (in the Appendix). At the end of the semester, I came back to my English class to do a presentation on Woody Guthrie, my latest American hero. I read selections from his book Bound For Glory, sang several of Woody's songs along with my guitar, and played a tape of the Bob Dylan poem ``Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie.'' That day, school ran by a different schedule than usual. I do not know if it was the grounds for a legitimate (perhaps unconscious) mistake, or whether it was a convenient excuse, but Bill missed class. I was surprised, but had a wonderful time with my classmates just the same. My friend Ron Carpenter, who was not a member of the class, came that day for my presentation. Although we have always been on very separate, if sometimes parallel, paths, Ron and I have been models for each other.
Some years later, I asked Ron whether he agreed with me that we have been models for each other. ``Oh yeah,'' he answered. ``You were definitely a model for me then. Not only as someone doing something but as a fellow student who was able to do what he knew he needed to do. You just said this is what you needed, and you just broke through and confronted all the assumptions, and assumed just the opposite. You should decide, not tradition. As it turned out, I modeled not only my process on you, but the subject matter too! Your presentation was on what - Woody Guthrie, right? My independent study was `American Folklore Through the Music and Writings of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan.' And I didn't go to my teacher and say I was `thinking' of this. I went and just assumed I was going to do it, and explained why I would be doing it. I'm not coming to class any more, that's what I told him. And for six months, I took my guitar around with me to every class, like bard Woody himself, singing his songs everywhere I went.'' That was nice for me to hear.
He went on, ``It was like, in that time in my life, I realized that I had genuine, all-encompassing control of my life - like no duh! - but since then I haven't done a single thing that I don't want to do. And that's the point.''
``In a way,'' I said, ``we can't talk about this stuff, though, can we? - either somebody understands - or is - or doesn't-isn't.''
``Yup, I guess that's so. I certainly haven't been able to explain it to anybody unless they already knew it.''
The months between finding out I had been accepted at Hampshire and my last days of high school were the best months I spent at NMH. Aside from the adventure I just mentioned tailoring my English class to my own needs, I was one of the top two cyclists in the New England prep schools. My main competition was a fellow with whom I later became good friends, who has since been on the United States national team. My so-called coach, however was fresh out of Yale University. His cycling expertise, as far as I was concerned, left something to be desired. But what was worse was that despite my explanations of my needs in training, he was convinced his ideas were better. So I upped the ante, dropped the cycling team, and took up Ultimate Frisbee.
With time on my hands and a new confidence, I found myself miraculously behind the Northfield bus stop, standing shyly a few feet from a wonderful young woman, Mindy Almond, leaning forward and melting into my first kiss. I was certainly high on life, even if I was down on NMH.
Finally, several days before any of the other students were even done with their exams, I arranged for my father to come pick up my stuff from my dorm room. It took many hours to stuff every last bag into the car, but finally the packing was done. Just one problem: there was no inch of room left in the car for me. However, I was not to be deterred. I was going home. Early the next morning, I began to trace the route of my car-full of bags - on my bike. Seven hours and 120 miles later, I arrived for one more summer in East Randolph, Vermont.
A few weeks later, I received my grades from NMH. The final written evaluation from Bill read: ``Chris is one of the rare students who will really help people.'' It was such a touching gift for me, because it allowed me to admit to myself how important the desire to help people was for me.
I was ready for Hampshire, I said to myself. As it turns out, I was right. But it was not because I had found an ideal world where dreams come true (as I'd thought at the time). Rather, it was because of what I was figuring out. I had begun the realizing how in education as in life, I didn't have to constantly fight with someone else's goals. I could simply follow my own goals and let the problem entropy, rather than letting myself entropy. I began to develop my ability to act, not only in the constructed world of schools and family, but also in the real world of human existence. This was a new kind of thinking which presented a new potential for myself in society and in relationships, one of many stages I've entered in my becoming.