Welcome!
I taught and co-directed at Holden High School, formerly Contra Costa Alternative School, in Orinda, CA for 37 years. I’ve helped raise a couple of kids, taught preschool, special ed, and accordion in addition to teaching and working at Holden. This blog will help preserve the unique and colorful history of Holden. I learned a few things about learning, teaching, growth, and parenting, and I’d like to share!
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Joel Weber: About Me
My career in alternative education began in kindergarten when I walked home at recess after ‘having trouble with the playleader.’ It continued in high school when I mentioned to my Civics teacher that ‘just because you see something in print doesn’t mean it’s true.’ She reddened and was speechless for a minute, which was a nice change of pace.
I began to teach elementary school to avoid the Vietnam draft. I didn’t want to leave the country or go to jail. After being demoted from the UC Berkeley Intern Credential program for ‘lack of classroom control in student teaching,’ which was code for ‘political reasons,’ I moved to Cal State Hayward’s Operation Fair Chance credential program. (Really, ‘classroom control’ traditionally defined was never my strength. Parts of this blog will speak to that.) At Cal State Hayward I met my future wife Julie, who had no interest in me from the get-go. (That’s another story, best told by Julie.) I began student teaching in Oakland, but finished in San Leandro, supposedly because I used the school mimeograph machine and school time to promote a ‘private’ field trip—to bring Chicano students from Oakland to Delano, CA to meet Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers. More political reasons. Is there a theme here? Julie and I founded the Benicia Children’s School, an alternative elementary school, in 1971, and ran it for two years. While in Benicia, I gave $1 guitar lessons to Bill Collins, among others. Bill’s mom asked if we could teach him as a teenager along with our elementary kids. He wasn’t happy in public high school. We didn’t know how to integrate him with the little ones, but right then we happened to meet staff from Holden High School, Orinda. We packed Bill in the van with the munchkins to visit Holden. Bill got a scholarship there; he found volunteer work at Holden for Julie and me later. When old director Anne Schaeffer left, she passed the directorship to me because I was the ‘only one she knew who was stupid enough to take the job.’ She was profoundly correct. In my 38-year Holden/CCAS (Contra Costa Alternative School) career, I focused most intently on relationships: all of my communications with the community—the students, the parents, the staff—everyone. I’m proud of my work on this, and also of my work in several other areas: my ongoing liaison work with the Orinda Community Church, helping to forge strong bonds between a secular, nonreligious independent alternative school and a wonderful, caring, open and affirming Christian church; my role in defining Holden as a collective and in helping to hire six other Co-Directors; my work at Holden and in the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS) in helping to hoist and carry the banner of alternative education for more than 40 years—make that 60 if you start with kindergarten. |