September 23, 2021
Dear LREI Community,
I hope that this message finds you well and enjoying the beginning of the school year. Thank you to all who took a “back to school” photo with Elisabeth Irwin. What a fun way to celebrate LREI’s Centennial. It has also been enjoyable to hear from a growing number of alumni, who seem to delight in sharing their LREI memories. Along these lines, the other day I received an email that began (I have not edited the excerpts below):
“I know that the school community is mainly interested in current activity and Future needs yet much evidence of the enriching value of LREI education warrants awareness of its history….I’m 97 years old, an early alumnus of the Little Red Schoolhouse, Class of 38, possibly the last survivor and I have many perhaps informative memories that I would like to share.”
What an opening! Properly drawn in, I read on, with the knowledge that these recollections were shared by someone who suggested that he may be the last surviving member of the group of students who participated in Miss Irwin’s “experiment” before it became a private school. Wow! He continued:
“I entered first grade in 1930. The school was then part of public school 41 a brick school building on Greenwich Avenue between sixth and seventh avenues. It’s no longer there. I think my teacher was Miss Kreiser. The following year I think the teacher was Rhoda Harris. I went to June Camp in Pomona New York. By 1932 the New York school system no longer supported the progressive experiment. Elizabeth Irwin, a group of parents and others met at Intemans ice cream/soda fountain store on sixth Avenue and decided to form an independent school.”
Looking back over 80+ years, the writer proceeded to share memories of his teachers, of his classmates, and of the experiences he had in and out of the classroom, all related to his school life before entering high school in 1939 (at the High School of Music and Art.) For example, “In fifth grade Mr. Macirwin had us learning about food and cooking. I can’t forget the chili con carne. I was away for sixth grade but returned for seventh and eighth with Norman Studer. The school had acquired a small printing press and some of us learned to set type. I remember printing the programs for our graduation.”
He goes on to write about the arts and the students’ focus on the wider world:
“In perhaps 1975 a friend asked me, ‘do you know you are a published photographer?’ I did not. She gave me a book, The Power Of Dance, published in 1939 in which two photographs were credited to me. The book about dance and related arts for children has a chapter on the creation of a modern dance at the Little Red Schoolhouse. Our teacher was Polly Korchein.
The book contains a description of the animated debate among the children with limited input from Korchien and Studer (his teachers) to agree on the topic and design the dance. The title was Revolt Against Fascism. I think we were more worldly and socially conscious than most children our age. We were aware of the Spanish Civil War and the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy. In one scene of the dance a running soldier(played by Homari Ohta) is killed.”
Finally, he shared a memory of Miss Irwin herself. Miss Irwin’s son-in-law, this email reported, created a small summer camp near her summer home in Connecticut. When relating the activities at the camp, our alum wrote, “Sometimes we walked down to Ms. Irwin’s house for cookies and lemonade.” A sweet image of our founder and one that shares her tender side. Our archives hold other clues to her relationship with the students and I look forward to sharing this throughout the year.
Eighty years on – relationships, experience, adventure, effort, connections to the wider world – truly important facets of his education at LREI have kept someone who is among the oldest members of our alumni body connected to his elementary school, to the people there, and to what and how he learned. Can you picture your children 80 years from now, at 84 or 98 (!), in 2101, what will they remember, what memories of their time at LREI will be cherished? I imagine they will hold onto recollections of a few special people – both classmates and teachers, to times when school and “life” converged, to the ideals embedded in our work, and to the lessons they learned that they have passed on to their children, to grandchildren, and maybe even to a great-grandchild or two.
I am so grateful to this alum for sharing his memories and I look forward to meeting him in person. I am also grateful for all that your children and their teachers undertake each day that creates habits, skills, and ideals that will truly last a lifetime.
Do you want to learn more about LREI’s history? Check out our new LREI Timeline, created by LREI’s talented archivist, and 8th grade mom, Yukie Ohta. Yukie has done amazing work illuminating our past and will continue to share her finds with us throughout this Centennial year.
Peace,
