“For many reasons, Homer Flex High School is the kind of school I wish I could have attended. At Flex, teachers encourage students to be self-motivated and tailor their education to their learning style, while still providing enough structure and support that students aren’t lost in an ocean of options. It is also one of the most accepting places I’ve had the pleasure of spending my time. And that’s what I’d like to celebrate: Flex’s ability to accept a range of quirky characters and find a way for them all to fit.
Roughly 35 students attend Flex, and each of them has their own way of making themselves known. Where one student might wear a fedora, another will come in with a cape. On any given day there will be pinks, blues, and purples scattered throughout the brown, black, blonde, and red hair of Flex’s population. Students who might inhabit opposing cliques in a different school will work together to create a rap defining and exemplifying literary terms (with a little social commentary in there, too). And then you realize that one student’s shirt is covered in kittens all silently judging the world in their cat-like way.
But those kittens are the only ones judging. Students and staff alike accept those who walk in ready to learn. “It wouldn’t be the same without them,” can be heard from one student about a peer they routinely find annoying. This recognition of the importance of each other’s different personalities is fostered in a myriad of ways, one of which is the school’s small size which allows for close relationships between students. In one exercise students were assigned to different groups and asked, over the following few days, to write notecards about each of the others in their group naming positive characteristics, and then present them to each other in front of the group. Because of the school’s size, most students have enough exposure to each other that they could easily find responses. Even students who were absent the day of the assignment were able to step into their group upon returning and name positive aspects of everyone else’s personalities.
This isn’t to say Flex is a magical school where everyone gets along and only sees the best in each other. Like in all schools, drama rears its ugly head, but Flex’s “leave drama at the door” mantra reminds students that the school strives to be a comfortable, safe place and every person who walks through its doors is responsible for maintaining that environment. And they do.
Flex changes a lot every year, every semester, as students come and go, but their level of acceptance remains a constant.”
Story contributed by Deb Meadows, a local skill provider from The Center, in Homer, Alaska
Links
- Video: The Face of Flex
- Facebook: Homer Flex
- Website: Homer Flex
