Dear Past and Present Students, Parents and Staff, and Supporters and Friends of the Free School,

As many of you know, I came to the Free School in 1973 at the ripe old age of nineteen. I was pretty sure I knew everything then, including being convinced that the surest way to save the world is by helping to educate children in a loving community in which they can grow up happy, self-directing and aware, and belonging to themselves.

Who's to say I was wrong - the world is still here after all - but what actually happened along the way is that I saved myself. Everything I wanted for the kids I have slowly and fitfully managed to garner for me. For instance, I am exponentially more in touch and content with who I am on the inside than I ever could have dreamed of being thirty-five years ago, even though I seem to know so much less now. I have also learned how - sometimes alternately, sometimes simultaneously - to think for myself and to collaborate with others on deep levels. And I have pretty well figured out why God put me in this body in the first place.

Most of all I have discovered a lot about love: how to give it, how to receive it, how to resolve the obstacles blocking its flow, and why it is so central to human experience. Now I understand that it is our ability to love - ourselves and each other - that saves the world each day and keeps the chaos of the shadow from taking over completely.

Thus, after three and a half decades of continuing education I have decided that I am finally ready to graduate from the Free School and take this precious wisdom out into the world to see how much good I can accomplish there with the time and energy remaining to me. I'm not certain, mind you, but at least I think I'm up to the challenge.

And how else will I find out unless I give it a whirl?

The reason I think this is the right time for me to go is that I have completed the mission I feel I was sent to accomplish: to help serve as a bridge between our founder Mary Leue, who retired circa 1985, and the new generation of committed young adults who are growing permanent roots here and are very eager to put their stamp on the school and lead it in new directions. Institutions that don't evolve soon grow stagnant and irrelevant, and it is their mission, as I see it, to figure out how to keep current with the changing times without sacrificing the essence Mary imbued the school with in the early years. I wish them well and will be available to help them with the upcoming transition whenever they feel they need it.

All that being said, my decision fills me with a vast sense of loss. I love children more than I can ever express in writing. To think of not being with them every day in our funky, chaotic, one-of-a-kind little school where I can teach them in my way, and hug them and kiss them, and change their diapers and tie their shoes, and tell them stories, and trick and tease them, and above all let them be themselves and me myself, brings up almost more sadness than I can bear.

But as I write these difficult words I find an equally huge feeling of gratitude tempering my grief. How many people can truly say that they thoroughly enjoyed going to work every day of their adult lives? How many have had the great good fortune of being taught by teachers like the ones who have taught me? Here I am especially thinking of the hundreds upon hundreds of amazing little people who have passed through the school's doors during my time. I want to thank each and every one of you for your precious, priceless gifts of wisdom.

I also want to thank the parents of those children for the remarkable trust they placed in us. I know it often wasn't easy, because the school's approach to education and to life is so far out on the edge. It was your faith in the process that made everything else possible.

Next I want to acknowledge all of the equally amazing adults I have had the pleasure of working with over the years. You have been my teachers too, and the best way I can think to thank you is to say that I will always remember and honor our association.

And then there are so many of you who have given freely of your time, energy, and money to help sustain the school and keep it on track. The school's success has always rested on the good will of the community of caring people around it, and I want to thank each and every one of you for your support to me personally and to the school as a whole. Again, words alone cannot express the feeling that is welling up in my heart right now.

What a time we've had together! Please be assured that I am leaving with no regrets and with enough incredible memories to fill three lifetimes.

Also, please keep in touch, and if at all possible please be my guest at my "graduation" at the school on June 8th. The ceremony, at which 8th graders Diana Morales-Manley - who next to me has the longest tenure in the building (13 years), Madison Harrison, Crimson Glover, and Mahjestic Tillman will really be graduating, will begin at around 1:30. Then you are invited to join us at the end-of-the-year block party on Wilbur Street as soon as we have the school buttoned up.

I want to go out in style and to do so will require your accompaniment.

With love and warmest regards,

Chris

(Chris can still be contacted by e-mailing cmercogl@nycap.rr.com and visiting www.chrismercogliano.com)