saturday house

http://www.saturdayhouse.org/

"Lion Kimbro’s Blog
April 28, 2007
Sudbury School for Adults
Filed under: Journal — Lion @ 9:01 pm
I’d really like something like the Sudbury school system, but for adults.

I’d like something where:
Several people meet, face to face.
They meet for the whole day. For example, 7AM - 10PM: 15 hours!
This would be every Saturday, every week.
This would be at somebody’s house, or in a rented office space, somewhere in or around Seattle.
The meets would have a theme. It could be “the life of the mind,” or “technology,” or something.

But there’s no specific activity. You don’t have to talk about a specific thing; You don’t even need to talk at all. It’s not expected that you’d have one long meeting, or a series of short meetings, or sit in a circle, or any of these things. (Though you could, if you wanted to, do all of those things.)
Freedom is The Rule. You can do anything you want. You can try to start a conversation with someone. You can open up your laptop, and start working on something. You can sing out loud. You can open up a book, and just read. You can draw on a chalkboard. You can write a computer program. You can play a game. Freedom is the rule.

There might be meetings, to discuss things that affect everybody– crises, rules, dues, and so on. But they’re kept relatively short, and not the purpose of meeting. Rather, those meetings are so that you can all have the free time.
Visitors likely encouraged, provided that they were supervised by a regular, and respected the rules of the space. If they became regulars, they would likely need to pay dues and so on. If a friend is in town, the space should be a great place to meet them! ..."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004088498_sathouse23m.html
Unstructured learning is Saturday House goal
By Cara Solomon

Seattle Times South King County reporter

"In the comfort of these rooms, you can write a computer program. You can talk about the meaning of life. You can just sit there quietly, reading.

The only real expectation at Saturday House, a weekly gathering in Sodo, is "background friendliness." And even that bar is set pretty low.

"If someone asks you what you're reading, you can't glare," said Lion Kimbro, 30, a software engineer and one of the founders.

For the past several months, a group of self-described geeks has gathered weekly to re-create the feeling of kindergarten, where everyone has a project and stays for the day, learning in a free-form kind of way.

Saturday House began last spring, a few tech-savvy friends sitting around each Saturday in someone's living room. Now it has migrated to an $850-a-month, 1,000-square-foot space in Sodo where as many as 25 people settle in each week for tasks and talk."