- SKOLE feels like a friend to me.
- It arrives in the mail
- I pick it up
- and always hold it in my hand
- and look at it.
- I usually don't open it,
- but
- just as the magpie stores those things
- of great value
- in a special place
- I will put it in that place... but later.
- First, it must just hang around the dining room table
- so I can see that it has arrived
- this product of devotion
- to freedom and to kids everywhere.
- I walk through the kitchen
- and glance at it.
- It is very good that this is in my house
- it affects the way I feel.
- You see, I know that it has distilled
- authenticity,
- heartfelt opinions from well meaning people,
- generosity of spirit
- and a purity I can't quite describe
- between the covers.
- It is bound with optimism, hope and love.
- These qualities just radiate from it
- as it sits on the table.
- Such is SKOLE for me.
- I have opened it
- and read it from cover to cover
- Otherwise I would not be able to say the things I have.
- But never have I found a journal
- filled with writing, as all journals are,
- which says more to me through its mere presence in my house
- than it does through the words it contains.
- Things come and go
- and I am very, very sad that
- there will not be new editions to grace my house
- But,
- the old ones feel like new.
SKOLE started its quarterly publication in the fall of 1985 as a vehicle for the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools, and when it proved too individualistic to be accepted any longer as their own publication, it became a general resource for alternative educational writers both adult and child. It finally has come to a full stop with a double issue for Fall, '97-Winter, '98.