Introducing Lighthouse School

Lighthouse School – the ‘School with a Soul’, as it was advertised – was located in a suburb of the city of N. The school sat close to the boundary between two administrative districts of the city, both of which bordered the city limits. It was about a 40-minute ride by bus and tram into the historic center of the city. Twenty years before, the neighborhood had been semi-rural, with farms and smallholdings alongside regular residential houses. Since the fall of communism in 1989, and especially as a result of the big housing boom in the years immediately preceding the study, several new housing developments had appeared within a couple of kilometers of the school, with more under construction, mostly consisting of apartment buildings. As a result, in at least two distinct locations in the vicinity of Lighthouse, what might be thought of in the American sense as ‘neighborhoods’ had emerged – areas that have their own stores, facilities and services, name and sense of local identity.

As was the case with much new housing of this kind in Poland, apartment prices were not cheap, and the whole area felt very middle class – residents generally drove nice new cars and appeared well-heeled. This fact is not insignificant in terms of the intended and actual clientele of Lighthouse School. More will be said about class later in the context of the school’s work.

The school was located in a pleasant, light, airy, L-shaped building that was newly constructed when the school moved in in 2006. Sydney and Taryn, the school’s directors (I’m using this term somewhat loosely here, though I’ll be more accurate later in this chapter), had taken care with the interior design, and as a result the whole place had a warm and friendly feel. It looked new and smart: a sharp contrast with many educational settings in Poland (I’m thinking of everything from run-down university lecture halls to run-down public school classrooms and hallways).