A Tale of Two Mountain Schools: A True Story

In 1933 and 1977 two schools were established that I shall call “mountain schools”. The first was located beside Lake Eden in Asheville, North Carolina in a village called Black Mountain, hence the name Black Mountain College. The second is nestled in a ridge of Mt. Makiling in Los Baňos, Laguna - the Philippine High School for the Arts. Black Mountain also started in a “ridge”, in the rented YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly buildings south of Black Mountain village (until 1941). The surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains provided a natural setting for excursions and afternoon hikes for Black Mountain ’s first enrollees. Our arts scholars may not have all of mystical Makiling to themselves as they share the mountain with UP Los Baňos, the NPDC’s Pook ni Mariang Makiling resort and the campgrounds of our local Boy Scouts, among others.

Beyond their similar rural locations, Black Mountain College and our national arts high school started out as two very different institutions although it would not be difficult, as we go on, to hold them in the same light, not so much for their both having produced eminent personalities from among their faculty and students but, rather, for the distinctive influence and focus by which they have guided their students to develop their potentials and learn valuable lessons for life.

As to sponsorship, Black Mountain was founded by ex-Rollins College faculty John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, et. al while our government-run national arts high school is one of Imelda Marcos’ noteworthy mementos. Rice and Dreir where among several other professors who resigned or were fired from Rollins, a coed institution established in 1885 in not so distant Winterpark , Florida .

As to curriculum, in Black Mountain “the arts were central to the (tertiary) educational experience rather than on the periphery” as “the college sought to educate the whole student – head, heart and hand – through studies, the experience of living in a small community and manual work”.

On the other hand, the Philippine High School for the Arts or PHSA “implements a special arts curriculum apart from the secondary level subjects prescribed by the Department of Education”. PHSA is the national center for excellence and leadership in arts, research, training, education, and support programs that aims “to develop artistically gifted and talented (children and adolescents) by implementing a special secondary education curriculum and support programs committed to the conservation and promotion of the Filipino artistic and cultural traditions. The young artists-scholars, faculty, and staff view themselves as “cultural workers dedicated to achieving the school’s thrusts characterized by an unwavering pride in the Filipino people's artistic and cultural traditions”.

Aside from academic and artistic training, PHSA provides its students with opportunities to develop their social skills that will contribute to their development as artists for others. The experience of living away from home and integrating with mentors and peers in this residential high school, cultivates in the young artists an attitude of independence tempered by the spirit of cooperation.”

Black Mountain College “was a consciously directed liberal arts school that grew out of the progressive education movement. In its day it was a unique educational experiment for the artists and writers who conducted it and, as such, an important incubator for the American avant garde.” Black Mountain was later to prove itself as an important precursor to and prototype for many of the present day American alternative colleges, e.g. University of California (Santa Cruz), Evergreen State College, New College of Florida, etc.

Liberal arts “denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge …” as differentiated from “the professional, vocational, technical curricula emphasizing specialization”. Contemporary liberal arts comprise studying art, literature, languages, philosophy, politics, history, mathematics, and science. In olden times, liberal arts was “ education proper to a free man” as differentiated from that proper for a slave.

Martianus Capella in the 5th century AD defined the seven liberal arts as: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. A pagan writer of Late Antiquity and after whom a lunar crater was named, he founded the trivium and quadrivium categories that structured Early Medieval education. He composed his one famous book, fundamental in the history of education, the history of rhetoric and the history of science.

John Dewey’s principles of education were a major influence for Black Mountain . Dewey, with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is a founder of the philosophical school of pragmatism and was a leading representative of the progressive movement in U.S. schooling during the first half of the 20th century

“Progressive education is the belief that education must be based on the principle that humans are social animals who learn best in real-life activities with other people.” Progressive-thinking educators “claimed to rely on the best available scientific theories of learning. Most progressive educators believe that children learn as if they were scientists, following a process similar to John Dewey's model of learning: (1) Become aware of the problem; (2) Define the problem, (3) Propose hypotheses to solve it, (4) Evaluate the consequences of the hypotheses from one's past experience, and (5) Test the likeliest solution.”

This roster of Black Mountain ’s eminent faculty and graduates should give us a good view of the courses offered:

1. John Andrew Rice, innovative educator
2. Theodore Dreier, American novelist and journalist, pioneer of the naturalist school and known for portraying characters whose value lies not in their moral code, but in their persistence against all obstacles, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice
3. Buckminster Fuller, who, with student Kenneth Snelson, invented the first geodesic dome (improvised out of slats in the school's back yard),
4. Merce Cunningham, dance
5. John Cage, music
6. Josef Albers, art and design, former Bauhaus teacher
7. Anni Albers (Mrs. Josef Albers), Bauhaus-trained textile designer and weaver
[With the Albers’ arrival, the college became a unique center for the transmission of Bauhaus teaching and philosophy. The presence of refugee artists and scholars was critical to the learning experience at Black Mountain throughout its history.]
8. Heinrich Jalowetz, music (with wife Johanna)
9. Arnold Schoenberg, music
10. Willem de Kooning, art
11. Amedee Ozenfant, art
12. Lyonel Feininger, art
13. Robert Motherwell, art
14. Fannie Hillsmith, art
[de Kooning, Ozenfant, Feininger, Motherwell, and Hillsmith were among the art faculty for the first special summer sessions in 1944 at which time the 1944 Music Institute held to celebrate 70th birthday of Schoenberg and which brought to the small campus the most important interpreters and performers of the music of the composer.]
15. M.C. Richards, literature
16. Albert William Levi, philosophy
17. John Wallen, psychology
18. David Corkran, history
19. Ilya Bolotowsky, art
20. Theodore Rondthaler, history and Latin
21. Trude Guermonprez, weaving
22. Max Wilhelm Dehn, mathematics

For its part, the PHSA curriculum includes the following disciplines and specialized studies for creative and artistic expression:
- Creative Writing: Fiction, Poetry, Playwriting, and Journalism in English and Filipino
- Dance: Classical Ballet, Modern, Philippine Folk, Composition and Staging
- Music: Solo Voice/Solo Instrument, Theory, Composition, and Ensemble

Classes (Chorus and Chamber)
- Theater Arts: Acting, Production Management, Technical Theater, History of the
Theater, Theater Theory and Directing
- Visual Arts: Visual Perception, Sculpture, Art Appreciation, Studio Painting,
Materials and Techniques, Figuration, Pottery, and Printmaking

Elective courses that complement the major arts courses are also offered on a semestral basis: Computer Graphics, Photography, Ethnic Ensemble, Rondalla, Music for Non-Music Major, Music for Dancers, Basic Journalism, Ballroom Dance, Basic Acting for Non-Theater Arts Major, Philippine Folk Dance for Ballet Major, Ballet for Philippine Folk Dance Major, Research in the Arts, and Community Service.

Community Service consists of outreach projects held in both rural and urban communities where students share their learnings and experiences via regular recitals, exhibits, competitions, and festivals. PHSA students also participate in local and foreign educational and exposure trips and periodically renowned artists, cultural leaders, government officials, and alumni hold interactions and master classes with the students. “…co-curricular activities for the students include writing for the school paper, attending religious services, coaching peers, managing the Student Council, and a host of other life-enriching experiences”.

The PHSA’s distinguished alumni include Grace Nono (Theater/Music), Raymond Red (Visual Arts/Film), Gerry Leonardo (Visual Arts/Painting and Installations), Shamaine Buencamino (Theater/Film) Hiyas Hila (Music/child prodigy pianist), Soliman Cruz (Theater/Film), Jonathan Zaens (Music/ bass baritone), Biag Gaongen (Theater) and Candice Adea (Ballet).

At its recent 30th commencement exercises, PHSA was formally inaugurated into the Smart Schools Program through which it can make use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the advancement of the arts in terms of integrating in the educational process and in reaching out to a wider public, as well as access to online content, continuing teacher training and free web hosting services.

As the PHSA reaches out to the world via technology, Black Mountain has remained closed for the last 52 years. The college was owned and operated by the faculty so funds were commonly scarce. Due to the impending war in the 40s, the plans for a campus designed by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer had to give way to a simpler plan by American architect A. Lawrence Kocher. During schoolyear 1940-1941, students and faculty constructed several buildings including the Studies Building , a faculty cottage for Heinrich Jalowetz, music teacher, and his wife Johanna.

The Second World War “brought new hardship to the college which was too small to qualify for the wartime programs which sustained many colleges and universities”. Young Americans, including Black Mountain students, joined the war effort, and the school community that remained was made up mostly of older Americans, European refugee faculty and women students. The college nevertheless kept with the times, holding summer work camps to complete the construction of the new campus, and expanding the college farm to provide additional food, and mining mica, a strategic war material.

Approval for benefits under the GI Bill of Rights was critical to the post-war survival of the college. New faculty were hired: Americans interested in an alternative teaching environment, as well as refugee professors from Europe . Young men returning from the war were eager to find a non-authoritarian atmosphere in which to study.

In the spring of 1949, after a year of (intellectual) dissension and bitter conflict, Josef and Anni Albers, Theodore Dreier and other faculty resigned. They had been at the college since its beginnings and had provided continuity and structure. There remained a community divided within itself about the direction the college should take.

In the fall of 1949 Black Mountain faced “the formidable task of healing the badly fractured community, of raising funds, and of reexamining the college’s goals.” An administrator hired to reorganize the college and to raise funds failed to do both. Never theless, until 1953, the college continued to have a general curriculum although the offerings were limited. Although the college continued to espouse the inherited ideals of the 1930s such as community living, a farm, work program, and faculty-run college, the community was, in fact, comprised largely of artists and scholars with little interest in farming, administration or maintenance. Periodic efforts to give the college a more traditional structure and program were unsuccessful. A conventional college with an authoritarian administration inevitably meant a loss of academic and creative freedom. The GI Bill benefits were dwindling, and the conservative atmosphere in the 50s made it virtually impossible for experimental ventures to raise funds. Eventually, the faculty was paid in beef allotments and parcels of property were sold. Finally, in the fall of 1956, the closing the college started but a postmortem issue of the Black Mountain Review, the college’s school paper, did not appear until the autumn of 1957.

One October 1995 reunion, the Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center asked alumni to mount in 18" x 24" panels "letters home to mom," journal entries, art, poetry, photographs, essays and other memorabilia.

The PHSA’s mountain home, Makiling, is threatened by indiscriminate private subdivision and other commercial developments, and a resultant degraded ecology facilitated by corruption at many government levels.

Black Mountain College is now Camp Rockmont , a private, Christian camp serving nearly 1,700 young people from all parts of the world and home to the Black Mountain Festival and the Lake Eden Arts Festival. Listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, its 550 acres of mountainous woodlands and private lake remains a beautiful rustic setting but not as beautiful, perhaps, as when it was home for that one unique experiment in American education then renowned for its an uncommon vitality and responsiveness and remembered until now.