Founders
Inga Dubay
Founding aide and teacher, 1968-82
(During this time we rented a house in Arlington Heights before we moved to Willamette Heights.) We wanted to explore schools other than Ainsworth, so first went to Couch School. We were told that a “new” school was opening there in September and it sounded intriguing.
ON THE FIRST DAY OF MLC IN SEPTEMBER 1968, Rosie Williams and I showed up expectantly with our children—Jevan, Garth & Taffy Williams and Christopher, Gregory & Jonathan Dubay—for a new adventure in education. After finding the right room for Christopher (age 8), I was just about to leave Gregory & Jonathan (age 5) in Emil Abramovic’s capable hands when he asked me if I could stay awhile. I said, “Yes”—and stayed for 13 years!
In this school without walls and no captive audiences, I was honored to take part in the daily pleasure of education with so many amazing people. I enjoyed offering italic handwriting, calligraphy, silk screen printing, recorder, guitar, round singing and even Norwegian! A memorable thirteen years for me.
I felt like MLC was my school as well. It was certainly a healing place for many of the inadequacies of my “regular” school-system experiences.
A poignant and significant event comes to mind. One day Betty Mayther told me that a student had remarked to her, “You’re so vulnerable!” Wow, what a perceptive person to notice that vulnerability. MLC demonstrated this important life lesson: to be vulnerable is to be open. This was a new spirit of education where a positive outcome is possible together with an awareness of risk taken freely with no guarantee of success—a true experiment—leaving rivalry and competition behind. We all made MLC happen!
POSTLUDE: Some naysayers thought MLC students would never learn “discipline.” However, a philosophy of education on which MLC was based, proposed by A.S. Neill, founder of Summerhill (a school in Suffolk, England), stated that children should be like bees flitting from flower to flower. And so it was! It was the very best way to grow up for all of us!
CODA: Having been given the chance to teach italic handwriting at MLC and create materials, those beginning worksheets later turned into a series of eight books (Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting Series, K-6 and Instruction Manual) used by public, private, charter, and home schools globally. I am also co-author of Write Now (for adults) and Italic Letters and author of Getty-Dubay Italic Calligraphy: for School & Home.
Christopher is a medical geneticist [now retired] at Providence Cancer Research Center (in spite of being told in 2nd grade at Ainsworth School not to touch anything on the science table). Gregory & Jonathan are professional musicians—Jonathan a violinist in the Oregon Symphony, and Gregory director of the Community Music Center, previously principal cellist in the Honolulu Symphony.
INGA DUBAY told us her story, below, for the 50th Anniversary publication, where it also appears. Inga was everything she recollects she was, and more. She probably taught more different and diverse things at MLC than any teacher ever, and she embraced and was embraced by everyone. As she notes, she was also the mother of three accomplished alumni, Christopher, Gregory, and Jonathan.
Metropolitan Learning Center’s 50 year celebration!
Remembrances by Inga S. Dubay, aide and teacher, 1968-82