Reach Sudbury School of Toronto is pleased to announce its next Information Meeting and Valentine’s Party
Dr. Carlo Ricci, an educational professor at Nipissing University and a long-time Reach supporter, has just published a new book, The Willed Curriculum, Unschooling, and Self Direction: What Do Love, Trust, Respect, Care, and Compassion Have To Do With Learning? We are all looking forward to reading it. If you would like a copy, it’s available in paperback or as an e-book.
I’ve been reading through some past articles on Sudbury education. A new year is a good time to think about new ways of doing things, and so I’d like to refer you to an essay by Daniel Greenberg, a found of the original Sudbury Valley School and a long-time staff member there. It’s called “Sudbury Valley School: The Birth of a New Paradigm for Education” and it’s on the Sudbury Valley School website. It outlines some of the ideas behind Sudbury education and talks about how the school’s founders decided to do things they way they do there.
Here is my favourite quotation from this essay: “I want to end with the essence of what the school is about: that a child is no different than an adult in the respect that is due to them from the rest of us. And the easiest way to get into this paradigm, the easiest way to break out of all of these other preconceptions, is to keep reminding yourself of that simple fact. Every time you interact with a child, stop yourself for a second – you can train yourself to do this – and ask, ‘Would I behave this way to an adult?’ Would you walk up to an adult and say, ‘Haven’t you been sitting a little too long staring at the roof? Wouldn’t you like to read a book that I have for you?’”
When I first encountered democratic schools, as a frustrated teachers’ college student skipping class to read through the alternative education section of the library, I thought, “This is incredible!” What I was reading resonated with my values and spoke to me on a deep level, and in that way it felt very familiar. Yet it was also extremely foreign. I had never seen a democratic school or met anyone who had attended one. (The only democratic school I had ever even heard of was Summerhill, which I had read about in high school when a friend lent me one of A.S. Neill’s books. We couldn’t believe this kind of school actually existed!)
I think one of the biggest stumbling blocks for the acceptance of democratic education as a viable schooling option is that it is so very different from what most of us have experienced. Even if the principles underlying democratic schools make sense to us, and we can imagine that they could work in practice, it can be hard to shake the nagging voice of fear of the unknown. School is school, we all know what it looks like, and doing something completely different than everyone else has ever done is just too risky.
Well, it was reassuring to me to find out that democratic schooling is part of an educational tradition and is practised at many institutions world-wide. This is probably not news to many of you. However, if you are new to democratic education and you are looking for reassurance that this is a credible idea, consider checking out these links. (This is by no means an exhaustive list of resources but it is a good starting point.) AERO is particularly good for showing the scope of alternative education options out there; IDEA (Institute for Democratic Education in America) has interesting contributions to the democratic education conversation; IDEC and IDEN (International Democratic Education Conference/ Network) give you an idea of the international scope of this movement. Democratic education may not be mainstream (yet, we like to believe!) but it is an established practice.
Recently, a Toronto area JK- Grade 8 public school instituted a ban on balls in the playground because a parent had complained about having sustained a concussion from being hit in the head by a soccer ball. This incident received international attention, and was the butt of jokes on the David Letterman show and Saturday Night Live. The local hue and cry was loud and immediate. Children were shown on the nightly news, chanting, “We want our balls back!” The school board called a community meeting to discuss the issue. The upshot of that meeting was that only soft balls are allowed during school hours, and hard balls may only be used outside of school hours. Which begs the question: aren’t parents more likely to be in the playground outside of school hours?
We also found out that this ball ban had been on the table for quite some time, but was never enforced. The school has a very small play space, and all 350 students plus younger daycare student need to use it. One parent noted that if a big 14-year old lobbed a soccer ball at a little 4 year old, it could cause serious injury. While this is no doubt true, one wonders why this even crossed that parent’s mind, and why that’s the ball’s fault, and why the whole school should be punished for it. Perhaps the principal was worried that the parent was going to sue the school and/or school board for the injury, and (over)reacted with the ball ban.
What if a parent had been injured in a similar manner at a Sudbury school? First, a number of questions would be asked.
1. Was the ball kicked at the parent’s head deliberately?
2. Was the parent paying attention to what was going on around them in the school yard?
3. If not, did the parent accidentally and unknowingly step into the path of a flying ball?
4. Do adults realize that children do not have terribly good control of their aim when kicking, throwing, or hitting balls? After all, they’re still learning.
5. What happened after the parent was injured?
6. Was the student sorry? Was any apology offered?
7. Did the parent who was injured accept the apology, if offered?
8. What, if any, consequences were there for the student?9. What kinds of discussion were the students involved in after this incident came to light?10. Other than banning all “hard” balls (nerf balls are OK), what other safety measures were put into place?11. Were they needed, or what this an unfortunate accident?12. The kids got a petition going to bring balls back. Are they just thinking “we want our balls back” or are they also thinking “and this is what we will do to try to prevent future injuries”…?
13. Were the kids even allowed to be part of the discussion?
My now-18 year old son, who attended a Sudbury school for four years, offered his opinion: Sounds like the parent was unaware of what was going on around her. A Sudbury kid would take responsibility and apologize immediately. If the parent complained to a staff member, that staff member might put it on the agenda for the next SM, and it might or might not be taken up, depending on the circumstances. If it had been deliberate, they would have a serious talk with the student, through JC. If it had been an accident, people might just say, “Let’s be more careful and watch around us especially when parents are around to pick up their kids.”
Sudbury students and staff are expected to take personal responsibility, for our own actions and to keep ourselves safe. Blaming others and expecting safety to come from ill-considered or inappropriately enforced rules is not the standard at Sudbury schools. Rather, a full and frank discussion of the problem and possible solutions, informally or formally through Judicial Committee or School Meeting are the norm. And everyone has a voice. And parents have a role in setting a similar example at home.
I enjoyed reading a recent blog post by Mark McCaig, a staff member at Fairhaven School, a Sudbury school in Maryland. It’s called “What We Don’t Know: Uncertainty and Fairhaven School”. Its description of all the unknowns in a Sudbury education seemed very familiar to me as a former Sudbury school staff member myself. I remember that when I first started working at The Beach School these unknowns could seem frightening, even though I believed strongly in this form of education. It is hard to justify self-directed learning, self-evaluation, and democratic decision-making that includes even 4-year-olds in a time when “accountability” is such a buzz-word.
Over the years I came to understand something, which is that in a Sudbury school a lack of certainty does not equal uncertainty; it equals trust, which is a very different thing. I came to trust that students were learning because I saw them change and grow. I trusted the democratic process because I saw that it worked– not every single decision that was made had a great outcome immediately, but overall the process was very powerful. I also found that when I began from a place of trust, I was able to see learning as a complex organic process rather than a collection of measurable outcomes. I was able to relate to a learner as a whole person, with strengths and weaknesses and goals and interests and things to teach me, rather than someone I needed to analyze. Trust makes a school a community in a deep sense.