Edustange

Summerhill is noted for its philosophy that children learn best with freedom from coercion. All lessons are optional, and pupils are free to choose what to do with their time. Neill founded Summerhill with the belief that “the function of a child is to live his own life — not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, not a life according to the purpose of an educator who thinks he knows best.”^[4][5]

In addition to taking control of their own time, pupils can participate in the self-governing community of the school. School meetings are held three times a week, where pupils and staff alike have an equal voice in the decisions that affect their day-to-day lives, discussing issues and creating or changing school laws. The rules agreed at these meetings are wide ranging – from agreeing on acceptable bed times to making nudity allowed at the poolside. Meetings are also an opportunity for the community to vote on a course of action for unresolved conflicts, such as a fine for a theft (usually the fine consists of having to pay back the amount stolen).

In creating its laws and dealing out sanctions, the school meeting generally applies A.S. Neill’s maxim “Freedom not Licence” (he wrote a book of the same name); the principle that you can do as you please, so long as it doesn’t cause harm to others. Hence, you are free to swear as much as you like, within the school grounds, but calling someone else an offensive name is license.

It is upon these major principles, namely, democracy, equality and freedom that Summerhill School operates.

A good friend drew my attention to this. I think people generally associate democratic schools with unwieldy Utopian philosophies. The reality is that anything that endures is the result of a functional culture. That culture is dynamic; evolving over time. Summerhill in 2010 is likely a transformation of Summerhill in 1921. The state of North American education, particularly from the discourse I follow in the United States, seems turbulent and raises deep concerns. Things seem off track. If the train wreck unfolding around us endures, it will be because it too evolves into something functional. Functional in the sense that it meets the needs of all the stakeholders in society. The formal cultures of schools have always been in tension with the informal culture of the primary stakeholders: students and teachers. There is a complex dialectic between the theory and practice of policy makers and practitioners. Our decision-makers seem out of touch and guided largely by mistrust. It is easy to position ourselves with the practitioners and learners assuming their lived experience with learning is somehow more authentic than the seemingly more peripheral stakeholders inhabiting homes, businesses, universities and legislatures. I don’t think that is wise. We should not dismiss managers, decision-makers and philosophers too quickly. They contribute to our perceptions of and goals for education.

Decision-making is about power. We know that not every stakeholder shares equal power. In Saskatchewan we teach fourteen-year-olds that power comes from resources, organization, and numbers. It may seem that legislators and school boards control the resources and organization in education. This is not entirely true. Information is our currency and resource in education. At the grassroots, in the classrooms (whatever they look like, however they function) teachers and students organize and share resources. As it always has, the numbers involved in the informal culture and practice of education shape the experience children have. We worry that fundamental changes are happening that will distort education. I am not convinced. Ours remains the greatest impact within the system.

Which brings me back to the complex interaction between competing theoretical visions of mission and practice, functionality, sustainability, and practicality. Memes evolve. The dialectic results in a synthesis (Marx was so right about that). Summerhill School reminds me that this is an old story. We have a tendency to see our moment as the most significant. The events unfolding around us are the transformative ones eclipsing the past. There is an urgency in the discourse. As one relative reminds me constantly, these are the end-times when we must align ourselves according to absolutes. Again, I am not convinced. We are not at the brink. The thousands of classrooms will ripple with each new turbulence. The complexity of it all will not be transformed so easily by an over-ambitious piece of legislation in Florida.

I’m an optimist though; I do think education is evolving. Schools like Summerhill capture the imagination. I have my own Summerhill. Help me please Seattle and give me the name of the open-education school I visited in the late 1970′s as an eighteen-year old. That school captured my imagination and still serves as a dreamy model of how learning should be.