What Difference Does A Sudbury Education Make

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At our March informational meeting, a skeptical father asked me a very straight-forward question. He explained that after reading about the graduates of Sudbury Valley School he was convinced that this kind of education did not harm kids in their future academic pursuits and careers. But if it didn’t make any difference one way or the other, why send a kid to a Sudbury-model school? That question stayed with me for several days. It had been such a great opportunity to explain why this form of education is so important and I had somehow not risen to the occasion. I’d like now to answer him again, this time with the luxury of a little more forethought.

If academic skills and measurably “successful” careers were everything in life, I would, indeed, wonder whether this skeptical father had a point. But life is vastly more rich and complex than G.P.A.’s and salary levels. In fact, the really important things in life are immeasurable by any “objective” standard. So logical reasoning and intuitive understanding will have to suffice in what I’m about to argue. And perhaps, at a future get-together, we can lure a Sudbury Valley graduate or two to come serve as specimens or case studies to support (or contradict) what I contend.

Kids who are told what to do and how to do it, day in and day out; kids who are seldom allowed to make mistakes; kids who are kept busy in prescheduled activities from dawn to dusk; kids who are labeled in negative ways if they don’t keep perfect pace with the “average”; kids who are taught to prove everything they learn, and to let someone else decide whether they’ve learned it. These kids are bound to be different from kids who are allowed to take risks and fail sometimes, and then have the chance to try again; kids who are allowed to decide what they are interested in; to figure out how to make it happen; to find people they want to do it with; to decide for themselves when they’ve accomplished what they want to accomplish; and to generally run their own lives within a community in which they have a say. They will be very different. Just exactly how will depend a lot on the individual. It is safe to say, though, that certain characteristics or attitudes are learned in a Sudbury-model environment, especially by kids who spend several years there.

I see clearly six qualities (and many other related ones that I wish I had space to discuss) which Sudbury model schools have a much greater chance of fostering than traditional schools. Identifying these is clearly an oversimplification of a complex process, so please bear with these categories.

  • Self-respect. Students gain self-respect through a combination of having the time to really learn to know themselves and to trust their own judgment about their lives. Self-respect is also a direct by-product of being treated with respect. This quality serves to enrich their lives by allowing them, for example, to approach a college admissions officer aggressively or speak forcefully in a public hearing and also to sustain the reservoir of self-love which is necessary to be caring and respectful to others.
  • Self-motivation. When kids do what they care about, they really care about what they are do. Little kids never need to “learn” this skill. Its as natural as breathing. But older students often need time to rediscover intrinsic motivation. Students who were “unsuccessful” in traditional schools are burned out. Students who were “successful” are addicted to the extrinsic rewards they received for being a “good student.” When people are self-motivated, they can take the risks that make life worth living — starting their own businesses, pursuing goals that stretch their hearts and minds. They prefer activity to passivity. They are interested in finding out what makes other people tick.
  • Persistence. Watch a kid learning how to walk if you want to see persistence — two steps, fall, struggle back up, three more steps, fall, back up… Relentlessly pursuing a goal takes uninterrupted time and concentration. At Sudbury schools, students can spend weeks or months focused on a single subject. Musicians improvise for hours at a time. A group of youngsters builds onto the same block city for days on end. No clean up bell rings, no lunch period interrupts, no one is permitted to disturb another’s activity. In traditional schools, a change of subject or class every forty minutes or so is devastating to one’s ability to persist. Being required to do tasks one has no interest in is a lesson in energy conservation — do only as much as you have to to get by. No one needs to be told what persistence does for a person in the workplace. It could also be the difference between the appeal of watching a series of 30 minute TV shows (whatever happens to be on that night), and the attraction of digging into a book on a subject one cares about.
  • Personal Responsibility. Responsibility and freedom are two sides of the same coin. If kids are not allowed to make real decisions about their own lives, they cannot learn personal responsibility. If Johnny’s fish die because he forgets to feed them, or Susie is fired from her job because she keeps coming late, an invaluable lesson in responsibility has taken place. Our tendency in this culture is to protect our children, from the dangers of high climbing, from the cold weather they’ll be exposed to if they forget a coat, from the mistakes they could make in preparing for college. Our protectiveness continually reminds them that they are not responsible for themselves, that they don’t have to be because someone else is. When responsible students grow up, they don’t make excuses for their behavior. They know they are in charge of their own lives. They are not victims, unwilling participants. They choose their path prepared to follow through, and prepared to accept responsibility if they fail.
  • Creativity. Creativity at Sudbury model schools is exercised in every facet of school life. Students at Fairhaven School will by necessity rely on their own creativity for everything from building a bridge over the stream to raising money for a camcorder to proposing an appropriate J.C. consequence for spitball warfare. A great deal of lip service is given to the importance of creativity these days. And rightly so. The twenty-first century will be brimming with challenges which old solutions will not satisfy. The job skills required of twenty-first century workers will be so different from those of our generation that our human creativity and flexibility will be a fundamental requirement for survival.
  • Competence. This characteristic of people from Sudbury model schools might not be quite fair. It is really a combination of self-confidence, creativity, and persistence. But over time, people who are continually using their hearts, hands, and heads to pursue their own goals get pretty good at it. Being able to teach oneself something is a skill — it gets better with practice. Sudbury students pursuing a piece of knowledge ask questions of everyone they think can help, they search the internet, they read, they fiddle and doodle and think, they try and fail and try again … They get to know their own best way of grasping information or skills. They know how to pace themselves and when they’ve learned enough.

So, if we put all these qualities or characteristics together, we can imagine, for example, a Sudbury-educated car mechanic. He has the self-respect to know he can tackle a tough job and to treat his customers with dignity, the responsibility to do his job right, the motivation to keep up in his field, the creativity to think through a tricky engine problem and try new angles, the persistence to work at it until he’s got it right, and the competence to know how to access help when he needs it, to ask the right questions, and to apply them. He goes home to live a life where he’s curious about the world around him, he is caring and respectful in his relationships with family and friends, and takes responsibility for his own actions at home and in the larger community… Am I going too far here? Maybe. But Fairhaven School will do a better job at preserving and encouraging these qualities in its students than any traditional school. And the experience of being in a community where these qualities are truly valued will enrich the lives of Fairhaven students long after they’ve left the school.

Lessons of a Sudbury Education

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As we sit in our school’s main lounge, trying to write about the underlying lessons of a Sudbury education, we often find ourselves “off task.” We are watching the bustling activity around us…Jeff, a staff member, and Sonya, a 14-year-old student, are working on math problems in order to move her closer to her goal of becoming a vet. (She’s contacted Cornell University to find the best method of getting into their program.) Cody, age 11, and Madison, 15, are reading medicine cards for all who walk by. Eli, 5, and Kiran, 6, are comparing new Magic Cards and talking about the mysterious gum switcher—the spearmint and cinnamon gum from the School Store have seemingly switched bottles. The Judicial Committee members file into the JC room to start the daily session but Natasha, 15, one of our JC clerks, has to find a replacement for the 5- to 9-year old representative to the JC who is out sick. Success—Sophie, age 8, is filling in. Lisa, a staff member, and David, age 16, are discussing whether or not putting “spring water” on a bottled water label ensures you aren’t getting someone’s random tap water. A man drives up attempting to deliver food to the Zena Elementary School, a public school down the road. While only a few miles away, the Zena Elementary School couldn’t be more different then The Hudson Valley Sudbury School on Zena Road.

It struck us that we weren’t off task as our minds wandered. It makes perfect sense to explain our philosophy from the perspective of the students. Only through our students’ experiences are we truly able to give justice to a discription of the Sudbury education. To understand the Sudbury education you must first erase any preconceptions and conditioning you have about education. A Sudbury education is very different from any other type of education provided by either public schools or private schools. You have to be open to challenging your beliefs and trusting the fundamental principles of life.

Sudbury schools operate with no mandated or pre-determined curriculum. Students are responsible for every aspect of their education. This means that all day, every day students are free to decide how to spend their time and, in turn, the directions that their education and lives take. One of our parents termed this “Student Motivated Learning.” The Sudbury philosophy acknowledges that people learn best when the motivation comes from within instead of from an external source, be it a parent, teacher or national curriculum.

Sudbury schools are run by a participatory democracy. Each student and each staff has equal representation and an equal vote in the weekly School Meeting. This meeting makes all of the day-to-day decisions necessary to run the school; it is chaired by a student and is run similar to a town hall meeting. There is no principal, no higher authority, and no veto power.

Given that there is no mandated curriculum, it is hard to pinpoint what each student learns. They learn whatever they consider important enough to learn—reading, writing and basic math, but equally important, they might learn painting, physics, skateboarding, sewing, cooking, carpentry, Chinese—the list is infinite. Students learn important lessons just by being a member of the culture of a Sudbury school. John Taylor Gatto, who was twice named NYS teacher of the year, wrote a scathing rebuke of the public school system’s form of compulsory education in his essay “The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher.” Mr. Gatto describes the underlying or hidden lessons taught by the culture of compulsory education—lessons such as “stay in the class where you belong,” “you can only learn through an outside agent,” “you are subject to a chain of command,” “your self-respect should depend on an observer’s measure of your worth,” and “you are always under surveillance.” The “hidden” lessons are those that aren’t explicitly taught—no one stands up in front of the students and says, “you are subject to a chain of command.” The lessons are simply part of the culture, and to be successful in the culture the students have to conform to the cultural rules. Those students who don’t conform are labeled “trouble makers,” or even given a medical diagnosis of ADHD and prescribed medicine to numb them enough that they won’t disrupt the culture.

A Sudbury school also has lessons that are taught by its culture, however these are very different lessons than those taught by a compulsory educational culture. As we struggled to write this, we asked some of our students “what is it like to be a student in a Sudbury school?” Here are their responses:

Monty, age 8, who was in the kitchen in an intense version of his block men game said: “When my mom sent me to school in California, I didn’t like it so much. I was a prisoner. They wouldn’t let me free. I always had to do math, which wasn’t fun for me. There wasn’t any space to do things I wanted to do. Until I got to this school and it is great. Yes, good times.” Katya, age 7, who was restricted to the art room all day for being annoying, said “You don’t have people telling you how to live your life, you get to LIVE YOUR LIFE.”

Monty and Katya have flourished in the freedom that is fundamental to the Sudbury culture. Students are not told where they have to be, what they have to do, who they have to listen to or what they have to learn. Each student pursues his or her own independent path. Because no two people are exactly alike, no two students take the same path of learning. Some students spend their entire energy on music, some on art, some on math or physics. More important than anything they choose to do with their freedom is that they have the freedom. The most obvious lessons underlying freedom are independence and trust. By allowing our students the freedom to decide what to do, we communicate to them that they are independent beings with independent needs, goals, desires. We are also saying to them that we trust them to exercise this freedom. The underlying lessons will always be more important than how or whether they learned the quadratic equation. This freedom, therefore, is guarded with the utmost respect.

The brilliance of Sudbury schools is that responsibility is on an equal footing with freedom. Eli, age 5, who was playing Magic Cards with an older student said “The best thing about this school is you learn not to do bad things, like not to litter.” Responsibility and freedom intersect in the Judicial Committee (JC). This body consists of 5 students and a staff member, with each age group represented. The JC has the responsibility of ensuring that the School Meeting’s laws and policies are followed. This body resolves issues through investigation, charges, and sentences. There are thorough reports, motions, and pleas. Students have responsibility to this body through membership, testimony, and honesty.

The underlying message of holding people responsible is that the culture believes they are capable— capable of taking care of themselves, of deciding their path, capable of being an integral and active part of a larger community and helping to shape that community. Sudbury schools have very high expectations of their students. It is not an easy place to be. There is room to make mistakes but everyone must take responsibility for their choices. Students are held responsible for every aspect of their education, behavior, interactions, and the community. They have freedom to do as they choose but also the responsibility to not impinge on the freedom of others.

With this responsibility comes respect that is unmeasured. With this freedom comes a natural sense of joy, friendship, conversation, and life.

Alexei, age 16, said “When you tell a kid they can do anything, but we’re trusting you to do the right thing, they — especially the younger kids — take it to heart. They like to push the boundaries. If there’s nothing to push against, they’ll settle down and do work.” But the work that Alexei is referring to doesn’t look like work. Eli, age 5, said “In other schools you have to work all day, here you get to play all day.” By play, he doesn’t mean “recess.” Recess is defined as “a suspension of business.” Sudbury schools do not consider play to be a suspension of business— they consider it part of the “business” of the school. The underlying lesson in dividing a student’s time between “learning” and “recess” is that learning is not fun and recess is fun, that play is not important but learning is important. Students at Sudbury schools don’t differentiate between work and play, learning and fun. They play anything and everything with passion and intensity. They work at play like musicians work at music, like doctors work at medicine, and they play at work like writers play with language and carpenters play with wood.

Students and staff play constantly and they play together. Just as the lines blur between work and play, the lines of age become non-existent. Age mixing is the Sudbury secret weapon. There is no separation or grouping by age, but instead there is a community of people with different skills and different interests. Fifteen-year-olds read to six-year-olds and seven-year-olds give skateboarding tips to sixteen-year-olds. The competition created by putting all kids of the same age together, only to compare themselves against one other, is transformed to friends helping each other move through life in a natural and supportive way. The staff’s role at a Sudbury school is multi-faceted: they complete the age continuum, they model responsible behavior, and they handle the administrative work of running the school. Staff members are friends and playmates, sounding boards, counselors, parental figures, and most importantly, they hold the space that allows for freedom, trust and responsibility to flourish in each and every student.

Students who come through a Sudbury education are independent. They are responsible for themselves and responsible for their community. They are passionate and articulate. Through their independence they know what they want to do with their lives and are focused on accomplishing their goals. Through the responsibility and trust given to them they are self confident and able to accomplish those goals. When a student applies to college, for a job, or even a relationship and shows this level of independence, responsibility and self-confidence, they have an outstanding chance of acceptance, a chance above those who are just taking the next step deemed important by society.

At a gathering last week, the parent of a potential student asked us “how do you know that students flourish at a Sudbury School?” We know it without assessments, or grades; without evaluations or testing. We know it because we see it every day. We see it in the 7-year-old girl who used to call her parents every hour on the hour and now only calls them once a day. We see it in the 6-year-old boy who never wanted to be separated from his mother and who now runs out of the car to come into the school and doesn’t want to leave at the end of the day. We see it in the teenagers who are taking responsibility in the community by running for clerkships and are eager to be role models for the younger students. We see it in comments like “I look forward to the weeks and not the weekends” or “I can sing out loudly, badly and not feel embarrassed,” and “so, if it snows and only one staff member can get to school, do we still have to have a snow day?” We see it in the 11-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy who volunteered to be on the suspension committee of a 12 year old, because they, too, have had anger management issues.

We see it in the writing of two of our teenagers the first being Sonya, age 14, who has waited two years to experience our solid environment in which to pick her bouquet:

“School is a field of flowers. In public school you are in that field being told which flowers are best to pick. There are the red math flowers and the blue science flowers. Sometimes you will be told to pick the green English’s or the purple Social Studies. Your teacher will walk with you and hold your hand showing you how to pick the flowers—what to do once you have it in your hand. They show you how to place it carefully in your bouquet of knowledge so it doesn’t fall out.

At Sudbury you are put in a field with the flowers everywhere. You aren’t told what to pick and when to pick it. You are given the open field to crawl around in. When you look and find the prettiest flower you might stop and look at it carefully. Noticing the veins that trickle down the sides. The petals open up for you. While you look at it you see the inside of it colored yellow, red, and orange. Carefully so that you don’t break the stalk, you pull it lightly from the ground and let it roll on your fingertips, slowly one way then the other. Then just as soon as you have looked at it, you know everything there is to know, you add it to your pile of flowers that you have in your hand. Some of the kids in the field have a lot of the red math flowers. Other kids have a lot of green English’s. But in the end every one has a beautiful bouquet to call theirs.”

And, we see it in Natasha, a 15-year-old who commutes weekly from New Jersey to be in our school.

“Whenever someone asks me how I like my new school I always respond: “I love it! It’s absolutely awesome!” because it’s the only way I could come close to expressing my overwhelming happiness at HVSS. Hudson Valley Sudbury School has essentially been the key to the door that has opened up into a whole new way of living. I can say, without hesitation, that this has been one of the most important and positive decisions I have ever made in my life, and there is no way I would regret it. I really can’t say enough about the difference a Sudbury education has made in my life. This past weekend I was at a party of my father’s where there were many members of my family and family friends that I haven’t seen for months. When they saw the 360-degree turnaround in my attitude they were astounded. I was the cheeriest and happiest they had every seen me, since I was a child. My attitude this weekend is no exception—I’m always in a positive mood. I’m no longer pessimistic, but rather optimistic and greet the world with interest, curiosity, happiness and peace.

Every day I grow more and more as an independent person and less and less of a programmed machine. Within the last two months I have more of a sense of what I would like to do in my adult life than I have had in the last 15 years. For the first time that I can remember, I have goals and motivation, too. My motivation comes from my desire to learn what I have interest in—namely politics, activism, law, foreign languages, history, philosophy, art and literature. Organizational, communication, and leadership skills are all skills that I am learning and refining in the environment that Sudbury School has provided me. HVSS is like a loving, democratic community of amazing and diverse people. It’s a place where anyone can and usually is your friend—both staff and other children half (or twice) your age. This is a place where there is truly liberty and justice for all!

Sudbury schools are completely democratic—demonstrated in the workings of the Judicial Committee and School Meeting. Everyone is an equal—no exceptions. I know this school isn’t for everyone, but I think it could be for most people if they were really willing to give it a try and were open to this completely different way of learning, they would be amazed and flourish in this environment. Never be afraid of change—you could travel down some amazing paths if you allow yourself.”

The Sudbury Model of Education

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The Responsibility Spectrum

 

The fundamental difference between a Sudbury school and any other type of school is the student’s level of responsibility. In a Sudbury school the students are solely responsible for their education, their learning methods, their evaluation and their environment.

In a public school, the state takes responsibility for most aspects of a student’s education including curriculum and evaluation. The student is left with little responsibility except to learn what is taught, how it is taught, in the environment in which it is taught and then to reiterate it back at evaluation time.

In a non-Sudbury private school, the school administrators take a larger role in determining a student’s curriculum than in a public school. In some private schools, the school takes responsibility for evaluation, while in others the school administers the state tests. In most private schools, as with public schools, a student has personal responsibility only for learning what someone else determines is important to learn, at a time they think it is important to learn it, in a way someone else has determined it should be taught, in an environment designed by someone else, and they must do this well enough to pass the evaluations written and graded by someone else.

In a home schooling environment, parents take most of the responsibility for the student’s education. In New York and many other states, however, the state still takes some responsibility for determining the home scholar’s curriculum and for evaluating the home scholar. Home scholar’s are required to take the state mandated tests, and home schooling parents are required to fill out and submit progress reports to the local school district four times a year. Like public schools and most private schools, the responsibility is not with the student.

These educational options describe a range of responsibility. This range of responsibility starts with the student and extends to the parents, the school, the community, the state government and the federal government. We refer to this as the Responsibility Spectrum. Educational options with a compulsory curriculum (e.g. most public schools) tend to be on one end of the spectrum. Private schools span a large portion of the spectrum, with the school’s specific educational philosophy determining exactly where it falls on the spectrum. Home schooling also spans a large portion of the spectrum, with the parent’s specific educational philosophy determining the student’s level of responsibility. A Sudbury school is the only educational option where all of the responsibility is with the student.

 

The Sudbury Philosophy

 

Sudbury school students have total control over what they learn, how they learn, their educational environment and how they are evaluated. They choose their curriculum. They choose their method of instruction. They choose, through a democratic process, how their environment operates. They choose with whom to interact. They choose if, how and when to be evaluated _ often they choose to evaluate themselves. This is radically different from any other form of education and this is what differentiates a Sudbury school.

Why does a Sudbury school give this level of responsibility to the student? It is because Sudbury educators believe that children are capable of assuming this level of responsibility. It is not a type of pedagogical tool used to motivate the students. The responsibility is real; the students absolutely have the ultimate say in their education. Giving real responsibility to the students allows them to gain experience making decisions and handling the consequences of their choices. In this way, the students gain experience and maturity.

Much of the current effort in education is spent attempting to motivate students to learn. A Sudbury school doesn’t spend any time attempting to motivate students; we believe that they are inherently motivated. We believe this because all the evidence of childhood development supports it. Anyone who has observed a baby attempting to take his or her first steps or learn to talk can clearly see this. They struggle and fail and continue to struggle and fail until they finally _ on their own _ get it right and start walking and talking. If not suppressed, this inherent motivation to grow and develop does not die when the child reaches school age.

 

 If not suppressed, this inherent motivation to grow and develop does not die when the child reaches school age.

 

External motivation is only necessary when someone else determines what the student should learn. When the students determine their own curriculum, external motivation is not necessary. Studies have shown that when people determine for themselves what to learn, they retain the subject significantly better than if someone else determines what they should learn.1

The general consensus in our society seems to be that if left to their own devices children would never learn anything. They must be told what is important to learn and when to learn it. At a Sudbury school, the staff and parents believe that the students are the ones to decide what is important for themselves to learn. They are the ones responsible for choosing their interests and, eventually, their life goals. There are a number of examples of this in a Sudbury school. One of the clearest examples is the case of a young girl who, in the judgment of the Sudbury school staff, had a tremendous writing talent. For years after the girl started at the Sudbury school, the staff thought that they should encourage the girl to focus on her writing skills. Instead the girl spent the time socializing with her peers. After a few years of writing little or nothing, the girl returned to writing and her writing ability had taken a significant leap forward in depth and the understanding of human emotions. It became clear to the staff that her years socializing were not “wasted”. They had been spent, consciously or unconsciously, learning about people. When the staff reflected on this, they realized that the girl had spent her time exactly the way she needed to spend it. If they had forced, or even subtly encouraged, her to spend her time writing, she would have probably improved the mechanics of her writing skill, but would have lost the depth and the feeling that her writing developed by being able to socialize with and understand other people.

No one at a Sudbury school will tell the students what they have to learn. No one will exert any pressure on a student to learn a subject. No one will even suggest that it would be a good idea that students learn a subject. The entire responsibility is left to the students; we refer to this as Student Initiated Learning. When students are left to decide for themselves what to do and what to learn, they spend much of their time socializing. Unlike compulsory curriculum schools, a Sudbury school believes the time spent socializing is invaluable to a student’s education and growth.

One of the common questions asked of Sudbury educators is, “what happens if a child doesn’t want to learn to read?” Our answer is that this just doesn’t happen. It is akin to asking, “what happens if a child doesn’t want to learn to talk?” In our society reading is an important communication tool. People are inherently motivated to expand their ability to communicate, and this inherent motivation will result in children learning to read. However, in a Sudbury school, reading is seldom “taught” in the way we think of reading being taught. No teacher stands in front of 5 and 6 year olds and breaks words into their phonetic elements. Instead, reading is part of the culture _ just as talking is part of the culture. Students learn to read, and largely teach themselves to read, because they want to be able to more fully participate in the world. The original Sudbury school, the Sudbury Valley School, has been in existence for 36 years. During this time, they have had thousands of students. No child has failed to learn to read in the school’s entire history, and yet they have never had a formal reading class. This same experience is seen in learning other “basics”, such as writing and math. The students learn them because they recognize that they need to learn them in order to survive and prosper in the culture.

Sudbury schools do not have formal evaluations of their students. There are no grades and there are no tests. We believe that the best person to evaluate a student’s progress is the student. Students know when they understand a subject or a skill and when they do not. Experience has shown that when a student self-evaluates, they have a much higher standard than when someone is evaluating them. They tend to measure themselves against perfection – not against “good enough”. Occasionally a student will ask for outside evaluation from either a staff member or another student. When they do this, they demand an honest critique. They are not interested in being lied to. They are striving for perfection and want to know if they have reached it.

In a Sudbury school, there is no separation by age. All of the students are free to mix with other students of any age. In a school with a compulsory curriculum it is necessary to separate students by ability so that they can all be instructed at the same time _ the easiest way to do this is to assume that children of the same age have the same abilities and interests. This can lead to some students becoming bored if the pace of instruction is too slow, and some students becoming stressed and eventually disenfranchised if the pace of instruction is too fast. In a Sudbury school, the students can pursue their education at their own pace so there is no reason to separate students by age.

Sudbury schools believe that there is a great advantage gained by being able to allow students of different ages to freely mix. In fact, age mixing has been called a Sudbury school’s “secret weapon”. There are emotional, social and educational advantages to allowing different ages to mix. Emotionally, older students can play the role of big brother or sister to the younger students. Younger students gain security and comfort in this relationship. Age mixing provides a safe environment for students to work on their social skills. Students that are not confident of their social skills can practice them and work to improve them by interacting with other students; whether older, younger or the same age. Students of all ages can look to more mature students or the staff as role models.

In Sudbury Schools, it is very common for students to learn from other students. Sometimes the teaching student is older than the learning student, sometimes the teacher is younger than the learner, and sometimes they are the same age. The only constant is that both the teacher and the learner improve their knowledge of the subject. One of the best ways to improve knowledge of a subject is to teach it to someone else.

In order for the students to be able to be totally responsible for their education, they must have _ or at least share _ the responsibility for creating their learning environment. This means that Sudbury schools are run as a participatory democracy. All of the students and staff (together known as the School Meeting) are part of the democracy and all of the students have an equal voice in discussions and an equal vote in decisions. In other words, a 5 year old student has the same voice and power in the school as a staff member. The staff have no veto power of decisions made by the School Meeting. The only limit placed on the School Meeting is that they cannot make a law that would violate local or state laws and they cannot make a rule that would put the school community at risk.

 

 In other words, a 5 year old student has the same voice and power in the school as a staff member. The staff have no veto power of decisions made by the School Meeting.

 

Through participation in the school’s democratic process, the students gain experience working with others to make decisions. They gain experience advocating their positions on important issues that effect their day-to-day life. They come to understand that their opinions matter and that they can have an effect on the larger community.

 

Day-to-Day Operation of a Sudbury School

 

Sudbury schools operate very differently than any other type of school. In order to create an environment where the students are responsible for their education, the structure of the school had to change. The most striking difference is that there are no “classrooms” and there are no “teachers” _ at least not in the traditional sense of the words. Students are free to determine how the spend their time each day, they are not limited to a classroom where an adult tells them what they have to learn. They might work on an art project, play sports, cook, dance, read, talk to other students or staff, build a fort, watch birds, do a science experiment, climb a tree, write a story, play a computer game, or work with an off-campus mentor. When students decide they want to learn something new, whether it is an academic subject or not, they either ask a staff member for help, ask another student, or simply learn it on their own.

Each week there is a meeting, the School Meeting, where most of the day-to-day issues of operating the school are discussed and voted on. The School Meeting is run like a New England Town Hall Meeting. The School Meeting is run by the School Meeting Chair and the minutes are taken by the School Meeting Secretary. In most cases, the School Meeting Chair and Secretary are students who have been elected by the other students and staff. An agenda is published prior to the meeting and all students and staff members are welcome to attend the School Meeting. All students and staff have an equal voice in the discussions and an equal vote on the decisions.

The School Meeting has the final authority over all matters of a Sudbury school’s operation with the only exceptions being the yearly budget, the staff pay scale, graduation requirements and the Open Campus policy. These issues are the responsibility of the Assembly. The Assembly is composed of the students, their parents or guardians and the staff and is also operated as a participatory democracy. The Assembly typically meets once a year to approve the following year’s budget. The Assembly gives parents an important voice in vital issues pertaining to the school.

One of the most important aspects of running any institution is enforcement of the institution’s rules. In a Sudbury school, the School Meeting is responsible for making and enforcing these rules. This responsibility is often delegated to a smaller group of students and staff known as the Judicial Committee or JC. In most Sudbury schools, the Judicial Committee is composed of two JC Clerks, 3-5 students from different age groups and one staff member. The JC Clerks are typically students and are elected by the School Meeting and usually serve for two months. It is their job to ensure that the JC runs smoothly. The students from the different age groups serve on a rotating basis _ similar to jury duty. The staff member is typically rotated on a daily basis.

When a student or staff member believes that a school rule has been violated, he or she fills out a JC complaint form. The complaint describes what happened, where and when it happened and any witnesses. The JC meets on a daily basis and reviews all of the current JC complaints. For each complaint, the JC investigates the incident, writes a report of their investigation and determines if any school rules have been violated. If they determine that a rule has been violated, they press charges against the person (student or staff member) who they believe violated the rule. The person can then plead guilty or innocent. If a guilty plea is entered, the JC determines the appropriate sentence for the violation. If an innocent plea is entered, a trial takes place. Just as in the School Meeting, each member of the JC has an equal voice and vote.

One of the most important responsibilities of the School Meeting is to determine the staff. This is done each year by voting on whether current staff members should be re-hired for the next year. It is a very radical idea that students are allowed to help determine the staff of a school, but it is a necessity if they are to be given true responsibility for their education. There is no such thing a partial responsibility. The students are either responsible or they are not. They are either trusted or they are not. If the students were not allowed to participate in the selection of the staff members, one of the most important aspects of the school’s environment and operation would be taken from them. The message would be that they are not trusted with the responsibility of making really important decisions.

 

It is a very radical idea that students are allowed to help determine the staff of a school, but it is a necessity if they are to be given true responsibility for their education. There is no such thing a partial responsibility.

 

If the staff members are not responsible for directing a student’s education what are they responsible for? What is the role of staff? At a Sudbury school, the staff members are responsible for the continuing operation of the school. The staff members are expected to be role models of responsible adult behavior. They are expected to offer their insights and experience to School Meeting discussions. They are expected to be available to the students when they ask for assistance and guidance. Most of all they are expected to help ensure the continued operation and success of the school by providing continuity in the school community and culture.

One of the most striking aspects of a Sudbury school is the relationship between the staff and the students. Sudbury school staff members have high expectations of the students. They expect them to be able to take responsibility. They interact with the students as if they were adults _ perhaps young and inexperienced adults, but adults none-the-less. They listen to the students.

At times, students in a Sudbury school will decide that they want to learn a subject or they will decide that they want to pursue an educational or career path. When they decide this, the staff is there to support their choice and to help them achieve their goals. This can be done by actively teaching a subject, recommending a book or other reference material, identifying an outside resource or setting up an internship. An example from our school is a student who is very clear that she wants to become a veterinarian. She approached the staff and asked what she would need to do in order to get into a good college as a pre-veterinarian major. The staff helped identify the subjects she would have to know. The staff also helped her set up a short program with a local veterinarian. During this program the student visited the veterinarian’s office during school hours. When the program was finished, the veterinarian was very positive about the experience and indicated that the student would be welcome to come back for an internship once she reached the legal age of employment. The key to all of this is that the student knows what she wants. The staff is there to support and to encourage her along her path, but not to determine her path.

 

Results of a Sudbury Education

 

Because the Sudbury Model of Education is so different from any other form of education, many people wonder about the results of a Sudbury education. Specifically, they wonder if Sudbury graduates will be able to get into college or if they will be able to handle the “real” world. In short, Sudbury graduates have historically done very well when applying for college. The Sudbury Valley School has done an extensive study of their former students2. The results of their study show that a large majority (87%) of the graduates continue on to some form of further education; 4-year college, community college, performing arts school, culinary institute, etc.

Unlike Compulsory Education schools, graduates of a Sudbury school do not get into a college based on their transcript and their extracurricular activities. Sudbury school graduates get into colleges because they tend to be very focused on their career choice. This results in college applications that stand out from the crowd. Sudbury student’s have had the time during their high school years to investigate different options and to discover what they are passionate about.

One of the most striking facts discovered in Sudbury Valley School’s study of their former students is that 42% of the students who responded to the survey are either self employed or involved in entrepreneurial situations.2 This is understandable given the educational philosophy of a Sudbury school. The students have been able to develop their interests and to develop their ability to take responsibility. Once accustomed to having responsibility, it is difficult to abdicate responsibility to someone else.

 

Conclusion

 

One of the common misconceptions about a Sudbury school is that it must be easy _ after all, the students are free to do what they want to do without a teacher telling them what to do. This could not be further from the truth. A Sudbury school is hard for exactly the same reason people think it is easy. With no one telling the students what to do, the students are left with no choice but to decide what to do on their own. This is much more difficult than simply following instructions.

Once people understand the Sudbury philosophy, they often ask “why doesn’t everyone send their children to a Sudbury school?” My answer is simply that many parents do not believe or trust that their children are motivated to learn. I cannot count the number of times that a parent has told me, “it sounds great, but my child would just play all day and never learn anything _ she needs to be pushed”. Out of politeness, I do not question this belief. In my mind however, my response is, “if your child is not motivated, she would still be lying in her crib, crying for food when she was hungry”. The child was motivated enough to learn how to walk, how to eat solid food, how to talk and many, many other skills. It would truly be easier for children to just lie in the crib and cry for food, but they choose to take the harder path of learning to move from babyhood to childhood. Likewise, children will choose to take the difficult and empowering path of moving from childhood to adulthood.

 

(Footnotes)

1 Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R. M. (2002). The paradox of achievement: The harder you push, the worse it gets. In J. Aronson (Ed.)

2 Greenberg, D., & and Sadofsky, M. Legacy of Trust: Life After the Sudbury Valley School Experience (1992) (Sudbury Valley School Press; Framingham, MA) pp. 249.