It Feels Good

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Yesterday was the second day of school at The Hudson Valley Sudbury School. For me it was an emotional start to the year. My youngest is now officially enrolled as a fresh five year old, and two of my oldest graduated last year leaving me to start the year without them. It’s been bittersweet. I know that they were ready to leave.  One is at Sarah Lawrence College, not too far from home so I can still lay eyes on him every so often. I look forward to watching him grow, I eagerly await the stories of his classes, his adventures and what it’s like to be a Sudbury grad, and of course to watch him serve as an alumni at various school events. The other has flown across the world to conquer the professional video game stage, signed as a well-paid, pro player on a team in Asia. He’s on a team that is navigating having players who speak 4 different languages; he’s training, he’s greeting fans, he’s keeping color-coded spreadsheets about technical play – the opportunity of a lifetime. They are both exactly where they should be, and they have taken these steps with a grounded confidence that makes me proud. And I’m doing what I can to miss them in a positive way.

My five year old has taken to the school with gusto. He wakes up early so he can take the school bus (even though I go in two hours later) and makes sure to check if I will be leaving later than the bus. He comes home exhausted after hours of make believe games, of running hard. He’s excited to tell me how he beat a new level in a game he’s been playing, bought something from the school store or was the first on his team to be ready for End of Day Cleaning. His confidence and independence are soaring. While I miss having my baby at home, attached to me, it is blaringly obvious how happy and ready he is to be there. He has also been a walking reminder of what my 17 year old was like when he enrolled just shy of 5. It’s a changing of guards as his graduation means we no longer have any students from when we first opened.

So many things have changed within these walls and on this campus since the day we opened 14 years ago. With the exception of two staff the entire student and staff body is different. The building has been painted, there is an incredible playground, a garden, and an entirely new building has sprouted up. The processes, for the most part feel well oiled and there is solid history behind law decisions and culture. It feels secure and grounded. It feels good.

Now, feeling that the school is stable, that the ship is in good hands, I can look toward the future. We have some exciting projects in the works: we’re looking at ways to build a strong endowment, maybe even so strong we could run the budget off the interest, and we’re thinking about ways to support the Sudbury philosophy worldwide – sending ambassadors out to help startup groups, etc. – we’re thinking a bit outside these walls. It also feels good.

Yesterday, as I sat on the swings and looked around the campus I was struck by how many things had changed and at the same time everything is the same. I watched a group of boys climb high into the trees, a couple of young girls walking arm in arm chatting, 3 young boys were playing hard in the sandbox – leaping from the boulder while battling imaginary bad guys, a group of teens were talking in the garden, surrounded by fresh veggies and flowers…. They were all so happy to be back at school. And I could feel it from the swings as I surveyed the campus. So I hopped up and took an hour finding each person in attendance, and I asked them one question and wrote down their unfiltered answers. It confirmed my beliefs. I am so grateful to be part of a school where feeling “good”, “great”, “awesome” or “serene” is at the forefront of their minds.

  • Their answers to “How does it feel to be back? (and for the new members of the community – “How does it feel to be here?”)
  • It so serene, cool and chill. Weird, but cool chill. I’ve never been so relaxed in a school setting before. It’s weird to get used to.
  • It’s like family
  • Liberating
  • It feels really good. I feel more grounded. I missed all the people more than I thought I would. It feels great to be back with people who feel the same way as I do.
  • Cool
  • Good, good, great!
  • Amazing
  • Good
  • Feels pretty good
  • Fine, great, it’s nice to be back
  • Good!
  • I like it!!
  • Weird
  • Good
  • Thumps up
  • Little bored
  • Good
  • It’s good
  • Pretty good, better than my last school!
  • Yeah, it’s gooood
  • Good
  • Why did it start so late??
  • Oh yeah, it’s great!
  • I had a great summer but it’s good…so what are you doing?
  • Good
  • Good, I mean, you can’t top good!
  • Welcome. And I’m not alone all the time, my life is back on track!
  • Energizing
  • Same old same old – I’ve got this one (pointing at a friend) and this one (pointing at another friend)
  • Pretty good, bored, a bit stressful
  • I never left, but for the most part it’s absolutely wonderful to have all the kids and commotion back. I like having kids back even if it’s harder to get work done.
  • It feels pretty good, but surreal not having the people who left.
  • It feels real great.
  • Good, I’m bored at home
  • LIT
  • Really awesome, best day. I’m really so happy. I’m glad to have some time away from my family and to be with my friends.
  • Awesome la vista, awesome ba bista
  • Awesome, awesome, for real!
  • Good, great
  • Great
  • Amazing, really! I missed my friends
  • It’s the cat’s pajamas to be back
  • Good
  • Meh
  • It’s good, I like it
  • It feels amazing, like I never left
  • I missed school
  • A hearty 7 out of 10
  • Cool
  • Good!
  • It feels like chocolate pudding
  • Hopeful
  • Invigorating – there are so many opportunities
  • Good
  • Good, I’m excited to have something to do
  • Great
  • Feels like a reset on my brain, a nice exhale, first stretch of the morning, first sip of coffee all at once, all day long.
  • Pretty good
  • Radical
  • Feels kind of like…something
  • Pretty fantastic
  • It feels like Christmas morning, lots of anticipation, bubbling excitement and surrounded by family

Nami Bates

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“I went to the Hudson Valley Sudbury School for 2 years, and let me tell you those were the best 2 years of my high school life. Sudbury is such a unique learning environment, and it had a huge impact on who I am today.

When I first attended, I was extremely self conscious and shy from my experience in public schools. Being in Sudbury, everyone was trying to get me out of my ‘self conscious’ bubble, and they did. Being somewhere where the age range is so diverse, from toddlers to teens to the adults, you learn so many different things just from the experiences of others or just observing everyone. I become comfortable in speaking my own voice and sharing my opinions. The whole time I was in public school I was terrible at writing essays, but when I came out of Sudbury, I was extremely good because I was finally able to express what I wanted to say and write.

Sudbury gave me the chance to work really hard on improving my art skills which is my biggest passion. If it weren’t for Sudbury, I wouldn’t be as good as I am today. Getting 2 years straight to devote time to develop my art really made a huge difference. Since I live in Thailand now, its not easy getting a job unless you have a diploma. This isn’t much of a problem for me because I’ve been making money by drawing for people. Everything I do is through the internet, so I get clients from different places. All in all, Sudbury allowed me to boost my confidence level, artistic skills and helped me to further pursue my goals with passion. It gave me things I can use, not just after high school and college, but for the rest of my life. These things I KNOW I would never have gotten if I didn’t go to Sudbury.

I’m in University now, and sometimes I wish there was a Sudbury style University! Sudbury has got to be the most effective school out there.”

[Ed. You can check out Nami’s art at momijigirl.deviantart.com]

I am (not) Autism

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When I was 15, I dropped out of school. It was more of a passive decision than an active one. I just decided I was sick of sitting in a classroom for an hour learning facts that I either knew already or didn’t need to know at all. I didn’t announce to my mom “I’m going to drop out of school”. I just didn’t go. I refused to.

This wasn’t unusual for me. I always had a history of hating school, since I was bullied since first grade and the school did absolutely nothing to stop it. But with college looming on the horizon in several years, I think the school district (and my parents) finally decided to do something about it. The district organized several meetings with my parents, the school staff, and my teachers from the previous year. I was never at these meetings, nor was I invited. But every month or so, right on schedule, my mom would come home with printed information and brochures on faraway boarding schools that specialized in disabled children.

That first set of papers was also the first time I realized that the public school system didn’t see me as an individual. To them, I was a diagnosis.

I wasn’t Emma Elizabeth Boers, as it was printed on my birth certificate. I wasn’t a being of any sort.

I was Autism.

After a failed period of being homeschooled, my mom found the Hudson Valley Sudbury School online. We drove down an hour and a half to Woodstock to visit in the middle of a dreary December night. I knew after the informational meeting that this is where I wanted to go. I canceled my meeting with a Montessori school the next day, my mom paid the fee for the visiting week, and it was settled.

My first day, I moped around the halls feeling lonely. The school’s environment was so social, it was difficult for me to even try to fit in. What would they say if I talked out of turn or said something stupid? I didn’t understand how I would ever fit in. I walked into a room of gamers and thought it would be a good idea for me to bring a few video games the next day. And the next day, I suddenly became the game room’s favorite new student.

After a few long weeks of nothing but Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I was slowly becoming more social. I still didn’t understand what was and wasn’t appropriate to say or do, but I at least decided to speak up instead of being quiet and not talking to people. Slowly but surely, my social skills were improving far beyond what they ever were in public school. I was never afraid to talk to different people, new people, people I didn’t know. Bullying seemed almost nonexistent (though I had issues with a few students) and I felt like I was actually accepted by other beings for once in my life.

While at HVSS, I also decided to pursue my old interest in writing. I had written an (unpublished) novella at the age of 13, but stopped writing when I couldn’t get it published. It was bad, and I realized that, but I also felt like with classes and homework out of the way I had the strength to pursue something like that again. I started on the first draft of the novel Leech Child at HVSS, with the support and advice of the staff.

Near the end of my first year at HVSS I was sitting in the lounge, chatting with some of the other students, when the subject of mental disability came up. I offhandedly mentioned something about my autism, not even thinking about how people might respond.

“Oh, you have autism? Wow, I never would have guessed.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

The responses came one after the other, and even as the conversation moved on, I was shocked. Why weren’t they making fun of me? Isn’t it obvious I’m different?

I thought about it for a bit, and a realization came to me – Sudbury, as a whole, was different. The philosophy was obviously different than the compulsory schooling most kids were used to. The kids were nicer, funnier, and more social. The parents cared more about their children, and the staff didn’t take the job for any superficial reason – they loved kids, and they loved to teach them the way they were supposed to be taught.

We were different, and I loved it.

Several more years passed by, and my mom moved down to Woodstock so I could attend the school more easily. I learned to play Magic: the Gathering, hosted several games of Pokemon D&D, Espionage and Dokapon Kingdom, started school wide projects like making Shrinky Dinks for the craft fair, made Cheeze Whiz flavored gumdrops, and generally had an excellent time. Leech Child was coming along well and I even served on the Judicial Committee, something I thought I would have never been able to do.

At the end of what would be my last year at HVSS, I walked up in front of a whole crowd of people carrying a sheet of notebook paper, and I recited the speech I had written down. I was shaking, and my mouth seemed to move on its own, and I think I cried a bit at the end, but it was beautiful.

It’s been a bit more than six months since I left HVSS, if my memory is right. I’m not in college yet because I wanted some time off to pursue my interests – writing, art, and game development – but I’m hoping to go to Hudson Valley Community College in the fall, and I have little doubt that they’ll accept me. Leech Child is on its third or fourth revision, and I think it’s going well.

Probably the best side effect of HVSS for me was that I began to accept who I was. That I was a being, a person, a somebody. I wasn’t a diagnosis or a label. I could be whatever I wanted to be, within reason, and that was okay.

Today I’m going to announce that in the long run, I’m okay with who I am. Sometimes I might falter or lose faith in myself but for the most part, I appreciate the young adult I’m turning into.

I’m a writer. I’m genderqueer. I’m an artist. I’m a misanthrope. I’m geeky. I’m autistic. Some people know me as Emma, while others know me as Seika or Ness.

But none of these alone are really me.

Sudbury, both the philosophy and the community, helped me realize this. No being is a label, or even a collection of them. We are all a collection of unique experiences and stories, and we each have the potential to contribute something positive to this planet, no matter how small.

It’s okay to be YOU.

And so my story comes to an end. I am NOT Autism. I am Ness, and this is the beginning of a (hopefully) long list of contributions I will make to planet Earth:

Listen to your child. Do they enjoy school? If not, something is wrong. Learning should be an enlightening experience. It shouldn’t be a jail.

Your kid will tell you the truth. After all, kids are the most honest people on Earth.

Well, except for me. I’m a bit too brutally honest for my own good.

And I’m okay with that.

James Davis – Director of Program and Marketing for Vanderkamp

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Note: 20+ students, 3 staff members and some parents went on an overnight field trip to Vanderkamp Center – A Christian Retreat and Summer Camp.  The following testimonial is from the director of the camp.

Working with the Sudbury School kids was amazing for me. I’ve worked with thousands of different children, and saw a few startling differences in the tendencies of Sudbury kids.  The first was a willingness to ask for help.  We did one ropes activity that requires the participants to traverse a long series of cables and ropes. The catch is that it pretty literally can not be done alone.  Every group I’ve worked with until this week struggled mightily at the section that requires help. Typically they will try to do it alone several times before asking if they might possibly be able to work together.  Many times people just want to give up.  The Sudbury group had no difficulty at all.

When the first student reached the difficult portion, he assessed the situation, and simply turned and asked for help.  Others happily came to his aid.  When he completed the course, he did not celebrate – but he walked back to assist others in that same difficult portion.  Children I normally work with are petrified at the idea of being caught “cheating” and are normally obsessed with doing things “on their own.”  While Sudbury school students are given the freedom to do things on their own in their day to day lives, they collaborated more seamlessly than any group I’ve worked with, whether child or adult.  They also embraced the challenge happily.  Children from 3 years old, to 7 years old, to 17 years old worked together with the adults in the group in a totally natural way. I was amazed.

A few other observations:

  • I was amazed by how peacefully the children negotiated, and how awesome they were at playing.  They had no shortage of ideas for little games – they turned the water totter first into a boat and then into a slide. They used elements on our ropes course in creative ways to entertain themselves. I never heard a child complain about being bored, and I never saw a child arguing over a scarce resource (many groups of kids will wind up arguing over the ping pong table or foosball table, but those items were happily shared with kids of all different ages).
  • I noticed a lot of wonderful non-violent communication in the impromptu school meeting that impressed me a ton as well.  When Otto(i believe) raised his concern, he did not accuse anyone else of anything – he even used “I feel” statements that I have trouble getting my 21 year old staff to do. I don’t know his age – 11? 10? But he communicated his needs earnestly without a hint of self-consciousness, and while he didn’t get his way, he definitely seemed to feel heard. I told him later that I was impressed with how he carried himself, and he said, “Thanks. I lost, but oh well!” I reflected privately how different it feels to be heard and not get your way vs. being told “Because we said so.”
  • The unprompted thankfulness at the first meal was amazing to me too.  Kids calling over to John and saying, “Excuse me – this food is great! Thank you so much!”  Yeah, that doesn’t happen here, ever.

I’d say one thing that really jumped out to me as well was the lack of fear for adults. I could tell that adults in these children’s lives are equal partners in most cases.  They spoke respectfully to them without cowering before them. They met me and saw me as someone whom they could have fun with and not a new person who was going to impose his will on them.  They stated their needs in the school meeting openly and honestly. With virtually every kid I work with, getting them to state their needs is usually preceeded by a long period of, “Are you sure there isn’t something on your mind?” followed by a lot of, “I’m fine” talk when it’s obvious they aren’t fine.

The last thing, of course, is how easily they blend with ages.  I watched Riley, Eli, and Amelia play magic without any hint of annoyance toward Amelia for her slow pace. I watched Casper give piggy-back rides, Cara, Aiden, and Katie look after Oliver, Lucy letting May sit on her lap… these kids definitely didn’t suffer the illusion that age is in any way important.

Perhaps long and rambling – but that’s my testimonial. Feel free to use all or none of it! I truly was blown away.  It really inspired me to go back and infuse even more choice into our program here. It’s funny – I wrote and published this little essay before you came: http://www.vk.org/wpsite/2011/10/the-power-of-choice/ and those ideas were so deeply reaffirmed this week.  Pretty great!

Send my love to those wonderful kids and I look forward to seeing you all again very soon!

James Davis
Director of Program and Marketing for Vanderkamp

Kiran

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[Ed. Kiran graduated from HVSS in 2015.]

From the time he was an infant, my son Kiran (now age 6) has had issues around feeling safe. Cautious, perceptive, and highly sensitive to other people’s energies and emotional states by nature, he is generally slow to adapt to new people and situations. He has always shown an aversion to group activities, preferring the intimacy of one-on-one interactions with trusted individuals in familiar environments. Add to the mix his intense dislike of anything he perceives as compromising his sense of control over his own situation, and the result is a challenging child, to say the least. Monitoring his reactions to any given circumstance and making adjustments accordingly has long since become second nature to me. On more occasions that I care to remember, we have had to make a quick exit from social settings to avert a full-blown tantrum.

Since he started school at Sudbury, I’ve noticed a marked change in Kiran. Although he faced the first week of school with his usual resistance and apprehension, by the end of week two he was actually looking forward to school on most days. His behavior at the key transition times – drop-off and pick-up – has been a true barometer of the shift he’s undergone in the scant two months of school. Last week he announced that I don’t need to go inside with him anymore when I drop him off, and at pick-up the biggest challenge now is extracting him from whatever activity he’s engaged in when I arrive. Whereas at most social events – even ones including other children – Kiran would usually not let me out of his sight, often spending the entire time clutching my hand, at the recent Sudbury bonfire gathering I scarcely caught sight of him for most of the evening, and practically had to launch a search party to find him when it was time to go home. In fact, that particular event was the first time he had ever requested that we attend a social gathering on his own initiative!

So just what is it about life at Sudbury that has sparked these changes in Kiran? From my perspective, the Sudbury model perfectly addresses two of his biggest issues: feeling safe and feeling in control. At first blush it struck me as counter-intuitive that offering children the degree of freedom and autonomy they have at Sudbury could make them feel safe. But Kiran’s rapid adjustment to the school has completely convinced me otherwise. Being given such a high degree of independence with an equal measure of responsibility has done wonders for his self-confidence. The other factor that has been so positive for him is age-mixing. Kiran has always gravitated toward older children, often feeling more comfortable with them than with kids his own age. It has been truly heart-warming to see how helpful the older kids at Sudbury are with the younger ones, and how naturally kids of different ages interact with one another, as well as with the adults. Sudbury sometimes feels more like a tribal community than a school, and at this point in Kiran’s development, I can’t imagine a better place for him.