Democratic Schools?

[silver 2039]

Sudbury Valley School is a place where people decide for themselves how to spend their days. Here, students of all ages determine what they will do, as well as when, how, and where they will do it. This freedom is at the heart of the school; it belongs to the students as their right, not to be violated.

The fundamental premises of the school are simple: that all people are curious by nature; that the most efficient, long-lasting, and profound learning takes place when started and pursued by the learner; that all people are creative if they are allowed to develop their unique talents; that age-mixing among students promotes growth in all members of the group; and that freedom is essential to the development of personal responsibility.

In practice this means that students initiate all their own activities and create their own environments. The physical plant, the staff, and the equipment are there for the students to use as the need arises.

The school provides a setting in which students are independent, are trusted, and are treated as responsible people; and a community in which students are exposed to the complexities of life in the framework of a participatory democracy.

A democratic community

he school is governed on the model of a traditional New England Town Meeting. The daily affairs of the school are managed by the weekly School Meeting, at which each student and staff member has one vote. Rules of behavior, use of facilities, expenditures, staff hiring, and all the routines of running an institution are determined by debate and vote at the School Meeting. At Sudbury Valley, students share fully the responsibility for effective operation of the school and for the quality of life at school.

Infractions of the rules are dealt with through the School Meeting's judicial system, in which all members of the school community participate. The fair administration of justice is a key feature of Sudbury Valley and contributes much to the students' confidence in the school.

Parents participate in setting school policies. Legally, the school is a non-profit corporation, and every parent becomes a voting member of the Assembly, as the corporate membership is called. The Assembly also includes students, staff, and other elected members. It meets at least once a year to decide all questions of broad operational and fiscal policy.

http://www.sudval.org/01_abou_01.html

How effective are such schools? Do you think these are a good idea?

 

[willemvanoranje]

My high school was very undemocratic.. all the stundent body got to do was organize parties. So at least in the institutional sense we were very undemocratic. Nobody started a revolt either though. And in the classroom it was usually a lot better.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

It's an improvement but there'd still be too many old school people voting for no changes and it would still be the same boring system. Better is to reduce class time, let kids have more club activities that they choose including sports or other hobbies like chess, acting, art, debating, music or whatever. The only necessary subjects are english, math and writing perhaps with history as well. I like history but a lot of kids don't so maybe it should be an elective too.

 

[Tycoon101]

That is a wretched idea. Children are meant to be taught, one cannot allow the children to decide what they want to be taught/do.

A. Too much wasted time.
B. Poor choices due to children's lack of knowing what they will need later on.
C. Too much disunity, schools should be authoritarian, not Libertarian.

 

[Atlas14]

Very few people are disciplined enough to teach themselves what they need to know. Sure they might spend a lot of time studying things they are interested in such as history/English/a foreign language, but the loose structure of school will not be effective in teaching kids what they need to know for math/sciences, at least not in most cases.

Let the students be freebirds outside of school, but schools don't stifle creative thought so much as to call for a school like this.

 

[skadistic]

Great Idea for a university stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid idea for high school.

 

[Shylock]

Sounds like a wonderful idea. It's not perfect, but it is certainly is better than ransoming children for the day in places which any reasonable person could mistake for prisons.

 

[skadistic]

Sounds like a wonderful idea. It's not perfect, but it is certainly is better than ransoming children for the day in places which any reasonable person could mistake for prisons.

Right god forbid we instill order and rule in children. We should just let them run around willy nilly.

The only people who would mistake a school for a prison are the same people that mistake wanting a secure boarder for racist hate and ignorance.

 

[mitsho]

Point One, pm to a certain user of this forum called blashpemous, he himself went to such a school.

Point Two, although it doesn't look like and I myself didn't trust it at the beginning, it works. and it works from the very first grade. The Problem lies more in the acceptance by society, as also the reaction in this thread shows...

This is not a subject that can be easily treated, and it'd take way too much of my time, so I'm not gonna write essays in here.

mitsho

 

[Fifty]

It's a good idea, except rule infractions should be dealt with through some sort of gladiatorial combat, not through a silly "judicial" system.

 

[Atlas14]

I don't doubt some kids can excel at such loose schools, but it seems most would simply not know how to budget their academic effort according to what they will need later on.

 

[Speedo]

Sounds like a wonderful idea. It's not perfect, but it is certainly is better than ransoming children for the day in places which any reasonable person could mistake for prisons.

Someone's never seen a real prison.

This would probably work fine in some places, but I can already tell you it would fail miserably for the population/school system at large.

 

[Shadylookin]

I suppose if all the students are passing the standardized tests it doesn't bother me where you send your children to school.

 

[Mathilda]

I remember reading a book about such a school as a child.
It was called Summerhill.
Summerhill seems to be the first one of these "free" schools.
As a child, it sounded like a paradise.
School's been founded like 85 years ago and it's still going.

 

[Blasphemous]

Long post ahead - I will be reading each post and then replying to it, all in this one multiquote reply.

It's an improvement but there'd still be too many old school people voting for no changes and it would still be the same boring system.

Err, have you ever so much as visited a Sudbury school? For five minutes?
Thought not.
After co-founding one such school and then spending four years there, and after visiting three other such schools, some more briefly and some at length, I think I am qualified to say that no, you're actually totally wrong, it's not at all the same boring system.

That is a wretched idea. Children are meant to be taught, one cannot allow the children to decide what they want to be taught/do.

A. Too much wasted time.
B. Poor choices due to children's lack of knowing what they will need later on.
C. Too much disunity, schools should be authoritarian, not Libertarian.

Okay, I don't get this. Just three decades ago you had schools (in the US) discouraging the use of typewriters and teaching penmanship. By the time the students (i.e my mother) graduated and went on to college, they had to learn how to type on their own because it was a necessary skill in college. Later on it became a basic life skill to type well.
Now, I doubt you dispute the validity of this example, and yet you believe that adults generally know what children will need in their adult life. Well, I have way too many arguments to throw at you right now, so I'll just reply to each of your three points and leave it at that for the moment.
A. Wasted time? Funny that - wasted time is actually one of the main problems in the conventional model of education. Students spend way too much time waiting for the teacher to discipline the classroom, or waiting for students who do not grasp the material as well (or even just don't put enough effort in to move ahead). In Sudbury schools you see amazingly efficient use of time. At Sudbury Valley School there is a famous story of a group of kids ages 8-12 learning all of the elementary school math material in six months. Six months instead of six years. When everybody in a class is there because they really, really want to be there, time is not wasted. Progress is amazingly quick.
B. And adults know what kids will need later on? My 50 year old father may be wise and experienced, but he can't predict the future any better than my 10 year old little brother. In fact, my father is more rigid and old-fashioned in his thinking, and is much less likely than my brother or I to think of something that will exist in the future but does not yet exist.
But far more importantly - who said you have to learn everything you'll need later on in your school years? One of the greatest things kids get at Sudbury schools is the lifestyle of a life-long learner. You learn to learn things when you need them and whenever you're interested in them, and you never really pick up the odd idea that at the age of 18 that all stops and you're stuck with what you've got. This makes Sudbury school students much more versatile and adaptive and ready to deal with changes that nobody can foresee.
C. Isn't even really an argument. It's an empty sentance. If you'd like to substantiate it and make it more than a lame shell of an argument, I'll be glad to reply to it.

Very few people are disciplined enough to teach themselves what they need to know.

Ah, but you're entirely missing the point. The point is not that kids will spontaneously recreate a concventional school for themselves. The idea is that the best way to learn for life is to live, and that when set free, kids will pursue their interests and end up providing themselves with what they need, seeing as every human being naturally strives to succeed. Do you not wonder how the human race survived for two million years until the conventional model of education took over about two hundred years ago? When left alone people will still succeed. They do not need to be pushed into success, kicking and screaming.
Speaking of kicking and screaming - would you consider babies better-qualified to select important skills than adults? Because babies always learn to walk and talk on their own, without as much as active encouragement from the adults around them. These two skills are probably the most complicated ones we ever pick up in life, and yet we get them before we can even read up on their importance and without anybody forcing us to pick them up. Can you explain to me how exactly these skills are different from those that must supposedly be taught at school?

I don't doubt some kids can excel at such loose schools, but it seems most would simply not know how to budget their academic effort according to what they will need later on.

I don't mean to be agressive here, I'm just a little jaded after hearing the same arguments rehashed again and again for over five years now.
What do you expect the corelation to be between success in Sudbury schools and in regular schools? Let me guess (and this is where I may sound mean) - you expect the good students to have the self-discipline to succeed without strict regimentation, and the "bad" students to fail miserably, correct?
Well, you'll probably be rather surprised to know that "bad" students who are basically ejected from every conventional school they go to tend very often to become very calm and well-adjusted in Sudbury schools, and they often quickly get the grasp of the system and become very productive members of the community. It mainly depends on how long they spent in a regular school before coming to the Sudbury school - if they've already spend about 7 or 8 years in a regular school, they're likely to reject authority even when they are members of the ruling class (which happens to include everybody in a Sudbury school) and to refuse to make the best of their freedom. If they come before that they usually adjust just fine. On the other hand, "good" students who were teachers' pets in previous schools and come with the expectation of creating for themselves a paradise of academic challenges usually run out of steam very quickly and get very confused. Gladly they too usually end up adjusting and making the best of their liberty - this too becoming less likely the longer they've spent in regular schools.
The only group of people who almost always adjust immediately and get a lot out of Sudbury schools is the kids who come in before ever going to a regular school. They just grok it. They understand it instinctively. It's an environment moulded by kids, for kids, and the little ones understand this immediately and do amazing things with their time.

I remember reading a book about such a school as a child.
It was called Summerhill.
Summerhill seems to be the first one of these "free" schools.
As a child, it sounded like a paradise.
School's been founded like 85 years ago and it's still going.

Yes, Summerhill is the longest-running democratically-administrated school in the world, and the chief inspiration for the creation of Sudbury Valley School. Apparently, Summerhill was not the first alternative/free school, but it is undisputedly the longest-running.

 

[Masquerouge]

Great Idea for a university stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid idea for high school.

Darn. That's what I was about to say.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

There are 2 effictive ways to get people to work Stalinist (do what I say or I will kill you) or the capitalist( do it and you will get rich) considering the school budget the Stalinist way is the only option. There are schools a bit like the one in the article in Sweden and a lot of people say they don't do much, although some people (generally nerdy by nature) do realy well. these schools should exist but only for that minority.

 

[Masquerouge]

There are 2 effictive ways to get people to work Stalinist (do what I say or I will kill you) or the capitalist( do it and you will get rich) considering the school budget the Stalinist way is the only option. There are schools a bit like the one in the article in Sweden and a lot of people say they don't do much, although some people (generally nerdy by nature) do realy well. these schools should exist but only for that minority.

Not only that, but let's not delude ourselves in thinking that education is a democratic process. It is not. Just like raising a kid is not a democratic process in which the kid has a say.
And that would be because kids completely lack the tools to work in a democratic environment, the very same tools an education should provide.

 

[Elrohir]

As a private school, where it is a privilege to be there, and only students who are smart and serious about learning are allowed to go, I imagine it would work well. (As long as the parents are heavily involved to supply some of the discipline the school is forsaking) For the general population as a whole, I bet it would be an unmitigated failure, where much of the population never advanced beyond simple mathematics and can't understand basic rules of English grammar.

 

[ShannonCT]

Have there been any controlled studies applying this model to random or representative students? It would be interesting to see if you could take a group of random children and make an elementary school work on this model.

It's hard to put too much faith in this working for an average child. Obviously, these democratic schools are free to select the most intelligent and intellectually curious students. As someone who has plenty of experience teaching young children, I could see a system like this descending into chaos with the wrong group of students.