parental involvement

[Ingrid Biery]

I'm on the board of directors for an unschooling co-op that I helped to start about a year and a half ago. I just heard about the Sudbury Valley model and have started doing some research. I'm very intrigued. I don't think I'll ever have the dedication to want to start a school, since unschooling is working well for us, especially with the social/community benefits we get from the co-op. I would like to see how we can use some of the Sudbury ideas in our co-op. I've read several of the Sudbury books, and some of the archives here.

 

It seems like most current Sudbury schools don't allow parental involvement. Is this true? It seems to contradict the model of the original as expressed in Free At Last and Announcing a New School where parents were seen as an important part of the school community.

 

Ingrid

[Scott David Gray]

Hi,

Scott Gray here. I'm an alumnus of the Sudbury Valley School -- having attended around when "Free at Last" was penned.

You ask a very big question. One on which hundreds of pages have been written. I would suggest a search of the archives of this list for some of the various answers to your question. I don't want to repeat things that I or others have written elsewhere, but will offer a sense of my reactions:

It is much harder for a child to gain the full value of a Sudbury education, when her/his parents are present at the school. For the same reasons that children over age five in pre-industrial societies spend the greatest portion of their days away from their parents playing with other children, children in an modern society likewise want and need to exert their own independence, and seek to build worlds and communities for themselves away from the eyes of their parents.

The Sudbury Valley school is about personal responsibility and reliance on oneself, in the context of a caring community. It is extremely hard to rely on one's self when mom or dad are nearby; even as adults, we find ourselves reduced to yes-men around our parents.

Human beings are natural scientists. In our daily leaves we -- all of us -- like to explore parts of the world that we haven't experienced before, reflect on those experiences, and formulate our own theories and models about how the world works. We then like to carry our thoughts and theories about how the world works back into a small community that we know well -- home -- and try those ideas out in comfort. Nothing beats coming home from a day out in the agora, or work or school, with interesting experiences that the other people around the table haven't had; it gives you something to talk about!

Children have a difficult burden; they are always guests in their own homes. The nature of the conversation, community and tone of the place is set by others who were in the home before them. At Sudbury Valley School, the children are understandably proud that the school is their responsibility -- that it is their place, and not their parent's place. This pride, in fact, makes the students and school community very supportive of occasional casual visits by parents coming as guests -- the kids are proud of their place, and want to show it off once in a while.

--
-- Scott David Gray
http://www.sudval.org/

[elisabeth Wertheim]

Where are you?

My understanding from my years (6) doing a Sudbury school on Maui is that, Yes, Sudbury philosophy values family as the first major and important entity for a child's healthy growth, and that by6 or 7, children are ready for the next sized group, that of a learning community (school).

By saying a student is completely free to follow his/her passions, the Sudbury staff must be part of a neutral environment,

modeling self sufficiency, maturity and focused attention to their job of maintaining the inner structure and culture of the school.

Believe me, to maintain that bubble of safe space for the kids, parents need to cut loose and trust that their children will actually learn what the guiding principles declare: Freedom coupled with responsibility allows each individual to use innate curiosity and creativity to pursue and master interests in one's own rhythm and pace... all interests are valid, etc.

To quote a staffer from a Sudbury school, way back when I faced this issue, "Liz, the parents have their own journey to pursue."

Good Luck,

Liz Wertheim

 

Ingrid

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[Ingrid Biery]

Thank you for the quick replies!

I did try searching the archives and was able to find enough to see
that it's a general policy. But not as much information as I would
have liked to find (I am relatively tech savvy, but seem to have a
hard time figuring out what search terms to use sometimes).
Specifically, I'm interested in the original Sudbury Valley School's
experiences in moving away from encouraging parental volunteering (or
have I misunderstood how things were in the beginning?). Pointers to
other posts, or suggested search terms would be greatly appreciated!

I'm interested to read the idea that kids move away from their parents
in pre-industrial societies at a young age. My impression was that
before industrialization, it was common for kids to stay with their
family group either for their whole life or until marriage. I am not
an anthropologist by any means though, so I could easily be wrong. Do
you have references you could recommend about that?

I'm in Ohio. One of the reasons I don't even want to seriously
consider starting a school is that I don't think our state laws are
very friendly. I haven't done much research, but I wouldn't be
surprised if one of the stories in Starting a Sudbury Valley School
took place in Ohio. Specifically, the one where the founders couldn't
convince the state authorities to grant permission and were pursuing
forming a secular church. The homeschooling laws aren't too bad though
(they do require a certain number of hours of "school" and that
certain core subjects be taught, but I consider life to be
educational, so the hours are covered, and the kids are constantly
learning those core subjects through self-directed
games/conversations/reading, so I don't worry about that either -- I
doubt a school could get away with as little documentation of process
as homeschoolers do), so from my perspective, it seems like we're
getting many of the benefits. But part of why I'm reading and
exploring is to try to determine the holes in my perspective. Am I
limiting my children by not finding or creating an environment where
they can be more free? They love our co-op, and enjoy a certain amount
of freedom there, though it's nothing compared to Sudbury Valley. They
define their own schedules, and leave a class if it's not fun. But we
do create classes for them, and we do supervise all rooms. We do not
yet have democratic government, but I think we're moving in that
direction. We're cautious because we have members who do not believe
in unschooling principles who simply follow our basic rules while at
co-op (once a week for 4-5 hours). I'm intrigued by the idea of less
structure, and it bugs me when we have to tell the kids to stop one
fun activity so they can move on to the next. But since we have
limited time and don't own the building, I'm not sure that less
structure would work. We are also dealing with a wider age range --
babies on up, and adults while expected to work are also able to take
a class or two during the day.

Ingrid

[Bruce Smith]

It seems like most current Sudbury schools don't allow parental involvement. Is this true?

Ingrid, I'd say this is an overstatement of an important point. Parental involvement is more limited than may be the norm in a co-op environment, for reasons such as those Scott and Liz describe. But many Sudbury staff members are parents, and parents support their schools in various capacities. (In my experience, small schools especially rely on parental involvement, though not so much in the sense of day-to-day, on-campus volunteering.)

What it comes down to is that, in Sudbury schools, deciding who can spend time on campus is a matter for students and staff to work out together through democratic processes. This way, the school is preserved as a place for students to freely pursue their interests and influence their community.

I do believe that just as there's no substitute for a good family environment, there's also unique value in young people's having an institution where they can assume real responsibility and experiment with different ways of being in the world, within a supportive, mixed-age community but one not in which their parents play a leading role. (I wrote a post about Sudbury and unschooling at my blog, Write Learning. For more about how Sudbury relates to pre-industrial cultures, I *highly* recommend Peter Gray's Psychology Today blog, Freedom to Learn.)

Finally, I'll add that some people have converted unschooling co-ops into schools, many others have moved to be part of Sudbury schools, and you might be surprised at how even restrictive state laws often leave room for Sudbury schools to open and thrive.

I hope this is helpful, and good luck with everything!

Bruce

--

Bruce blogs at 

Write Learning

writer/educator seeks viable life of creativity and mindfulness

http://writelearning.wordpress.com

[Karen Hyams]

Ingrid, there is an aspect of Sudbury schools that you might be familiar with in your unschooling life - having other parents to discuss the parenting challenges that come with sending your kid to one of these schools is invaluable. It is a hard thing, letting your children run off to school every day where they can swear, get into trouble, and generally do the kinds of things that make parents nervous. And that is precisely the point.

When Scott said kids to tended to drift away from the adults and seek each other's company, he meant that they stayed in their community/families while learning to really stretch their wings and fail. (Scott, I hope I've got that right.) It's a rare Mom that would let their 10-year-old climb to the top of a big, old tree, while their peers would be cheering them on and encouraging them. (And that's a good thing.)

That's part of what is meant by a 'safe space'. It's not the kind of safety we think of first, and you have to be brave to send your kid to a Sudbury school. If you are not, you leave or learn.

Karen Hyams


--
My recent work
www.karenhyams.com

[Daniel Greenberg]

For the record, "parental involvement", in the early manifestation of the model, meant the existence of an Assembly, including parents as well as students and staff, which met at least once a year (occasionally more often, for special meetings) to vote on general policy issues.  The School Meeting (students and staff only) always was the day-to-day governing body, making all the decisions involved in actually running the school (including expenditures and staff hiring).  Parents were never welcome as "volunteers" in the school, for reasons already discussed here.

More recently, at Sudbury Valley, the Assembly was eliminated, and the only governing body of the school is the School Meeting.  How this came about is a long story, but in essence it boiled down to one thing: people who are not present on a regular basis are not qualified to make decisions about how the school should operate - and the parents themselves recognized this and voted, by a large majority, to eliminate the Assembly and make the school what it actually was - namely, a self-governing community.

Dan Greenberg

Sudbury Valley School

[Derek Luke]

Hello to All,

My name is Derek and I'm a public school teacher. 

I've read many articles and books on these types of schools (Sudbury, Summerhill, "democratic schools," "free schools," "community schools," etc...) and, across the globe, it always seems to come back to the same basic tenets: freedom, responsibility, and self-sufficiency.

Firstly, as Liz and Scott already stated, if children are to experience freedom, they must be truly free to exercise their own will. The act of hovering over a child (as parents and teachers often do) tends to undermine a child's natural curiosity - and instead of exploring the world for themselves and of their own interests, they begin exploring it in search of approval from those above them (parents and teachers).

Secondly, responsibility for one's actions is another key component in these schools. In most of them there is a strong direct-democracy government - everyone gets one vote, as equals. Despite what some critics say, students cannot do whatever they please and it is not an "anything goes" environment. There are rules and consequences for actions. Students learn that actions have consequences in these types of environments. Interestingly, in my experience with the public-school sphere, parents tend to defend their children of their crimes instead of allowing the child to experience the consequences of their actions. This does not teach the child true responsibility - it teaches them that mommy and daddy will always bail them out of tough situations.

Lastly, self-sufficiency is the third basic tenet - and I would argue one of the most important. To truly be self-sufficient one must take control over their own life - both the inner and outer aspects of it. One side that I personally like to draw attention to is the inner-world and the words "I'm bored." These words are merely a description of someone's internal workings. A person who utters these words are, more accurately, a "boring" person - expecting other people to entertain them, or make their lives somehow better. In other words, instead of improving their own inner world they are expecting others to do the work for them. Parents often try to pacify this boredom by finding material things to occupy short attention spans. This act, again, undermines a child's natural development of self-sufficiency. Children need to learn that happiness and boredom are merely descriptions of internal states and that they have complete control over those states. They need to realize that they have the freedom to change these internal states and the process starts with learning self-sufficiency.

In summation, parents and family are important, but a safe place for children to experience true freedom, true responsibility, and true self-sufficiency must often be created independent of parental control. As Nelson Mandela said, "For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." In addition, Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "If you want total security, go to a prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking...is freedom." We need to be careful of the world we create for children - is it a world without freedom?

[Svsoffice]

Ingrid, it was NOT Ohio, and there are two thriving Sudbury schools now in the Tate that story comes from!
Mimsy

Sent from my iPad

[Ingrid Biery]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 7:55 PM, Svsoffice <svso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ingrid, it was NOT Ohio, and there are two thriving Sudbury schools now in the Tate that story comes from!

That's wonderful news! Thanks for letting me know.

Lots of interesting information to digest and ponder. I seem to have
misunderstood the original intention regarding parental involvement in
the original school. Probably in part because of one of the appendices
to Announcing a New School which included philosophical musings from
before the school started. Also probably related to open visitation.

I am still a bit unclear about the difference between founder parents
becoming teachers or staff and other parents coming in to hang out and
help out. I wish I lived close enough to a school to visit and see
what it's really like in person. Or better yet, had one in town where
I might send my kids. It's such a radical departure from anything I've
experienced or imagined before that it's really hard for me to feel
like I understand how it works just from a few books.

Ingrid

[Samuel Parker]

Hello all,

I taught at the Sego Lily Sudbury school in Utah & I can testify that parental involvement can be both wonderful & horrible. Since it's hard to judge which outcome will happen it's best to just say no to it all. In my experience adults period were the ones that brought drama & issues. The model comes naturally to the children & they tend to not complicate issues as they arise. We had a parent who wanted to become a staff member. There was a number of clear red flags, asking children to lie for her in school meeting & other serious issues. It was uncomfortable to talk with the children about these things since her children attended the school. Everyone agreed it was a problem however handling it honestly was too difficult. The adults wanted to pretend it wasn't there & continued to allow the destructive behavior. I believe the children could have & would have handled it. Instead the staff went behind the kids back & handled it in a way that upset the kids so much that the school lost all progress & can't gain enough enrollment to succeed now. After this happened I spoke with 3 past staff members who said that they quit because they couldn't handle the stuff that was being ignored by the staff. I believe this school would have been a success if the adults had let the kids run things & trusted them to handle the issues. Children handle the issues more smoothly than the adults.

 

Ingrid

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[Bruce Smith]

the school lost all progress & can't gain enough enrollment to succeed now.

This statement puzzles me. While I'm not at Sego Lily, and thus have only second-hand information, everything I hear indicates they're doing quite well indeed.

I don't want to take this thread off-topic, but at the same time, I couldn't let this claim go unquestioned. What does it mean for a school not to succeed? In my view, every year you're open, every young person who gets a taste of freedom and respect because of you, is no small sign of success.

[Samuel Parker]

I'm sorry, you're right everyone's view of success would be different. By success I simply mean with numbers, both money & enrollment. My point was that the more you can let the children take action the better the school. Also parents can add unnecessary stress. If / when an issue arises it's much harder to deal with openly & honestly. At Sego Lily it was impossible for some of the staff. For adults it's easier to ignore a serious situation then deal with it. I don't think that children are the same.

 For the school to really be a productive place you need at least 30% of the kids over the age of 10 as well in my opinion. I don't even know how many they have over 10yr.