Brenda Rose

I was reading in Summerhill today (about the school started in 1921 in
England, by A. S. Neill) and wanted to share some quotes. Even though it
was (is?) a school, it is really like unschooling.

"Well, we set out to make a school in which we should allow children freedom
to be themselves. In order to do this, we had to renounce all discipline,
all direction, all suggestion, all moral training, all religious
instruction...
My view is that a child is inately wise and realistic."

"What is Summerhill like? Well, for one thing, lessons are optional.
Children can go to them or stay away from them - for years if they want to."

"We have no new methods of teaching, because we do not consider that
teaching in itself matters very much.Whether a school has or has not a
special method for teaching long division is of no significance, for long
division is of no importance except to those who WANT to learn it. And the
child who WANTS to learn long division WILL learn it no matter how it is
taught." [I used caps where he used italics. Also, this sounded like a
recent conversation I'd read here. This next part does too]

"Children who come to Summerhill as kindergarteners attend lessons from the
beginning of their stay; but pupils from other schools vow that they will
never attend any beastly lessons again at any time. They play and cycle and
get in people's way, but they fight shy of lessons. This sometimes goes on
for months. The recovery time is proportionate to the hatred their last
school gave them. Our record case was a girl from a convent. She loafed
for three years. The average period of recovery from lesson aversion is
three months."

"Creators learn what they want to learn in order to have the tools that
their originality and genius demand. We do not know how much creation is
killed in the classroom [or structured homeschool?] with its emphasis on
learning... This notion that unless a child is learning something the child
is wasting his time is nothing less than a curse - a curse that blinds
thousands of teachers..." [and parents?]

Brenda Rose