Blog

I want to talk about something called “the zone of proximal development”, an idea developed by Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky early in the 20th century. He felt that people learn best when either they are learning from somebody who knows a… Read more ›

Reading for pleasure and knowledge has always been a meaningful part of my life. So when my three children started SVS at young ages I couldn’t help but wonder how they would learn to read without the direct instruction I had experienced as a child… Read more ›

Mimsy: Yesterday I was talking to a professor of philosophy and his daughter, who's about 13 or 14, and she said, “The stuff that you learn for tests – you learn it, and then you just vomit it out, and you never know it again.” And he turned to her… Read more ›

Remote Learning: When Governor Baker announced on April 29th that schools would remain closed in the state of Massachusetts through the end of the school year, he also emphasized the importance of continuing and expanding “remote learning” for… Read more ›

It’s amazing that anybody considers that what's called “a school” in the traditional meaning of the term has anything to do with preparing children for adulthood. To the contrary: it doesn't let them talk; doesn't let them move; it squelches… Read more ›

October 2, 2019 was a very rainy day, just the kind of day to stay indoors and be cozy. Not so at SVS. At least half of the student body was outside, either disregarding the rain altogether, or carrying out their activities as if it wasn’t wet… Read more ›

People often say to me, “What you're doing at Sudbury Valley School is really amazing. There are so many things that are wonderful about it. How can we incorporate some of the more important aspects of what you do into our school?” Usually these… Read more ›

Our son recently spent two weeks visiting his grandmother in Paris by himself. It was a wonderful adventure that allowed him to explore his independence and experience the world in a new way. He had an amazing time and came back with a lot of great… Read more ›

Ever since I started teaching music composition at a conservatory, I’ve been comparing the progress of the college students with the Sudbury Valley School kids I’ve observed in my time as a staff member. In each case, they are trying to work out… Read more ›

Here's a real puzzle: when I was growing up, there were no such things as “learning disabilities” in our classrooms. There were kids of all kinds of different abilities and interests, and we were just plain different from each other. Nobody said… Read more ›

The over-riding fear that parents express when they approach this model of education is that kids aren’t learning anything. Of course, when confronted, they will admit that kids do learn things all the time without the vaguest coercion, but it… Read more ›

It’s no secret that doing art is usually a messy affair. People cut and paste, use liquid paints, clay and glazes, water colors and beads, make collages with images cut from magazines, and so on. At SVS, the art room is open to all our students,… Read more ›

  On the radio a couple of weeks ago, I heard a man talking about educational reform, and what they consider progress made with young children’s education in Illinois in recent years. He talked about a goal, which he called “agency”. The word… Read more ›

After so many years of learning about Sudbury schooling, and starting several similar schools in the Netherlands, as well as helping others in Europe start schools, I finally visited Sudbury Valley during its regular school year. I have been… Read more ›

A few months ago, my kids were planning a big sleepover of SVS students at our house. Besides the usual suspects, there was one new name. I immediately start asking what I thought were the key sleepover questions: Did they like frozen pizza? Were… Read more ›