Practice

"I didn't really think about 'getting an education'. We weren't learning subject by subject, but in a much more organic manner. You would be doing a lot of different things and you would learn them in little bits and pieces that would start adding up to much bigger pictures. By the time you were done learning about something, information was coming from so many different sources, from books and from people you were talking to, and from a long drawn out experience, that you had no idea how you learned it."

Daily Life
Daily Life
"Every day we had challenges to meet, and a group of us would be working on them at the same time. We picked hard things to do most of the time. At Sudbury Valley there were always older kids who had done things that the younger group was trying to get to. You automatically wanted to be one of the people who could do it too, so you kept trying until you could do it. Everything was always, 'You have to get one step further.'"

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Play

By Daniel Greenberg

Nothing disturbs visitors to Sudbury Valley School more than the sight of children of all ages playing freely all day long. The image contradicts every notion people have of what a school should be. Continue Reading ›

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Kingdom of Childhood: Growing Up at Sudbury Valley School

By Hanna Greenberg with Daniel Greenberg, Mimsy Sadofsky

I don't know if I really understood everything about the school right away, but the thing that I did understand was that I loved it. It was somewhere that I wanted to be. And it stayed that way until it was time for me to move on! Continue Reading ›

School Meeting
Framework
Every student and staff member has an equal role in managing the school through the School Meeting. It determines rules of behavior, use of facilities, expenditures, and staff hiring, and delegates specific administrative functions to various agents. All members of the community participate in the School's judicial system. The fair administration of justice is key to preserving the individual freedom on which the school is based.

SVS

How The School Operates

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The Significance of the Democratic Model: Self-Esteem, Self-Rule, and Self-Motivation

By Daniel Greenberg

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Art
Environment 2
The Environment
"Part of my feeling about the school had to do with it being beautiful. The building, the grounds, and the woods – everything. There was always a lot of physical space. We had the freedom to move around and do what we wanted. There would be places where you could set up your own activities, or you could be a part of somebody else's activities. There was always a sense that you could do what you wanted to do and you could be who you wanted to be."

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The Magic of Conversation

By Michael Greenberg

When you're in a situation where you can do anything you want with your day, the fact is that most of what people do involves talking. . . . Why are they talking? What do they get from it? Continue Reading ›