Conversation

A broken leg is no fun. However, since at SVS almost any new situation can become a window into what is going on in the minds of the kids, my broken leg led to many unexpected insights for me. My mobility was seriously curtailed by my inability to… Read more ›

Whenever we have an Open House at Sudbury Valley School we often get the same question, “What do the kids do all day?” Underneath this question is a broader one, “Can you prove to me that this place works?” On the spot, the short answer is, “No.”… Read more ›

We were talking about birthdays, Audrey, Ben, Christine and I. All three children had just turned six and their birthday parties were recalled with much joy. As a normally foolish adult I asked the kind of questions that kids consider really dumb.… Read more ›

I realized that one of the kids in school who had been here for many years was about to turn eleven. (How dare she get so old?) I said, “Oh, I wish you were still 7½ .” What I meant, of course, was that the years go by too fast, and we remember… Read more ›

This is a confession: It took me many, many years to learn how not to pounce and use what are called "teaching moments" at home with my own children and here at school. Like most people, I like to tell stories, to talk about things that I know and… Read more ›

This is a tough question. SVS lacks the more traditional ways of bench marking a child’s progress through school. There are no parent-teacher conferences, no grades, no MCAS scores, no curriculum, no classes and no grade point averages. There is… Read more ›

Originally appeared in the June Journal of 1992, Volume 21 After so many years of explaining the philosophy of SVS I occasionally get tired. Tired of the same old questions which show me over and over again how difficult it is for people to… Read more ›

People always say the J.C. is the heart of the school. They’re right. It’s the way our school handles misdeeds or wrong doings on a daily basis. It’s one of the reasons it’s so enjoyable to go to school here and to work here. There isn’t one… Read more ›

As we walked down the driveway to the main building, slightly jet-lagged after the flight from the UK, I thought I knew what to expect. After all, we had spent a year immersing ourselves in Sudbury literature with the aim of opening a school in Kent… Read more ›

This was published in our Janury 1998 Journal; a note from Jean and Rick Leif about what their daughter is up to now has been added. Quite a lot has been written about what it is like to be a student at Sudbury Valley School, but I would like to… Read more ›

When talking about the school, we all find others confused about what we believe, and about what we do. As with most confusion, much of the confusion can be reduced to language. People casually use certain terms loosely and interchangeably as a… Read more ›

There was a Separation and Transition Workshop for parents at my son’s college orientation that I went to, and I don’t regret going, even though I thought I would. Convinced that the last thing my SVS educated son needed on his first day of college… Read more ›

… all I can do is read a book to stay awake, And it rips my life away, But it’s a great escape … BLind MeLoN, “No Rain” (1992) Recently, I did something very unhealthy. It started innocently enough with picking up a book a student had pointed out… Read more ›

It wasn’t even an eventful day. Yet things happened that stood out, as always. First there was a relatively innocuous moment that started the day. It seems that the people who run the daily concession had found an innovative way to store some of the… Read more ›

I’ve grown to love the interactions with the guests at Open House. It’s fun to stumble onto someone who has little or no knowledge of the school, and also to see their reaction to hearing about the model for the first time. I had a particular… Read more ›