Education reform

If I had to choose one topic to place at the very core of every child's educational experience, I would have no trouble identifying it: how to deal with failure. Yet this is a subject carefully avoided in traditional mainstream schools. On the… Read more ›

Everybody sees that the notion that kids have to go to a building--to a school--and have to be taught stuff in person by a teacher who talks at them, has been flushed down the toilet.

School's a place for kids to learn. Everybody agrees to that. That's why they exist. Well, but kids learn all the time; it's part of human nature to learn. People have known that forever. The opening sentence of one of the most famous books ever… Read more ›

Dan: One thing I can't understand is how people have confidence in the material that's being taught in classrooms, whether it's elementary school, middle school, high school or college. They're taught from textbooks or from prepared notes. And… 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 ›

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 ›

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 ›

  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 ›

For many centuries, philosophers and scientists have been debating human knowledge: its nature, limits and origin. On this last point, we still are trying to understand how much the human being is born knowing and how much he discovers… Read more ›

What do SVS students have in common? What are the distinguishing features of this vibrant collection of people whose energy strikes you the moment you encounter them? For a long time I have been trying to articulate the answers to these questions.… Read more ›

In the car on the way home from the Maynard Fine Arts Theater on Saturday, January 26, Danny and I were elated.   We had just seen the movie “Drowning in Pennsylvania”, which was written, produced and acted by Sudbury Valley students and… Read more ›

During this holiday season, my daughter gave each of her SVS friends pillow cases. Using a fabric marker, each pillow case was emblazoned with a block of text. Then each pillow case was rolled up like a scroll and tied with a ribbon. The result… Read more ›

It isn't always easy to take the road less traveled. When my daughter first started attending Sudbury Valley School, she was five-years-old. Parents, friends and colleagues didn’t understand the school when I told them about it. Their questions… Read more ›

(Part 1 in The Living Water School School's “Transparency” Series)  It is late. I have just fed my dogs. Everyone is asleep and like most nights, I am the last one up and I’m usually thinking about the school. Tonight, I am thinking… Read more ›