Respect

Some people, who have only a passing knowledge about Sudbury Valley, are troubled and offended by the fact that our school relies on the rule of written law, rather than on guidelines or common sense. Some see our law-book, and presume that a… Read more ›

Would you actually turn back the hands of time and be a kid again if you had the ‘sus’ power to shape shift or time travel? Or would you want to just simply go back to the ‘kid’ version of who you have become and re-live it, feel it all again, one… Read more ›

There is a myth out there, a false idea called the “real world”. “It’s not like that in the real world.” “When you get out there in the real world, you’ll see.” The idea fed to children and students is that they must do unpleasant things to prepare… Read more ›

Children Are Like Locs by Anika Prather  The Living Water School, Alexandria, VA This has been the year for me personally, as a mom and as a school founder, to fully mentally and emotionally grasp that kids do not need our help to… Read more ›

We often hear people talk about Sudbury schools as "unschooling schools". Besides the fact that the actual phrase, to me, does not even make sense, I think the people who use it overlook a lot of dissimilarities that are important keystones as to… 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 ›

I confess that I wasn't thinking about happiness in 1968, when my husband and I decided to send our children to the almost-open Sudbury Valley School. We had unfortunately noticed that public school seemed to cause our little son to feel… Read more ›

Take One by Daniel Greenberg If you happen to be sitting in the large front room called “the sewing room", you might notice that every day at 11:00 a.m., eight people walk into the adjacent book-lined “seminar room". What you are seeing… Read more ›

People often ask if there is a problem with bullying at Sudbury Valley School given that all these kids of all different ages are mixed together in a seemingly haphazard and unordered way. I tell them that bullying is quite rare; to which they… 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 ›

When we say that we are “bringing people up”, it can mean anything from bringing up a person in a conversation to bringing up our kids according to certain principles. At SVS, “bringing a person up” (i.e., filing a complaint against someone with… 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 ›

Lisa Dolliver, a professional ceramicist (and also a professional musician), has been teaching kids all things pottery for quite a few years here. She is an amazing inspiration and teacher. I always wish I could spend every minute she is in school… Read more ›

[reprinted from The School Bull, Informal News about The Clearwater School] Feel in it Even swim in it And music noits Fill my bain This is the poem my son wrote to accompany a three-foot tall, three-dimensional art project he created while… Read more ›

There is not a lot of talk these days about happiness. It’s considered more of an accidental condition than a fundamentally required, or expected, one. Company human resource officials don’t start their interviews with prospective employees by… Read more ›