In the sixties of the last century, the British pedagogue Alexander Sutherland Neal wrote the book "Free Children of Summerhill" in which he described one of the most important educational and pedagogical experiments of recent times. In 1921,he founded a school called Summerhill, which worked on completely new and different principles from traditional European schools.
He wrote about his experience, school and the children who went through it in 1960 in a book that in the following decades was a significant read not only for experts in education, but was almost a "book for every house". "Free Children of Summerhill" was also read by parents in our country, looking for answers to questions about the correct upbringing and schooling of children.
While Neil was hailed by many as a man who adapted the school to the true nature of the child, and not the other way around, many criticized him mostly for the poor quality of lectures and classes held in Summerhill, and then for the "dissolution" of students and their overly anarchist ideas. .And what was Summerhill like in Neil's time?
The school was first founded in Dresden, but was soon moved to the area of the village of Leiston in East Safok, about 150 kilometers from London. "Summerhill was born as an experimental school. He is no longer that. "Today, it is a demonstration school, because it demonstrates that freedom is possible," Neil wrote in the book "Free Children of Summerhill." At the time the book was written, there were about 45 students between the ages of 5 and 16 in this school, some of whom were foreigners - five from Scandinavia,one from the Netherlands, one from Germany and one from America. Many of them were labeled as problematic children in previous schools or by their parents, while some came here because their parents were convinced that Neil's concept of education was more correct than the conventional one.
The children in Summerhill were really free in the sense that they could do absolutely anything they could think of, as long as it did not endanger other Summerhill residents, students, teachers and other school staff. They didn't have to attend classes. They did not have to have hobbies or do anything that was offered to them - for example, to master crafts in workshops, make works of art, sew, read and the like. They could, if they wanted, lie down all day and that is a number of them, upon arrival in Summerhill, and radio. It took them a few weeks or a few months to get interested in what was happening at school and to enter the usual currents of this democratic community. All decisions at the school were made at community meetings. Everyone attended and participated in it, from the school principal to the five-year-old and everyone had the same right to vote. Often, Neil recalled, adults would be outvoted and decisions were made that were not very proud, such as allowing students to smoke, because it is not fair that adults are allowed to smoke and children are not.
Aren't they all equal?
"I think that a child by nature is wise and realistic. If he is allowed to be independent, if the adults do not sit on his head with his advice, it will develop the most that can be developed. Understandably, Summerhill is a place where those who have an innate ability and desire to be schoolchildren will become schoolchildren, while others, whose only ability is to clean the streets, will clean the streets. But, so far, no one who has become a street cleaner has left our school, nor am I saying this from a snobbish point of view, since I would prefer the school to form happy cleaners than neurotic learned people, "Neil explained.
The book gives examples of the fate of former students, some of whom have become distinguished doctors and professors, and some happy masters who love their job the most in the world. There is a list of important people who attended this school on the Wikipedia page about Summerhill. They are probably not known in our country, one is a lecturer at the University of Brighton, the other is a music producer, the third designs rock album covers, the fourth is the author of children's books, the fifth is an architecture professor, and there is a woman actress. There are definitely no Nobel laureates or eminent scientists, but that is not Summerhill's goal.
Neil died in 1973 and it was then that his wife took over the school. Today, according to very similar principles, she is led by Neil's daughter named Zoe. On the school's website, under the name, there is the motto "Founded in 1921, and still ahead of its time".
The children in Summerhill were really free in the sense that they could do absolutely anything they could think of, reedom is important, but there must be some rules, you can't lie down all day, something must be done to learn.