I read Summerhill when I was 13 years old, back in 1973, and it made a big impact on me. Today I homeschool my kids and have for the past 10 years. My oldest is now heading off to a music conservatory for college, and I have two more still at home learning. I feel the seed was planted to go our own way with education all those years ago and I don't regret it one bit. It was and is the best thing our family could ever do.

as a child I went to a school run on the same lines.
Burgesshill in Hampstead London. I learnt more there then when I went to a well Known Grammer school.
It does not suite evreybody though not evreyone has the self disiplin needed to take full advantage of that kind of education.
Jack

Didn't teach you how to spell though Jack.

Ellie there is more to life than spelling! Many dyslexics have gone on to great things.
I would love to have gone to a school like that and would have sent my sons had there been one close by. The happiness and fulfilment of the child is paramount to making a decent adult. There is always FE if we need it later on. Steiners is another type of education where the children come first. Many of them go on to pass exams and go to uni.
I sent my oldest child to a strict fee paying school and the other wanted to go to a state school and while they both excelled in primary, they both hated secondary and left as soon as they could only to go to FE. They are now very successful in their chosen careers but had I the time again I would definitely choose differently.
And Ellie, don't dwell on the spelling...it's the content that matters.

to Elle
perhaps my dyslexicia has got the better of me, but I was able to learn more subjects and in greater depth then at the conventional schools, and at the same time I became more forgiving of others then most people
as you seem to show:-)
all the best
Jack :-)

I went to two schools like that in the States. It was a complete waste of time. It took me years to catch up to grade level and I missed out on a proper education.

YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT YOUR LABORATORY!

If you are curious, experiment on yourself.

Anonomous
when conventional schools fail some pupils alternitves might help.
It is not about experementing at all!!
I went to conventional schools first they did not at the time (late fortys to early fiftys) have the foresight or the patience that the progressive movement had.
perhaps now things are diffrent attetudes do evovle and change in time but in those days they had rather a primitive outlook those children who had diffrent needs then the averige child.
all the best
Jack:-)

I wonder if this school performs in the manner it describes as there is no such thing as democracy. It is fatuous to believe in management by committee; there is always someone, informal or otherwise, bringing influence to bear on decision-making, so who really is the boss and what is actually happening rather than what is said to be happening?

I had an unhappy childhood and an unhappy school experience; whether there was a connection is difficult to determine as I have never been a 'good' pupil. At an early age I became a chronic truant and spent only 9 months at secondary education when I left school to start work aged 14. Had I been to such a school as described here, I would doubt if I would have ever been seen in class.

I progressed through life from sweeping floors in industry to becoming a chief executive in a government organisation prior to retiring. The lack of academic or professional qualification hindered my progression but did not stop it. I have always been a contented and happy person and in 50 years of marriage have had a happy home so I am not convinced that education is necessary; indeed (and this might shock a little) I believe that academia teaches ignorance.

I doubt if either this school or the state schools could have educated me; mostly I found teachers to be utterly boring and my view today has not changed.

I have never felt the need to follow trends and I might add, I feel liberated.

Although this approach may work well for some students, it could be disasterous for others. People of all ages learn in different modes. Some need information structured in a specific manner whereas others prefer to organize information to suit themselves. Some need to participate in the learning process while others learn better from someone lecturing to them.

For optimal learning, the parent, teacher, or mere facilitator should determine how the children learn best and facilitate their learning based on their mode of learning which is determined by analyzing how each child best learns in three key aspects: (1) their purpose for learning--the desire for practical information for immediate use of general information that they can organize for future use; (2) whether they are more comfortable with information structured or do they prefer to organize the information themselves; and (3) do they prefer to actively interact with others while learning or to take in the information and reflect on it independently.

Once the learning facilitator has determined which students learn best in each of these ways, they can design their instruction in manners that will work for all the students--facilitating some group learning and some lecturing. But, I do agree, it should never be just what a parent or educator wants for the child. The child must feel comfortable with the type of training provided or they will never reach their potential in learning.

Also, students should be provided all of the important information on a subject without the learning facilitator's opinion unless it is stated that "this is my opinion only." On issues of a controversial nature, students need to be provided the pros and cons of both sides and allowed to ask questions and decide on their own which they choose to believe. This teaches the child how to make the best decisions in life.

I knew Neill and had issues with him - why did he kick out my two brothers for example.(Now there's a record for you!) At the same time the school was great for my sister. I attended the only school Neill ever recommended - Kilquhanity near Castle Douglas. I will love it 'til my dying day for what it and John and Morag Aitkenhead, the headmaster and his wife, gave to me and to the many children who attended. Its a shame the pencil necks in the then Scottish Education Department had such a singular lack of vision andf forced it to close.

John was always more practical than Neill. If a kid could not read Neill was more than likely to put this down to some aspect of supression, usually sexual. John on the other hand looked for other causes. He was the first person I ever heard use the word dyslexia. That was in 1962 when it was a 'crankie idea'. I saw him learn one kids personal alphabet so he could correct him when he made a mistake in his written work. The kid left the school reading and writing. Neill would have referred to Wilhelm Reich! The Kilquhanity motto was: Libert, Equality and Inefficency. John A. , as he was knnow, maintained efficient revolutions wound up killing people.

I learned about Summerhill while on teaching practice in the 70s. However it was a very small school and compared to today's schools of 1000+ pupils the dynamic would be very different. What might work well with a small group would be unmanageable with 10 times that amount.

Roberta, I found your article interesting particularly as I loathed having to learn by rote in a despotic culture where the tause ruled and teachers were thought to be aliens. Later in life I discovered that I was better at learning through observation and experimentation. I never felt the need to study information that was likely to be extraneous to my life although today my avocational interests are both wide and varied. I also learned rapidly from small-group participation but always felt that teachers inhibited progress. It is pleasing to note that some thought has been given to the learning processes. I am certain that education stunted my imagination.

Like another poster I read "Summerhill" many years ago: and that reading has had an enduring influence on me; as it also had on my wife when she too read it, many years later.
I had a friend "Nick", now sadly dead, who attended Kilquhanity as pupil and teacher. Nick made his way through an eccentric life, with what he learned as practical building skills from the school handyman.
I'm now a teacher, and the profession is indeed regulated in a manner very different from the visions of either Aitkenhead or Neill.
But there is a still a place for these visions, even when it can only be an ache for something absent.
Like another poster I'm dyslexic, and I tend to see these eccentric educational visionaries, as having some crucial insight into what dyslexics and other special students can benefit from. What we seem to need educationally, is to be treated very much as individuals: we need a freedom where we can be autonomous, working things out for ourselves; and we need to experiment with the very stuff of our selves and our lives.
Nice to see Neill and Kilquhanity being talked about. Warms the heart.

Summerhill's ideas are typical of the downwardly mobile mindset of European liberal education. I regret that his foolish ideas were exported to contaminate and corrupt an entire generation of American youth. The attitude of entitlement and unreasonable expectations resulting from his misguided theories are a core reason that Western democracy is failing. Weakness, lack of discipline, unformed and unsupported ideas and an impotent grasp of fact replaced sound, well-developed educational principals that produced the great minds of the twentieth century.
One need only to look at the results of this failed educational experiment to recognize the fallacy of permissiveness that is the core of Neill's ideas.

As a beginning teacher in the seventies I read much about A.S.Neill and found it both interesting and inspiring. To understand the true values of his schooling you need to read A.S.Neill's Summerhill before writing it off as a "downwardly mobile mindset of European liberal education". You should do more research before blythely writing off ideas and I mean worldwide, not merely annecdotal.

Summerhill was about empowerment of the student. Students were encouraged to be responsible for their learning, irrespective of innate ability (achievements were celebrated on an individual level). This empowerment also engendered the development of self discipline.

I am still teaching in a normal NSW government school and still apply his philosophy in a standard K-6 classroom setting to achieve high success rates. (for the uninformed...Australia, has one of the highest literacy standards in the world ahead of both the UK and USA),

Heather, I did read A.S.Neill's Summerhill before making my comments. I simply arrived at a different conclusion based entirely on empirical evidence.
I agree that US standards are pathetically weak.
A standard is defined as a mark by which all are measured, certainly not an idea compatible with Neill's philosophy. His two is not the real two, his four is not the real four precisely because he wished to avoid measurements based on standards. Neill began the race to the bottom and the "least common" principle that is destroying education, at least as it is implemented here in the US. That is not to say that there is no merit in his work, just that concept of least common is derived from him and has proven disastrous.

Raeburn, your views have the merit of being starkly explicit.
But, and following the dyslexic theme (Einstein, and relativity in physics), Neill is indeed not going to subscribe to a human world grounded in merely extant standards.
The movement from Newtonian absolutes to Einsteinian relativities and continuums and quantums, was not a downward movement for physical sciences.
Likewise, the movement to a social world grounded in free and autonomous individuation, would not entail downward movement for the human project.
Standards are fine and well, but they are never absolutes, or even universals: standards are always human "quanta"; they are always tied to some social group, and the way of life of that group.
There will be faults in the cohort who subscribe to ideas and vision similar to Neils; but there will be at least equal fault in those who subcribe to standards. The twentieth century is as much one of horrendous human failure, as it is one witnessing what is commendable.
There is place for what flows from the standards you have affinity with: and there is scope in the human garden of diversity, for a million million other flowerings; and the human project can cope with all of that, and never find itself going downhill.
The trick, it seems to me, is whether we entertain the understanding that allows all of that garden to flourish.

Like Heather, I was introduced to A S Neill in the early 1970's in teacher education in NSW - at the same university! I agree with student empowerment, but his ideas only work when the culture of the parents, students and teachers support them - even though the changes in society in the 1970's supported greater freedom, they didn't emphasise personal responsibility for choices. I still feel that for his ideas to be carried out they depend almost entirely on the personality of the principal of the school carrying everyone else with him/her. This is probably why even in the private school system Neill has few followers. In my everyday dealings with students I emphasise making informed choices and accepting the consequences rather than just forcing them to do things without explanation. Perhaps this is part of A S Neill's legacy for me.