Starting a Sudbury School

“Maybe potential founders could get a taste of what it is like before they actually commit themselves to it, by going into a commercial laundromat, getting inside one of those industrial dryers, putting it on an hour-long cycle&and having it get stuck and go for a week instead.”

 

Starting a Sudbury School offers a glimpse into the mechanics of beginning a new school. It analyzes various steps that founding groups have taken to get their schools off the ground and allow them to thrive in the early years. Included are dozens of stories describing triumphs and pitfalls encountered along the way.

 

Contents : Foreword. 1. What kind of folks get going 2. What gets folks going 3. How founding groups get formed 4. Characteristics important within the founding group 5. Concrete steps each group must take: (i) Understanding and explaining the philosophy (ii) Formalization of status (iii) Satisfying the appropriate educational authorities (iv) Money matters (v) Site selection (vi) Promotion 6. Demographics 7. Staffing a Sudbury school 8. Where do the students come from? 9. The nitty-gritty of starting a school 10. Developing a culture: (i) keeping the school going 11.Some classic errors 12. What people feel enabled them to succeed Appendix 1: (i) Note from a founder who failed Appendix 2 (i) Narrative history of a school that (ii) Survived its first four years Appendix 3 (i) Only the Hopeful Appendix 4 (i)Revolution or Reform? (ii) Thoughts on the Character, Strategy and (iii) Destiny of Sudbury Valley School

 

THE SUDBURY VALLEY SCHOOL is a place, where children can "just be". There is no curriculum, no classes, no grades, no coercion, no uniforms, no bells and none of the rituals which define a regular school.

 

Here children are treated as responsible citizens and they carry the burden of their own education. Unless asked, the teachers "stay away" from the children. Here children discover their own innate interests and then gallantly pursue them. And because they chose them, they also rough it out and learn them well. So, children become the true architects of their own education. The Sudbury valley school experience has inspired others to start similar schools elsewhere.