PhilosophyExcerpt from the introduction of The Pursuit of Happiness: The Lives of Sudbury Valley Alumni by Daniel Greenberg, Mimsy Sadofsky, and Jason Lempka
The overriding concept that imbues every aspect of the school, and of other schools that operate on the same principles, is trust. To put it simply, the school trusts, and asks parents to trust, that children are constantly working to understand the world they are in. We feel that a child’s world expands enormously from year to year and that, if allowed to do so, every child will explore the parts of their world that are important to them. We are also convinced that, when they internalize the fact that they are truly free, all human beings endeavor to function at their highest levels. Because we are secure in the truth of these statements, we have always felt secure as a school to leave every decision about how to use and process the world around them to the people involved.
That means that Sudbury Valley is a school that has never had any curriculum – not a “core” curriculum, not a “fun” curriculum, but no curriculum at all. Because we trust each individual to take responsibility for their own education, it is also a school that never imposes evaluations of any kind on its students, but trusts that students find ways to evaluate the way they do things, and the way they spend their time, on an ongoing basis and in a manner most appropriate for them.
Every four year old, every fourteen year old, and every forty year old who walks into the school notices immediately the trust that allows individuals of all ages to lead their lives in ways that are purposeful and intense. To be trusted means that you are free to go about your day in whatever way you wish, and to pursue your education and your happiness, whether in ways that look traditional or in ways that look decidedly different. Because so many decisions go into utilizing such complete freedom each day, every person learns, first and foremost, to trust themselves and their own methods of learning and growing.
At Sudbury Valley, on any day you can observe students pursuing dozens of different kinds of interests. They are serious, and yet joyful at the same time. Serious, because anything is serious to you if you have chosen to do it of your own free choice. Joyful, because students who are fully trusted and completely respected are able to go about their day with happiness.
Part and parcel of the principle of complete trust and mutual respect is the idea that the people in a community should be the ones who manage that community. Therefore, each student at the school is a full voting member of the body that manages the school (the School Meeting), the body that makes policy for the school (the Assembly), and (when drawn by lot) the body that works to deal with disciplinary problems in a way that is fair and open (the Judicial Committee). To be trusted with these responsibilities brings home the seriousness with which the school takes its mission, as well as the seriousness of the burden on each person.
We feel that this way of treating students, which avoids patronizing them by treating each student and adult as full-fledged thinking and deciding members of the community, promotes an extraordinary flowering of self-motivation, of initiative, of creativity, and of leadership. We believe that the school provides an environment that trains each individual to think for themselves, and to lead an examined life that is fulfilling, meaningful, and fun. We are confident that the school produces leaders – most particularly, people who are unafraid to lead their own lives, and in the course of building that life often end up leading others.