Bruce Smith (bsmith@coin.org)
Sat, 24 Mar 2001 13:00:26 -0700
One can no more have an agenda-less school than it is to have a norm-less
society. Both are logically impossible. What the Sudbury model provides is
the narrowest possible _institutional_ agenda, and the widest possible
latitude for _individual_ agendas. It's not a dichotomy of "democratic
decision-making" OR "equality and freedom of children," but rather a matter
of relying on the former to enable the latter. "Hands-on democracy" is
simply the format (as opposed to "agenda") many of us believe best suited
for schools based on freedom and respect for all, schools that allow
children to mature into capable, responsible adults.
Bruce
<<I've just misunderstood the Sudbury
Model. I haven't really thought that democratic decision making would be
cruisal in it. Because if it is, I think that's a clear agenda, to teach
democratic decision making. And because I believe that it's a common
agreement that Sudbury Model doesn't have an agenda, then there's a
conflict. I was kind of thinking that the idea of Sudbury Model was
about equality and freedom of children. Well, it seems it isn't. I guess
the homepage actually states it clearly: "an education at Sudbury Valley
is also an education in hands-on democracy".>>
--------------------------------
"Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand --
that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity
of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us."
-- Annie Dillard, _Teaching a Stone to Talk_
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