
Sudbury School - robto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school
======
striking
> While there is no accepted definition of a Sudbury school, the intended
> culture within a Sudbury school has been described with such words as
> freedom, trust, respect, responsibility and democracy.

I'm trying really hard not to be immediately cynical about this, but a lot of
this page doesn't make any sense.

Most of these sources are primary, where the "Sudsbury Valley School Press"
sells books of information about its schools, and they're apparently
acceptable citations.

A lot of the ideas here are noble and interesting, and can challenge the way
people think about teaching their kids.

At the same time, I don't think it's possible to treat most kids with their
own education until they're in high school. And what's even better is that
neither my opinion, nor theirs, is backed by scientific evidence in a peer-
reviewed journal.

Some of the concepts within are interesting, like keeping parents out of their
child's education (assuming the school is good enough that the parent doesn't
need any control).

But it's a system based on beliefs and beliefs alone.

Call me cynical, but I don't get it.

~~~
GeoDeV
I learned about the Sudbury school style of education from a book called "Free
to Learn" by Peter Gray. A Wikipedia article can't do justice to such a
radically different approach to education. Keep in mind that our current
factory style of education is a relatively recent development in the span of
human history. Newer is not necessarily better.

~~~
davnicwil
> our current factory style of education is a relatively recent development...
> Newer is not necessarily better.

That may well be, but the breadth and depth of what there is to learn, the
sheer number of people being educated, and the communities, societies and
professional lives that education is intended to prepare people for, have
grown and evolved so much over the past few hundred years, particularly so as
we look ever more recently, that I'm not sure there's much meaning in
comparing older styles with new and saying what's a better or worse method,
without taking it in context.

The current system may not seem better but perhaps it's just that we've had to
adjust things for the worse in order to scale, so that now children are
learning 10x less effectively, but have access to let's call it a 'potential'
education which is 1000x greater than what existed 100 years ago. I.e they're
getting a smaller slice of the potential pie, but the potential pie is
massively bigger and growing all the time, so they're all actually doing
better on an absolute scale, even though it seems on the surface like the
educational experience is worse.

------
rfjedwards
Sounds like a gradeless, structureless, new age feelgoodery!

[http://arresteddevelopment.wikia.com/wiki/Openings](http://arresteddevelopment.wikia.com/wiki/Openings)

IN all seriousness - the concept is appealing, but I have trouble "trusting"
it. Most of the evidence "for" sudbury schools seems to be anecdotal:

[https://skeptoid.com/blog/2014/02/16/sudbury-
schools/](https://skeptoid.com/blog/2014/02/16/sudbury-schools/)

Not inherently bad, but I guess I'd like more quantified outcomes before
choosing such a path for my own kids.

