Sudbury=Success
Kids | Parents | Alumni
Media Articles
Junior Knows Best:
Sudbury schools let kids learn what they want
Utne Reader, June 2006
Public, private, parochial, charter, magnet, small-by-design, homeschool. With the array of educational options for kids these days, it can be overwhelming to decide who the right people to teach your children are. The Sudbury Valley School (SVS) in Framingham, Massachusetts, insists that the best educators are actually children themselves. Hara Estroff Marano, writing for Psychology Today, finds that kids doing what they do best — playing — is a highly effective teaching method. Writes Marano: ‘Psychologists believe that play cajoles people toward their human potential because it preserves all the possibilities nervous systems tend to otherwise prune away.’ The school, which has served as the model for some three dozen others, encourages play, as well as other activities that facilitate children taking control of their own academic destinies and enjoying the resulting confidence. (Continued.)
R-E-S-P-E-C-T:
What Children Get in Democratic Schools
Mothering Magazine, November-December 2000
An exciting new movement is stirring the world of education–a movement that promises, at last, to make children participants in the revolutionary changes that swept the world in the late 20th century. The emergence of democratic schools all over the US, as well as in Israel, Australia, Denmark, England, and Canada, is finally bringing respect and equality to people under the age of 18, respect that is blind to race, gender, culture, or belief–the same respect that adults have struggled to win for themselves. (Continued.)
Voices From The New American Schoolhouse: A ten-minute video
Sudbury Articles
Several essays from Sudbury Valley School
from Kingdom of Childhood
Plasticene was probably one of the most intense things I’ve ever done. There were days when we’d show up, go right to the art room, work steadily at it until lunch time, eat lunch at the table, and keep on going until we had to leave that night; and we’d never, never leave the room once. The villages would evolve…It usually involved a lot of buildings, a lot of vehicles, a lot people, and you’d make all this stuff.
Then you would enact various scenes with it. You would drive your cars around and have certain battles and blow them up on occasion. But for the most part, you were building. You’d be building tanks and airplanes, just one thing after another. I did it at home too; you could bring them in already built.
I think about it every now and then, and I did exactly what I’m doing now, except I’m doing it now in real life. I’m building a factory and making machines and talking to people all day long. Same exact thing. And very intensely. (Continued.)
Five Signs That Sudbury May Be Right For You
- You want to be respected, listened to and treated fairly at all times. Alpine Valley is founded on a culture of tolerance and respect where everyone’s voice is heard and valued.
- You encourage children’s natural eagerness and excitement for learning. Children are born with an intense love of learning. At Alpine Valley, each child’s innate curiosity forms the very basis of his or her education. (Continued.)
Our children’s adult lives will be marked by a flood of information and choices. They must acquire the ability to handle this future in an intelligent, meaningful way. Alpine Valley students learn how to learn what they need to know and, in so doing, build a solid foundation of self-discipline and self-confidence. (Continued.)