Summerhill Takeaway: Equality
Equality is at the heart of Summerhill. If you have difficulties with the Summerhill idea, it is possible that you are struggling with equality. Here I want to explain the way equality works in the school.
A Few Thoughts for the New Year
Are you stuck in your projects? What are the stages of reality in project work? An imbalance of meditation over action is just as unsatisfactory as a bull-like determination to do, do, do with no reflection. This post looks at how your dreaming can work itself into reality.
A Truly International Experience
Why is international work so important? Why should we resist the temptation to be bound by our national cultures? In this post I reflect on the lost internationalism of Jimmy and Nellie Dick and propose that, in an age of threatening xenophobia, making international contacts is really the only way to go.
Thursday Thoughts: Boarding
“The English have boarding schools because they do not love their children,” says José. “That just won’t work here.” I can’t really argue with him because there is a profound cultural chasm between us. I don’t find the closeness of his Mediterranean family heart-warming; I find it suffocating. Summerhill is a boarding school of another…
This is depressing but stick with me!
Suicide, self-harm and depression are huge problems for our schools. What is the solution? Continuing to deprive children of their childhood by an absurd reverence for schoolwork seems to be counter-productive.
What Can You See in the Big, Big Picture?
What is the Big Question in education. In this post I look at the way our lives are changing and will continue to change. If we think education can follow the same tired old model we are fooling ourselves.
Thursday Thoughts: Play
Play is the sap and essence of childhood. And if there is one dark evil in this messed up modern world we have invented, it is the way we have taken free play away from children. We allow the evil octopus of school work to dominate more and more of their lives. We give them…
Cordoba University: I’ll have pescaíto frito to go, please!
“Ah, you are going to Andalusia, you must have pescaíto frito.” “Yes,” I said, “Is it better than the sardines here in Asturias?” One of my favourite restaurants is a place by the dock in Luanco where they flash fry the sardines and whip them out to you on a chipped old plate with a…
Catalonia, Catalunya: Who Was Ferrer?
Catalunya is the home of radical thinking. Walking around St Pol and talking education this past week has led me to think about the influence of the past on the present, the differences between the worlds we face and the worlds of Neill and Francisco Ferrer and what the challenges are for the future.
