Summerhill protects your right to be how you want to be. You choose; the Meeting does not. The purpose of the Meeting is to sort out the inevitable boundary disputes in a community of nearly one hundred people who are all trying to live vibrantly individual lives.
We need more democratic meetings. Here is a way of setting up a meeting similar to the Summerhill Meeting. It can be used at work, in clubs, societies, and committees. The more democratic we are the better, in my opinion.
The rule of 100: Scale and Democracy The school I went to was not democratic. It never could have been. It was too big. In this post I want to talk about the effect of scale on democracy. I want to talk about why this is important and what consequences it might have for your…
Working Within the System “Democratic schools are just groups of privileged kids playing at equality,” says Ted. “That’s not really democracy. You can’t learn about good governance by shutting yourself away from the world.” “What do you mean?” I ask. “What’s wrong with giving children choices?” Children Born Into a World of Choices “Ha,…
Anarchy Rules… um… OK? Democratic schools flirt with anarchism. Anywhere you have a small democratic community that turns its face away from Socialist central planning on the one side and Capitalist manipulation of the market on the other, anarchy is bound to be mentioned. Anarchists look at Summerhill in confusion. “Why didn’t Neill come right out…
