Learning
Sudbury schools are based on the belief that no kind of curriculum is necessary to prepare a young person for adult life. Instead, these schools place emphasis on learning as a natural by-product of all human activity. Learning is self-initiated and self-motivated. They rely on the free exchange of ideas and free conversation and interplay between people, to provide sufficient exposure to any area that may prove relevant and interesting to the individual. Students of all ages mix; older students learn from younger students as well as vice versa. Students of different ages often mentor each other in social skills. The pervasiveness of play has led to a recurring observation by first-time visitors to a Sudbury school that the students appear to be in perpetual "recess".
Implicitly and explicitly, students are given responsibility for their own education, meaning the only person designing what a student will learn is the student him- or herself or by the way of apprenticeship. As such, Sudbury schools do not compare or rank students — the system has no tests, evaluations, or transcripts.
Read more about this topic: Sudbury School
Famous quotes containing the word learning:
“Professors could silence me then; they had figures, diagrams, maps, books.... I was learning that books and diagrams can be evil things if they deaden the mind of man and make him blind or cynical before subjection of any kind.”
—Agnes Smedley (1890–1950)
“While learning the language in France a young man’s morals, health and fortune are more irresistibly endangered than in any country of the universe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
““It’s hard enough to adjust [to the lack of control] in the beginning,” says a corporate vice president and single mother. “But then you realize that everything keeps changing, so you never regain control. I was just learning to take care of the belly-button stump, when it fell off. I had just learned to make formula really efficiently, when Sarah stopped using it.””
—Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)