Customer Reviews

Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Albert Lamb's affectionate and scholarly edition of A.S. Neill's words about his beloved school, Summerhill, sheds new light on the old dominie's wisdom and dedication to the welfare of children and the integrity of childhood. A long-time friend of Wilhelm Reich, psychoanalytically savvy Neill was an admirer of Homer Lane, whose Children's Republic had been such an advocate for children's rights and for what one might call benevolent peerhood in working with children - or, alternatively, telling children your truth, taking responsibility for the benevolence of that "truth."
Lamb's edition of this classic brings out new information on the scope of Neill's views omitted by the Cold War edition of the 60s - while keeping - and adding to - Neill's treasured remarks about childhood. Lamb is a wonderful source, having been a pupil at Neill's school while Neill still ran it! Get this book! It will teach you about a lot more than just permissive education!

The original publication by Harold Hart in 1960 of A. S. Neill's Summerhill turned out to be a totally unexpected bestseller. I don't know how many editions it went through before the original furore it had created finally died down with the passing of educational fashions away from "freedom" toward curriculum, testing, discipline and lots of homework as a prescription for educational success. I guess the turning point came in the mid-eighties, along with the demise of some of the numerous small educational experiments that had sprung up all over the country which (as Neill warns can easily happen) had misidentified "license" with true freedom - which involves learning responsibility.

With the current epidemic of school violence and the airing of information about the actual frequency of bullying - in the schoolyard and elsewhere - opinions wax hot over whether an authentic response ought to be to introduce more relaxed humanism toward students - or to tighten up with even more discipline and objective testing than now exists! The jury is still out on this one, but the verdict doesn't look good for the humanists! It's high time dear old Neill was allowed to have his say in the discussion once again!

Albert Lamb's new edition of Summerhill allows Neill to speak with even more of his own voice than was included in the original. Neill's views on several issues thought to be too controversial to be included in a book published in an America just beginning to emerge from an era of McCarthyism have been restored to their proper place by Lamb. They sound far less controversial now than they did during the sixties. Neill's friendship with Wilhelm Reich takes its place alongside many of his autobiographical writings, as well as his views on a number of subjects like sexuality, discipline, fairness, respect for privacy and property, and governance in general.

This new edition of Summerhill is both a treasure of history and a timeless celebration of authentic childhood as recounted by the greatest advocate and respecter of childhood of them all! Its editor, Albert Lamb, is a Summerhill alumnus, and knows the value of Neill's beliefs and practices at firsthand, and on a daily basis. As he tells us, Neill's influence lives on in his daughter Zoë, the school's present Head, who governs in her own unique style, not a copy of her father's - and who thereby carries forward his tradition of authenticity in being with children.

Summerhill is a good book for anyone that deals with children because the author gives several stories of expereince in dealing with kids. The Summerhill method of dealing with kids is based on psychology. The basic teaching philosophy of A.S. Neill is undeniably true: All people will respond to the most basic human emotion - love. If you give children love and acceptance, they will return it, if it is genuine.

This book would be good to use as a model for setting up a student government. How would student government be effective you ask? Neill states that students show amazing loyalty to their own democracy.

This book was easy to read and had plenty of stories to keep me interested. From time to time, the author would ramble on and get completely off the subject, which he admits that he does. However, this book is not for people who are easily offended by open-mindedness. Neill allows the students at his school to have a lot (A LOT) of freedom. Swearing, sexual activity, nudity, and smoking are just some of the extra-curricular activities that Summerhill students are allowed to participate in. I think Neill allows this stuff to take away the glamour behind it, and teaches the kids why its stupid to smoke, etc. instead of just saying its off limits. Every one knows that the off limits activities are the ones you want to do most, because it is off limits.

The whole idea behind Summerhill is release, allowing children to live out their natural interests, and encouraging them to find out who they really are and to be comfortable with that.

I recommend Summerhill because, well, you just have to read it. Some of it is absolutley insane, and some of it is absoultley ingenuis!

I read the original "Summerhill" in 1980 when I was in high school. I was completely blown away by the concepts, despite the fact that I grew up in Sudbury, MA, where there was a similar school. I was lucky enough to be exposed to this environment of freedom and flourished in it. I would not have traded it for anything.

But I must disagree with the characterization of A.S. Neill as a socialist. He may have had socialist tendencies, but he was more a Paul Goodman-style anarchist. Socialism is the regulation and limiting of actions by certain parties; anarchism is the opposite -- the deregulation of everything. And this is the environment that A.S. Neill fostered at Summerhill, to his credit.

It's really sad that the trend in the United States is towards the very opposite: the complete regulation of children's lives, scheduled down to the minute with safety the being the top priority. This tendency is creating a generation of children who lack spontaneity and creativity.

We need more free schools like Summerhill.

This and the excellent Sudbury School book are a MUST read for any parent who sees their child as an individual who was born with a natural curiosity which in itself amongst equals who come from similar homes and lifestyles will cause the child to want to learn new things, and certain things more than others.

The naysayers are those who see kids as cookie cutters. Sudbury and Summerhill see children as one of a kind cookies. Stop and think about it... where else in society do we put one group based on age i.e. 7 year olds in a single group? To date I have found that only newborns are the ones who are separated and none others. Ever see all 70 year olds singled out and separated from the younger or older humans?

Sadly most American parents are either to lazy or have been brainwashed by those taking their tax dollars for the white elephant public schools to believe that there is only ONE right way. Personally I believe only the best and brightest will get the message of this book. But then I am reminded that we do have more followers than we do leaders.

I had a psychology professor of mine recommend this to me when I asked him how I could better raise my children. WOW! This book was filled with a lot of "different ideas." It certainly got me to look at my approach to child raising. I agreed with a lot of it. The one point that I didn't fully understand was the difference between freedom and license. Since I've read it I've had a lot more respect for my kid's views and opinions and have worked on letting them be themselves no matter how loud or crazy they might seem at the time. I learned that kids know what they need. I think the less afraid they are of me the more real they will be. I've already noticed a change in them since practicing some of these views. One night we had fun throwing rice crispy treats on the wall because I made them too goey and they were making fun of them, so I chucked one on the wall. My 4 year old asked me the other day when we were going to do that again. We had a blast! Before, that would have been taboo. We've always openly talked about sex, so that didn't change. I enjoy talking about things that are considered taboo because the more education I have the less intimidating the subject. I wish someone would have talked to me about sex and some other issues. It's much better learning than guessing. This is one of the most influential books I've read. I don't think the majority of people will agree with it. Many of his ideas rang true for me though. Excellent book!

Neill's message is to have faith in the child, respect the child and honor the child's proper developmental timetable. Neill was not an anarchist but rather a humanist, that made a point to not impinge upon the child's natural unfolding by presenting premature responsibilities upon her or him.

It is rare to find a school like Summerhill that respects a young person's childhood and innocence, that allows the child to grow and develop at his or her own pace. I highly recommend Summerhill as an uplifting and enlightened treatise on children by an educator with experience and humanity that is largely unsurpassed by an educator.

Summerhill is democracy in action.

Rules are in place, and plenty of them. The difference between Summerhill and other childhood environments is that adults set appropriate example and boundaries, such as respecting each child and protecting them in age-appropriate manner that enables the fullest and most possible development of the personality.

Neill's love for children--and love meaning respect for children, viewing them as individuals, and setting appropriate environmental learning and living community that truly honors childhood- surpasses virtually all educators living or dead.

The tradition in terms of the American counterpart most resembles that of the transcendalists such as Bronson Alcott and perhaps a few others from the late- 19th century, when American individualism, meaning self-expression and a sense of childhood as time of learning rather than just obeying orders from adults and society, first got underway. Educators have continued on this enlightened path, for instance the Free School in Albany that take children seriously, do not discriminate, or promote elitism.

Love, freedom and a healthy, positive environment with rational and loving adult role models is, following Neill, key to a positive, emotional human development. Neill's philosophy mirrors his life's work at Summerhill and is a model for humanity. It represents the highest and noblest principles of Western Enlightenment (rather than its more troubling aspects such as Ethno-Eurocentrism, rigid, unbending positivism and over-reliance upon metal weaponry to negotiate differences).

Neill's program, if used widely, would help to create a new kind of humanity that negotiates instead of fights and nearly destroys humanity itself and the planet along with it, recognizes the difference between freedom and license, and has more sense in where to really draw the line in all human dealings.

I read this book many years ago while a pediatrician. I recommended it to my parents but few were able to put aside their own entrenched feelings of child rearing for those recommended by Neill. The book should be read as a manual for the use of Neill's "Freedom without liscence" doctrine, which merely gives parents a method of evauating the right course of proceedure when they come into conflict with their children. The schooling methods are obviously not practical in today's environment. "Freedom without license" is the message of the book. It is a fine message and it works when applied by parents willing to adhere to it..

Schools nowadays produce obedient workers and compulsive consumers. At school, you are taught to earn good notes, in the same way you will later on earn money. You are taught that you are an individual, which only task is to take care of your self-interest, within a competitive system. You are also being taught to sit still and listen to an "authority" producing a lot of nonsense on a blackboard, totally out of context with what other "authorities" teach you the next hours, so you end up thinking of yourself that you're a complete idiot and that "others certainly know better". So later on you put that lesson in practice voting for the ones that "think for you", so you can relax on your couch, drinking a beer or having a coke, stuffing your stomach with popcorn and other snacks, while looking at hundreds of television stations, confirming through their publicity that you're behaving extraordinarily well.

Is there a way out ? Yes there is. Alexander Neill showed it is possible. Let children be children in the first place. Children are curious by nature, but our current education is so bad it makes them hate school. Children are perfectly able of putting democracy in practice, when we let them. Neill organized a weekly meeting where the children debated their duties and their rights. Children are also well aware of discipline. Anyone transgressing the rules they themselves imposed were severely punished. Maybe the most important fact is that when we leave children alone, they abide to their innate values of cooperation and reciprocity (which were analyzed and described by Jean Piaget in detail).

Summerhill is probably the greatest educational experiment we have ever experienced as humankind. Should this educational system be implemented at large, the world we would live in would be totally different, would turn out to be a real humanistic society...

But nowadays, parents want their children to "succeed" in life, want their children to become like them... obedient workers and compulsive consumers... They don't want their children to be critical citizens and skeptical consumers. That's why our "democracy" has easily been taken over by corporations.

I am almost done reading the original version of this book. I read the unschooling handbook and was sold on the idea. This book takes the concepts a step further, going into the psychology behind the radical notions of freedom and self-regulations for children. The concepts can be bewildering because they are so new, but I plan to reread the book so I can explore this new path that promises happy children who follow their hearts and become balanced adults. The book has inspired me and given me more hope for the future.