[OTK]≫ PDF Gratis Summerhill A Radical Approach to Childrearing Alexander Sutherland Neill 9780671790011 Books

Summerhill A Radical Approach to Childrearing Alexander Sutherland Neill 9780671790011 Books

Download As PDF : Summerhill A Radical Approach to Childrearing Alexander Sutherland Neill 9780671790011 Books

Summerhill A Radical Approach to Childrearing Alexander Sutherland Neill 9780671790011 Books

This story, first published in 1960, about a British educational experiment, has aroused a considerable amount of interest over the years. I believe I understand why. The school founded and run by A.S. Neil, an educator and psychologist, was intended to be a real-life test of Neil’s theories of child rearing, in general, and education, in particular.

The Summerhill School claimed to have been largely governed by the students themselves, through a sort of parliamentary process. Attendance in classes was optional. ‘Creativity’ was encouraged, i.e. there was particular emphasis on arts and crafts, dance, and other not quite ‘academic’ subjects. Students were allowed a great deal of ‘sexual freedom’, especially for the times. The results of the experiment appear to have been reasonably successful, in that most of the children who were sent there seem to have led generally happy and adequately successful lives as adults. In some cases, at least, this outcome seems to have been particularly impressive, because many of the students were ‘problem children’ sent to the school as a result of parental desperation. But this was really a tiny experiment. Only a small number of students had received their educations from this school when the book was published.

A very fundamental tenet of the school’s philosophy was the notion that the primary role of the educator is to motivate, or at least not to interfere with the child’s inherent curiosity and instinctive desire to expand his experience and understanding. A great many people have read this book and been interested in it because they agree with this notion. I agree with this notion. At the same time, I also have to agree with Eric Fromm, who wrote in the foreword to my edition of Summerhill, that Neill emphasized ‘creativity’ in the arts at the expense of a broader intellectual curiosity and that his ideas were overly colored by the fascination of the society of that time with Freud’s ideas of sex being central to everything.

It seems to me that, in far too many cases, the greater part of a child’s early life is wasted and worse by the modern system of education. A system which moves all children through the same curricula, differing for the most part only by age groups, which is constantly trying to measure their performances by a set of standard ‘achievement’ markers, and which relies (overtly or covertly) on competition and ‘speed of learning’ to test itself, is inadvertently doing a great deal of harm.

Neither psychologists nor educators really have a very good idea of how the human mind works nor of ways in which human minds differ from each other. Speed of learning is not the same thing as quality of learning. A ‘slow thinker’ may be reluctant to accept an idea, because he needs first to test it in his own mind against other ideas that he has accepted. In many situations that is a better way to think and to learn. A child’s curiosity usually runs outward from the experiences he has known. A student’s interest is aroused by phenomena which either contradict or enhance his prior experiences and impressions. Most of what a young child learns is merely expanding and refining his understanding of the environment in which he lives. And every child lives in a somewhat different environment from every other. An early education which tries to interest all children in essentially the same way and at the same time cannot fail to leave some of them bored and dissatisfied and others deeply shaken in their own self-image.

I believe all children have at least some desire to cooperate with parent, teacher, or guardian. Children, possibly even more than adults, love to be admired by others. They need to feel accepted and valued. Instinctively, they probably feel that their survival depends on it. But the ability of children to cooperate is not infinite. They need to follow their own paths to knowledge. They cannot always act as passive vessels accepting the wisdom of their elders. Their attention strays easily and when it does and they cannot repeat what they were supposed to have learned, they know they have failed and they can become resentful. Worse, they can all too easily be convinced that they ‘can’t learn’, that they are lacking in some desired ability, that they are ‘just that way’.

Education wasn’t always such a great problem. A few centuries ago there was little notion of education except among the aristocracy and it was usually provided by a tutor, a full time teacher whose time was entirely devoted to answering the young squire’s questions and giving him new ideas to consider. If the tutor was both wise and sensitive it probably worked well. Training, as opposed to education, was done on the job, whether through the system of apprenticeship or in the family business. In early America, where most people were farmers, children learned to work on the farm, by seeing and by doing. They learned a great deal that way about many different kinds of things, and after the idea of ‘universal public education’ took hold, they were most often educated in the one-room schoolhouse. The one room schoolhouse was probably a very effective institution. The teacher didn’t attempt to ‘teach’ everybody at the same time. She gave help where it was needed, to the child who was learning to read, write, or do sums, and she was there to answer questions, tell children how to find more information when it was available, and ensure quiet and discipline in the classroom. The children must mainly have taught themselves through the books that were available.

But the modern child learns very little at home except what he can glean about the world from television. If he watches typical ‘kids’ shows’ that’s not much at all. The idea is to entertain, and if he is entertained, he probably learns a little language and something about social attitudes. If his parents read to him, his knowledge of the language is enhanced, especially if the reading matter is interesting to him and to the parents. I do not believe that ‘reading down’ to a child, or ‘talking down’ to him, is helpful for many children. After a child learns which sounds correspond to which letters of the alphabet, the way he learns to read is by reading. And if what he is reading is not interesting to him, he is not going to learn very much. A child who is reading what he wants to read, can and should read somewhat ‘above’ his ‘grade level’. Learning to read is really learning the language: learning it well, learning to speak and to write accurately and understandably, learning to think in words, and to imagine. A great deal of general knowledge about the world is acquired by reading, a great deal of curiosity is whetted and some even satisfied, but the main thing a young child learns is the language itself, and how to use it.

Many people (especially educators) seem to feel that a child shouldn’t read ‘above grade level’. Granting that forcing a child to read what he can’t understand is not desirable, it seems clear to me that allowing a child to choose his reading matter is the only way to determine at which ‘level’ he should read. Children learn new words not from dictionaries, but mainly by context, spoken or written. If they make a wrong guess and a mistake, they will correct it as they read more. They are not only reading, they are thinking. If they are interested and the material is difficult they will read it again, even puzzle over it perhaps. This is learning. Taking this kind of learning away from children, is robbing them of the thrill that comes from understanding what hadn’t been understood before. Forcing them to read at ‘grade level’ and encouraging them to speed read just to ‘get through’ a massive number of books, does just the opposite. They are tallying up achievements that taught them very little.

The modern school can’t afford to provide private tutors to every pupil, but it seems as if it could provide more freedom for young children to self-educate and enjoy the process. A.S. Neil thought he saw a direction for that which would work. Although, his ideas apparently did not fail utterly, they really didn’t succeed convincingly, either. At one point in the book, he wrote that for him ‘human happiness’ meant nothing more than ‘interest’. I believe that there is a lot of truth in that observation. An educational system that put less emphasis on ‘teaching’ and ‘testing’ and more on providing the tools and the directions for children to develop passionate interest in one or several aspects of the life around them and the means for understanding it, might come much closer to preparing them for a life of relative ‘happiness’.


Tags : Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Childrearing [Alexander Sutherland Neill] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The fundamentals of child rearing based on freedom and nonrepression are discussed by the head of the famous English experimental school,Alexander Sutherland Neill,Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Childrearing,Pocket Books,0671790013,General,Child development.,Child psychology.,Education, Elementary.,Child development,Child psychology,Education,Education General,Education, Elementary

Summerhill A Radical Approach to Childrearing Alexander Sutherland Neill 9780671790011 Books Reviews

I LOVE THIS BOOK! its the first family & children friendly respecting children's feelings, needs, emotions & unique learning abilities from his 'Summerhill' private school in UK. He explains how giving attention to children's presence, asking them ??s & refecting their feelings, so they can discover their honest choices. It was the most popular 'children's liberation' bestseller in 60s, when Dr Rudolf Dreikurs MD was teaching 'Cooperative Parenting' classes in US, Euro & elsewhere. Neill was close friends with Wilhelm Reich in 50s who also advocated deep respect for childrens needs before school age. [Children The Challenge The Classic Work on Improving Parent-Child Relations--Intelligent, Humane & Eminently Practical (Plume). [Children Are from Heaven Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children].

I've learned & used Neill & Dreikurs ways of respecting childrens presense with social equality, empathy & compassion for what they feel, want, choose, decide, dream & reject with or without a good reason. Neill was a wise ?? asker of childern & ran a democratic school where everyone had choices to do, learn, play, feel & share with some agreements if needed. His charming ways of writing & talking to kids are revolutionary in parent-child relationships for friendly, deep or funny conversations. They even had weekly whole-school democratic meetings with students discussing to decide cirtical problem- solveing & preventing. Some US private 'free schools' tried to do that in '70s & were rarely successful like Neill at Summerhill since 1920s. [Children's liberation, (A Spectrum book)
This book is absolutely, hands down the best child-rearing book I have ever read. If I could give a new parent only one book, it would be this one.

Summerhill is a private English boarding school founded by A. S. Neill in 1921. Summerhill the book was published in 1960 and is not so much about the school (though of course the school figures prominently) as Neill's advice to parents based on almost 40 years experience raising hundreds of children. Neill's chief concern is not that students should be neat or polite or go to lessons, but that they be happy, left free to pursue their own interests without outside intervention, moralizing, punishment, shame, or coercion. Summerhill students are not required to go to class--and so being denied the right to go to class is considered a harsh punishment by the student council (while the adults do not punish the students, the all-student council will impose fines and other penalties if students transgress a school law.) And Neill's incredible claim is that his radical method of not interfering and letting kids do what they want actually works, producing happy, polite, intelligent adults.

Neill is an excellent writer--witty, forthright, and fabulous. While the book is outdated in parts, being 50 years old, these bits are entirely harmless and easily evident to the modern reader--as when Neill suggests that students play with their pencils in class because their parents have told them that masturbation is bad. (Neill is an ardent devote of Freudian theory.) This book is not the book for you if you think that freedom is bad, that sexuality should be repressed, and that punishment is the quick and effective route to raising children, but even still, I think you should give it a try. You might find something in Neill's long experience which helps you, too. As for the rest of us, no parenting bookshelf will ever be complete without it.
I know that Anthony De Mello was refering to this book in some of his retreats. That's how I got to know that it was worth reading. Some may say that this school was the beginning of the permissive parenting, which might seem like a plague nowadays. However, the actual school turned out to be a success.
This story, first published in 1960, about a British educational experiment, has aroused a considerable amount of interest over the years. I believe I understand why. The school founded and run by A.S. Neil, an educator and psychologist, was intended to be a real-life test of Neil’s theories of child rearing, in general, and education, in particular.

The Summerhill School claimed to have been largely governed by the students themselves, through a sort of parliamentary process. Attendance in classes was optional. ‘Creativity’ was encouraged, i.e. there was particular emphasis on arts and crafts, dance, and other not quite ‘academic’ subjects. Students were allowed a great deal of ‘sexual freedom’, especially for the times. The results of the experiment appear to have been reasonably successful, in that most of the children who were sent there seem to have led generally happy and adequately successful lives as adults. In some cases, at least, this outcome seems to have been particularly impressive, because many of the students were ‘problem children’ sent to the school as a result of parental desperation. But this was really a tiny experiment. Only a small number of students had received their educations from this school when the book was published.

A very fundamental tenet of the school’s philosophy was the notion that the primary role of the educator is to motivate, or at least not to interfere with the child’s inherent curiosity and instinctive desire to expand his experience and understanding. A great many people have read this book and been interested in it because they agree with this notion. I agree with this notion. At the same time, I also have to agree with Eric Fromm, who wrote in the foreword to my edition of Summerhill, that Neill emphasized ‘creativity’ in the arts at the expense of a broader intellectual curiosity and that his ideas were overly colored by the fascination of the society of that time with Freud’s ideas of sex being central to everything.

It seems to me that, in far too many cases, the greater part of a child’s early life is wasted and worse by the modern system of education. A system which moves all children through the same curricula, differing for the most part only by age groups, which is constantly trying to measure their performances by a set of standard ‘achievement’ markers, and which relies (overtly or covertly) on competition and ‘speed of learning’ to test itself, is inadvertently doing a great deal of harm.

Neither psychologists nor educators really have a very good idea of how the human mind works nor of ways in which human minds differ from each other. Speed of learning is not the same thing as quality of learning. A ‘slow thinker’ may be reluctant to accept an idea, because he needs first to test it in his own mind against other ideas that he has accepted. In many situations that is a better way to think and to learn. A child’s curiosity usually runs outward from the experiences he has known. A student’s interest is aroused by phenomena which either contradict or enhance his prior experiences and impressions. Most of what a young child learns is merely expanding and refining his understanding of the environment in which he lives. And every child lives in a somewhat different environment from every other. An early education which tries to interest all children in essentially the same way and at the same time cannot fail to leave some of them bored and dissatisfied and others deeply shaken in their own self-image.

I believe all children have at least some desire to cooperate with parent, teacher, or guardian. Children, possibly even more than adults, love to be admired by others. They need to feel accepted and valued. Instinctively, they probably feel that their survival depends on it. But the ability of children to cooperate is not infinite. They need to follow their own paths to knowledge. They cannot always act as passive vessels accepting the wisdom of their elders. Their attention strays easily and when it does and they cannot repeat what they were supposed to have learned, they know they have failed and they can become resentful. Worse, they can all too easily be convinced that they ‘can’t learn’, that they are lacking in some desired ability, that they are ‘just that way’.

Education wasn’t always such a great problem. A few centuries ago there was little notion of education except among the aristocracy and it was usually provided by a tutor, a full time teacher whose time was entirely devoted to answering the young squire’s questions and giving him new ideas to consider. If the tutor was both wise and sensitive it probably worked well. Training, as opposed to education, was done on the job, whether through the system of apprenticeship or in the family business. In early America, where most people were farmers, children learned to work on the farm, by seeing and by doing. They learned a great deal that way about many different kinds of things, and after the idea of ‘universal public education’ took hold, they were most often educated in the one-room schoolhouse. The one room schoolhouse was probably a very effective institution. The teacher didn’t attempt to ‘teach’ everybody at the same time. She gave help where it was needed, to the child who was learning to read, write, or do sums, and she was there to answer questions, tell children how to find more information when it was available, and ensure quiet and discipline in the classroom. The children must mainly have taught themselves through the books that were available.

But the modern child learns very little at home except what he can glean about the world from television. If he watches typical ‘kids’ shows’ that’s not much at all. The idea is to entertain, and if he is entertained, he probably learns a little language and something about social attitudes. If his parents read to him, his knowledge of the language is enhanced, especially if the reading matter is interesting to him and to the parents. I do not believe that ‘reading down’ to a child, or ‘talking down’ to him, is helpful for many children. After a child learns which sounds correspond to which letters of the alphabet, the way he learns to read is by reading. And if what he is reading is not interesting to him, he is not going to learn very much. A child who is reading what he wants to read, can and should read somewhat ‘above’ his ‘grade level’. Learning to read is really learning the language learning it well, learning to speak and to write accurately and understandably, learning to think in words, and to imagine. A great deal of general knowledge about the world is acquired by reading, a great deal of curiosity is whetted and some even satisfied, but the main thing a young child learns is the language itself, and how to use it.

Many people (especially educators) seem to feel that a child shouldn’t read ‘above grade level’. Granting that forcing a child to read what he can’t understand is not desirable, it seems clear to me that allowing a child to choose his reading matter is the only way to determine at which ‘level’ he should read. Children learn new words not from dictionaries, but mainly by context, spoken or written. If they make a wrong guess and a mistake, they will correct it as they read more. They are not only reading, they are thinking. If they are interested and the material is difficult they will read it again, even puzzle over it perhaps. This is learning. Taking this kind of learning away from children, is robbing them of the thrill that comes from understanding what hadn’t been understood before. Forcing them to read at ‘grade level’ and encouraging them to speed read just to ‘get through’ a massive number of books, does just the opposite. They are tallying up achievements that taught them very little.

The modern school can’t afford to provide private tutors to every pupil, but it seems as if it could provide more freedom for young children to self-educate and enjoy the process. A.S. Neil thought he saw a direction for that which would work. Although, his ideas apparently did not fail utterly, they really didn’t succeed convincingly, either. At one point in the book, he wrote that for him ‘human happiness’ meant nothing more than ‘interest’. I believe that there is a lot of truth in that observation. An educational system that put less emphasis on ‘teaching’ and ‘testing’ and more on providing the tools and the directions for children to develop passionate interest in one or several aspects of the life around them and the means for understanding it, might come much closer to preparing them for a life of relative ‘happiness’.