A New Society

In today’s Guardian there was an article about Summerhill school that has celebrated its 90^th anniversary this year.

The article header was written by the grandchild of Mrs Lins, one of the founders of this egalitarian Utopia where children attended a place where they had the absolute choice as to whether to participate in formal lessons or not.

That is what people usually think about when they hear the word Summerhill; that and outright anarchy, as though the place was run by a group of Moonies, intent on indoctrinating young people into a counter-existence with no rules and no boundaries, as if this type of existence was a delinquent and unworkable model that would create unsociable finks that would never be able to re-integrate into our ever so organised society.

It was a school for the insane, or for the children of the maladjusted, who thought they were above the constraints of institutional organisation, who thought they were something special.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/19/summerhill-school-at-90

Of course, it was all nonsense. There was not anarchy, there was democracy. Remember that idea, where everybody, yes everybody had an equal say in what happened in the place? There was not all-out sexual deviance but young people were allowed and indeed enabled to make choices based upon what they felt and what they thought was right.

AS Neill was a man with a vision, stymied by his inability in the state system to be able to teach in the way that he instinctively knew was right for children. He felt that children and young people could only ever be taught when they could see purpose in learning. He felt that they did not need a long list of qualifications in order to advance in life. This is a fact that is clearly borne out in the writing of ex-pupils, as they explain what Summerhill gave them.

“The thing that Summerhill gave me is optimism and a pleasure in being me”.

Parents out there – in all honesty, what more could you want for your child?

“Summerhill gave me a different kind of confidence, to like being myself, and I see now that is a very big thing”.

I am almost envious of such an education.

“I’d had valuable years of freedom”.

Isn’t that the greatest gift, along with love and affection, that you can give any human being?

Isn’t this really the sort of life education that all young people should be entitled to receive in order that they develop into fully actualised beings?

Of course, like other institutions, I am sure there are successes and those that did not fare so well. Some of the teaching, for example – according to these ex-pupils, was less than perfect but then again, isn’t one of the greatest roles of a teacher that they should be an enabler or a facilitator of learning, none more so in this century where factual information can be so readily received through IT and the media that the world now offers at the finger tips of a computer?

I wonder how many of us would have welcomed the freedom that a place like Summerhill offered. Again, not all would like this informality but it suits far more than have the opportunity to taste this style of education. After all, somebody has to pay for it, and not many local authorities are or were prepared to part with their assigned amount of money for a child’s education to pass it over to this airy-fairy way of educating.

I remember a parent at my own school who was so despondent with the way state education was not meeting the needs of her child. D was a rather unruly character. He probably had a form of ADHD before it ever got a label in this country. He was exceptionally bright and didn’t like the way his learning was so organised.

His mother had read about AS Neill and this amazing school in Sussex and decided to battle with the local authority, arguing that the needs of her son were not being met and therefore they should subsidise his fee for Summerhill.

As this was slightly before my time, I do not remember how it was resolved, but D did attend Summerhill and was featured in the documentary for all my colleagues to view and concur that this school was probably the best thing for the child.

I don’t know what happened to him but a quick check on Facebook tells me that he is alive, well and employed; something that not all are these days, so it can’t have done him too much damage!

What fortunate people. Here is another quote from an ex-pupil talking about communal living.

“You have to take responsibility for your own actions, and that means everything from the clothes you wear to how you treat others. All that decision-making can be hard at times. Neill's bottom line was that you could have freedom, but not if what you did interfered with others' freedom."

That sounds about right to me. Freedom to do what you want is absolutely the way that all of us should be thinking in life, as long as that freedom does not come at the detriment of others’ freedom. That is precisely what life should be about. Back to compassion, moderation and wisdom.

But this should not be confined to young people. This should be a way of life for us all.

There are so many examples of communal living that are ridiculed in our society. There are many that are, quite frankly, terrifying because they do not hold to that fundamental principle outlined so effectively in the quote, i.e. they do not consider the freedom of others and the freedom to express their individuality. If you think of some religious communities, or indeed cults, they are absolutely not considering individual freedom. Quite the contrary, the only freedom that they consider is conformity, which is evidently a mutually exclusive situation. You cannot possibly have freedom and conformity together.

Or can you?

But there are places where you get a hint of it working, both now and thousands of years ago.

The kibbutz model is something that has worked effectively, even though it is, in some cases, steeped in orthodox Judaism. Look at that old African proverb, “it takes a whole village to raise a child”. We have become so indoctrinated into thinking about a nuclear and extended family of two parents and 2.4 children (though probably lower these days) as the only way to raise a child, just as we have been indoctrinated into thinking that 5 A-C GCSEs and a handful of A-levels is the only way that our young people can move on in life.

Kibbutz living is about collectivism. It is about all members of the society working together to raise the children. It is about everyone having their specialism and celebrating that. It is about democracy and shared decisions. It is about living within the means of the group and not expecting the unachievable. It is about being realistic and it is an absence of greed.

Now obviously all kibbutz and all communities are not perfect and there are some that do not operate according to the original philosophy but there are some that work and perhaps we should take a closer look at these.

Or perhaps we ought to go back in time and consider the Epicurean communities where “pleasure is the absence of suffering” as its fundamental philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism

In such times, people worked and lived together with an aim of living happy and fulfilled lives. The way that they managed this was to cooperate and collaborate, sharing and not worrying about the rules of the outside. Their society worked, for them, and it worked for their offspring too; a life based on shared ethics.

Isn’t this what we want in life? Isn’t this shared ethics the sort of idealism that Ed Miliband was talking about last week? Isn’t it the lack of shared ethics and true democracy that meant some of our young people, yes our young people took to the streets in the middle of August to react against the injustices of our society?

Back to Summerhill and one person described a child arriving and breaking 23 windows over a couple of days. Neill saw him pick up a stone to break a 24^th. Instead of reprimanding the child immediately, this man picked up a stone and hurled it towards the window. The unruly one looked on in astonishment and never broke another window in the school again. He had learned that there was a shared responsibility to the place as well as oneself and nobody had the right to freedom if it affected other people within the community.

But this is all about children and young people? What about the rest of us who have plodded through conformity and restriction all of our lives? What about those of us who desperately seek the sort of democratic approach to life where injustice and inequality is a thing of the past?

Let us face facts, we are not going to change society overnight, and we are not all going to want to live in the sort of existences that share in this way. But what of those who are seeking? What of those who are deeply dissatisfied with the way the world is at present, and indeed the way they feel about themselves?

What about the people who feel instinctively that there is something lacking in this materialistic world, where honest, shared and agreed values are so irrelevant?

What I would like to see is some way that we can amalgamate the theories and philosophies of community living at its best. There were clearly advantageous experiences for many who attended Summerhill and of course continue to do so. Members of many a kibbutz would not consider leaving this existence. Epicureans had an aspiration that they worked collectively to achieve for each individual.

It is not going to happen overnight. However, I do like the idea of providing a sort of Epicurean Gathering, where people of like-mindedness can come together to explore precisely how we can live intelligently, how we can work collectively to create a set of values based on principle virtues in life that enable each and every one of us to live a life free from suffering.

Is it really a pipe dream, stuffed up high amongst the fruit that only the birds can reach?

The world needed people like AS Neill and Epicurus and they still need them today. This form of life is seen as bohemian and eccentric, yet if you consider it carefully, it makes far more sense than the sort of existence that we have throughout our polarised society. People shut in doors, never speaking to their neighbours, never sharing, never considering the needs of others cannot possibly be a means to living effectively and fully.

2012 is approaching. The world is not going to end – you heard it here first. But maybe, just maybe, our world is ready for a transformation, and perhaps we already have examples of how we can take education, family living, shared values and a contented existence forward.