Sudbury silver linings

Today we’re pleased to share an important update from Bruce Smith, a longtime staff member of Clearview Sudbury School, about the Clearview community’s democratic decision-making around reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a time when so many are stressed and scrambling, when good options seem rare, gratitude for the silver linings becomes that much richer. As schools and unschoolers alike approach the end of summer, I am very fortunate to be part of a community that just made our own hard, but healthy, decision.

At a special (and, of course, virtual) meeting in late July, the staff, students, and parents of Clearview Sudbury School voted to push the first day of our 2020–2021 school year to 2021— January 6th, to be precise. Our schedule the rest of the year will also see reduced hours and four-day weeks. This vote followed two rounds of surveys and informal discussions, as we worked over several weeks to assess everyone’s preferences and concerns, along with crunching all the numbers we could get our hands on.

While the outcome was relatively difficult and frustrating, there is also a degree of comfort and gratitude. I know I feel better putting off reopening to a date when more of us will feel safer returning. Neither opening while Texas remains a hotspot nor spinning the revolving door of opening and reclosing held any appeal for me. Nor was I interested in returning to the week-to-week uncertainty of this past spring, not knowing if we’d be closed for a week, a month, or the entire semester.

There have been many times over the years when I’ve appreciated the democratic processes of Sudbury schools, but this is the first time it’s hit home quite like this. There’s still plenty of uncertainty, of course, and it isn’t getting any easier to support our families, to keep everyone feeling connected at a distance. However, in comparison to so many other schools, I feel incredibly lucky to be part of one where everyone has a voice and a vote, where we get to decide for ourselves, together, what approach feels safest and best for us.

In a perfect world, every family would have this much of a say in the decisions affecting their children’s learning. And who knows? If this crisis leads more people to find the educational option that works best for them, well, maybe that will be a silver lining on a grand scale.

Thanks for reading, and my best wishes for health and strength to all of you.

Bruce Smith

Media Monday: 6 Weeks to Mother's Day, a film about alternative education and unconditional love in Thailand

Media Mondays are back. There is so much interesting and important creative work in film, books, podcasting, and other media related to alternative education these days, we’d like to highlight it for our Alt Ed Austin community. One project that is uplifting and inspiring us at the moment is a documentary film called 6 Weeks to Mother’s Day by Marvin Blunte, currently available to stream on Amazon Prime and Kanopy.

The title doesn’t reveal the fact that the film documents a radical approach to education—a progressive, loving school in rural Thailand. The “mother” in “Mother’s Day” is the school’s founder, Rajani Dhongchai, known as Mother Aew. 

Moo Baan Dek, often called Children’s Village School, has been around for more than 35 years and is run on a democratic model, inspired by the Summerhill School in England combined with Buddhist teachings. They grow much of their own food, use solar energy, and have few modern amenities.

Most of the students Mother Aew and her staff nurture are poor, many are orphans, and about half have emotional, physical, or learning challenges. They study subjects they choose for themselves and make decisions in an all-school student council. They are able to pursue academics and practical skills that will enable them to live full and independent lives. In one especially powerful scene, Mother Aew offers warm, respectful acknowledgment of a student’s decision to transition from living as a boy to a girl. The school receives some support from the government but is sustained primarily by contributions.

The students are in tremendous need right now as a result of the pandemic. Even small contributions are tremendously helpful. Marvin let us know that he is still in contact with Mother Aew, and she’s always excited when a contribution comes in from outside the country and puts it directly to work providing food, clothing, books, and other materials for the kids. You can find information about the school here, which includes a page for donations.

I had the opportunity to talk with filmmaker Marvin Blunte while he was staying safe at his parents’ home in New York state a few weeks ago. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.


The film is a fascinating look into a beautiful community of kids and educators—and inspiring! One of the interesting choices you made was to have no narrator and no explanations of what is happening. Viewers are just immersed in the day-to-day life of the school. Could you talk about why you made that decision?

I’ve always been a fan of observational style filmmaking. The work of a French director named Nicolas Philibert is one of my models. He made a film called To Be and to Have, about a little rural school in France in 2002. When I was trying to come up with how to approach Mother Aew’s school, I went through a variety of options, including having a host or narrator to explain the place.

But if you look at a lot of films about other cultures and countries coming from the West, they’re often skewed with the filmmaker’s opinions. I didn’t want that. I wanted to present exactly what the school is like, and when the teachers and students saw the film, they seemed to think it was successful in that. They were initially worried about what I was going to film, and I warned them that it was my right as an artist to tell the story as I saw fit. But in the end they were thrilled.

I understand you kind of stumbled upon the school while working on another project. What inspired you to go back multiple times to make the film?

At first I didn’t understand anything because almost no one spoke English. I didn’t understand what was happening or how the school worked. One of the kids kept following me as I was walking around taking photos on my first trip. I kept trying to shoo the kid away, and I indicated to one of the teachers who spoke a little English that I was sorry about this student following me and not being in class. She said, “He’s following you because he’s interested in what you’re doing. Is he bothering you?” I said he wasn’t, and then she told me this is part of the democratic school process. He was learning what he wanted to learn. 

I left the next day to go to Cambodia to cover another story, but the school kept spinning in my head. The kids were in charge! They showed me around, served me my food, seemed to take full responsibility for me and, later, when I returned, for my crew. I went back for a short time to teach photography, so they could get to know me. I didn’t want to be a novelty—I wanted to become invisible while I filmed.

When you were filming, did you live within the community or go in and out?

We stayed in a traditional Thai home on the outskirts of the village. Part of the philosophy is that the students need to learn to farm and take care of themselves as survival skills for when they leave. I think you could put them anywhere and they would survive. But they do have some electricity that they generate so that they can have a computer lab—and so I could charge my cameras!

Beyond the portrait you show us in the film, what else would you like people to know about the school?

Well, I would encourage people to take a look at the school’s Facebook page for updates. I left some cameras with the students who were interested in photography last time I was there, and they’ve taken to social media.

Now, with the pandemic, they’re unable to get many donations and aren’t able to pay their teachers. You see in the film that a huge part of Thai culture is giving—the students themselves are taught to be generous as part of their Buddhist training. Unfortunately, it’s become almost impossible for others to give to them, but Mother Aew has created a project where the students are making face masks for the surrounding communities to protect people from the virus. That generous aspect of the culture is something I wanted to show people through the film.

6 Weeks to Mother’s Day is currently available on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, and Kanopy.
Être et Avoir (To Be and To Have) is also streaming on Kanopy.

Shelley Sperry | Sperry Editorial

Happy Birthday, Clearview!

Guest contributor Bruce Smith is a staff member at Austin’s Clearview Sudbury School. A former high school teacher with degrees in English, history, and education, Bruce co-founded the first Sudbury school in Illinois. He also staffed at Alpine Valley School in Colorado for fifteen years and is the founder and president of Friends of Sudbury Schooling. On the blog today he celebrates an important milestone in Clearview history.

Around here, people’s birthdays are kind of a big deal — especially when someone turns 10 (“Double digits!”). Well, when the school you brought into the world hits the same mark, that feels like a really big deal, too.

On November 9, 2009, Clearview Sudbury School opened with four students in two rooms rented from Genesis Presbyterian Church. Now, ten years later, 35 students enjoy nine rooms at the same location. That in itself speaks volumes for what we’ve learned about nurturing relationships and staying true to the Sudbury model of self-directed, democratic schooling. Thanks to our families and staff, as well as our friends at the church, we’re not only surviving but thriving.

Here are a few tidbits of what ten years have brought us:

• We’re the oldest existing/longest running Sudbury school in Texas.

• A total of 114 students have enrolled at Clearview, and we’ve employed ten staff members.

• One of our first-year students is still here, and nine current students have been enrolled at least six years.

• Tuition has gone up only $2,000 since 2009 (with minimum annual tuition now at $1,600), underscoring our commitment to making a Sudbury education as affordable as possible.

• We’ve brought internationally famous writer, researcher, and self-directed education advocate Peter Gray to Austin three times. (Good links to Peter’s work include his Psychology Today blog and his book Free to Learn.)

• Students and staff from more than half a dozen other Sudbury schools have visited Clearview.

• Clearview staff have attended Sudbury conferences in Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York.

• We’ve had five graduates in the past ten years.

To celebrate our big birthday this past November, we hosted an event with Jim Rietmulder, co-founder and staff since 1984 at The Circle School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on November 15th. Please check out the YouTube videos of Jim’s talk, and consider buying a copy of his great new book, When Kids Rule the School.

Whether it’s our regular potlucks, our annual family camping trip, or just the spontaneous fun, intense interactions and deep play of daily school life, there’s always lots going on at Clearview. But don’t just take our word for it — below you’ll find the perspective of a long-time teacher and administrator who visited us last Spring.

Happy 10th Birthday, Clearview Sudbury School!

Thank you for your invitation to visit Clearview. When we spoke about the Sudbury model several weeks ago, you really piqued my interest. From the vantage point of an educator/administrator in public education for nearly 25 years, I dove into the history and researched many stories, explanations, and testimonials on this educational framework. I must admit, I found it delightful to read about how children were free to learn at their own pace and investigate based on their own interests. However, I couldn’t wait to see it in action because I truly couldn’t imagine what children would do, if left on their own, to manage their time and learning experiences.

As I visited your campus, I saw exactly what I expected to see. Some children playing video games, some climbing trees, some reading, some doing art and writing, some visiting, some on computers, and some eating. I visited with one of the children who explained to me how she felt confident about knowing how to make good choices and how to respect others. I spoke with an adult on campus who attended a Sudbury school in California. Her story intrigued me as I listened to how she was able to navigate college and make solid decisions about her future.

Perhaps the most impressive part of my visit was listening in on the Judicial Committee. This was the moment I said, “I’m impressed!” There’s a huge push in public education to bring children to a place of higher-order thinking. Many programs and methods are used. Teachers are trained in techniques and design to promote deep thinking in their classrooms. What I saw in the Judicial Committee demonstrated so much more than a scripted or contrived lesson. Children were settling their personal disputes with authentic, natural consequences with little assistance from the adults on campus. The adults that were interjecting modeled perfectly how to carefully choose words for the written record and listened respectfully to children as they decided how best to maintain order in their school. The conversations were rich, vocabulary was robust, and social skills laced with respect and reasoning skills were at an all-time high.

The result of what children are experiencing at Clearview Sudbury School tells me what I wondered as I did my homework prior to my visit. While it may seem unconventional to some, it seems so natural to the children on campus. No one is testing to see if everyone is on track. Everyone feels supported. Best of all, these children have not been robbed of their curiosity by years of sitting in rows completing worksheets. I loved it!

I was pleasantly surprised to see what I saw at Clearview Sudbury School. Thank you for broadening my horizons!! Can’t wait to see what the future holds for your students and Clearview Sudbury School. Keep up the great work!!

Bruce Smith

Becoming established

Caitlin Macklin, 9th Street Schoolhouse mentor and founder, recently visited the famed Free School in Albany, New York. In this guest post she shares some images and insights she gained there about building a democratic school community and culture over time.

“Wow. I’m really here. The place of my inspiration.”

This summer I made a pilgrimage to Albany, New York, to visit the Free School. This decades-old institution has long been a guiding light for me. It was my first introduction to the concepts of non-mandatory classes, democratic participation by students in conflict resolution and school governance, and putting children truly at the center of education.

As a new teacher (of four years) and a new school (into our third here at 9th Street), the thing that sank in most for me is the sense of being established that the Free School exudes. The feeling of rootedness settled in as I climbed up narrow stairways and stood on wood floors with lived-in scuff marks—I mean, even the disaster area of the summertime kitchen made my heart ache to have a SPACE to CREATE.

I currently teach out of my home on East 9th Street. This year, Laura Ruiz joined the Schoolhouse, and collaborating feels great! We intend to grow slowly but surely into a larger community of families more the size of the Free School, about sixty kids with a staff of five or six. During the visit to Albany, I was just soaking it in—in awe of what people have built together, just “making it up as [they] go along,” doing what makes sense, not what a bureaucrat tells them to do. Working with families, giving kids opportunities and mentoring, so they may discover and grow while staying whole, messy, in touch with their inner selves.

YouthFX program participants rehearse scenes for their summer narrative film project in the great room at the Albany Free School.

I have put so much thought into how to implement in my teaching and in the Schoolhouse structure the lessons AFS has learned that to see it and know it as a place with a particular community and history helped me understand their context and refocus my efforts in recognizing and building on what our community’s strengths are. Getting to ask Bhawin, a longtime teacher, some of my burning questions about the how of their lives together, talking with him about their process of becoming the school they are now, gave me an infusion of patience with our process.

Bhawin stepped out of the frame as we discussed the community-created Rules on the wall behind us.

I left feeling encouraged to give time to developing the particularities of our program, staying true to who we are as teachers, youth, parents—as people—and to respond from those real relationships to create better and better opportunities for living and learning together. Part of that is my commitment to making democratic, learner-centered education accessible to people in Austin who might not be able to afford it. In addition to an affordable tuition and part-trade options, I’ve also been working with the Education Transformation Alliance to collaborate on creating a scholarship fund.

Making meaningful education available to more folks in Austin is what our work with the ETA is guided by. And I think finding meaning is what this shift in education in Austin is all about: this is a growing movement of people who want more than cookie-cutter experiences for their kids and their lives. People in Austin are more than ever feeling acutely that the current system is just not fulfilling their dreams for their kids. We all want our youth to live lives that are prosperous and flourishing, and I want the young people in my program to identify and define that success for themselves within a strong web of community, where they are known and where they know what resources are available to them.

We are seeking meaning in our learning and in our relationships, and we are creating institutions that respond, that put down roots, that take time to get established, that work together. I invite you to find out more about the many alternatives available across the city on the ETA School Tour this Saturday, Oct. 20!

For further reading on the Albany Free School, pick up any of Chris Mercogliano’s works, watch Free to Learn by Bhawin Suchak and Jeff Root, and check out the school’s website or this blog post from an intern.

Caitlin Macklin

A school of one’s own

Bruce atop the swing set at Alpine Valley School in Colorado last MayBruce L. Smith has worked in education for more than twenty years and with Sudbury schools since 1997. He recently moved to Austin, where he writes about education, creativity, and mindfulness, serves on the staff of the Clearview Sudbury School, and steers a nonprofit organization that he cofounded, the Center for the Advancement of Sudbury Education (CASE). Bruce kindly adapted this guest post for Alt•Ed Austin from a recent piece on his own blog, Write Learning.

For the past fifteen years, I’ve been promoting a model of alternative education that’s about as individualized and child-centered as they come. In a nutshell, places like Austin’s Clearview Sudbury School feature self-directed learning in mixed-age, democratic communities.

Yet “child-centered” isn’t good enough for some. As long as there have been schools, people have been using them to impose various adult agendas on students—often noble or well-intentioned, but still external, still imposed. For example, educators regularly hear things like, “Yes, what you’re doing is wonderful, but how are your students making the world a better place?” The best response to this that I’ve ever seen comes from the late author, educator, and civil rights leader Howard Thurman:

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Sometimes I describe the Sudbury model as “agenda-free learning.” This approach not only steers clear of such conventional elements as compulsory academics, rigid schedules, and adult control; we also refrain from nudging students in any particular direction, however progressive or worthy. And this leads to some very lovely results indeed. In Thurman’s words, students at schools like Clearview “come alive” in myriad ways. Empowered and trusted to decide for themselves what’s worth their time and effort, these young people shine. Their passions emerge and their talents thrive even as they tackle their weaknesses. Life for these students is a matter of authentic work and rewarding play.

In other words, Clearview Sudbury gives young people a school of their own, a place where they learn from everyday life in a community of equals. Clearview students direct the course of their days and help manage the school’s business, from drafting and enforcing rules to making budgetary and personnel decisions. Through open-ended play, exploration, conversation, and meetings, our students learn how to find their way in the world; how to obtain the help they need; how to realize their goals while respecting the rights of others; and how to coexist with people of various opinions and personalities. To the extent that Sudbury schools have an agenda, I’d say it’s one of self-actualization within community, balancing freedom and responsibility.

It could be argued that one doesn’t need a school to learn such things—or even that school interferes with this sort of learning, placing an unnecessary layer between the student and the outside world. While I respect this view, in my years with Sudbury schools I’ve found that there is one thing they offer students that they’re unlikely to find elsewhere: a place to freely practice authentic, responsible, effective living.

How common is it for children and young adults to learn in settings where they’re treated as equals—where they are, in a real sense, peers with people of all ages? How often do we allow young people to make substantive, meaningful decisions and then live with the consequences? How free are they elsewhere to experiment with different ways of being in the world, practicing the independence they’ll know as adults while growing up in a safe, respectful community?
 
After even a short time, Sudbury students begin exhibiting superlative self-awareness, integrity, and interpersonal aptitude. Given freedom—and expected to handle it responsibly—hundreds of students at dozens of schools have become more playful and mature, more articulate and thoughtful, more enthusiastic and determined. Schools like Clearview Sudbury show what we get when we set our expectations this high: strong, lively individuals and capable community members in love with life.

Once I was asked by a graduate’s parent what I thought she’d gained from going to the school where we’d known each other. After a moment I replied, “a head start on her adult life.” She knew more about herself and how to pursue her dreams at age eighteen than many do well into their twenties or thirties. She had much less to unlearn and overcome than people whose education was directed by others.

In the end, agenda-free learning is far more empowering than any external curriculum. All the qualities that foster success in the twenty-first century—things like initiative, persistence, adaptability, resourcefulness, and responsibility—are nurtured to an amazing degree at Clearview Sudbury School, where students have a place of their own to come into their own. And as Thurman says, this is what the world needs.

Bruce L. Smith

My search for alternative high schools

Elliot Hallmark, a staff member at the Clearview Sudbury School, contributed this guest post on the scarcity of and need for alternative schools that serve teenagers. Welcome, Elliot!

Two years after graduating from university, I was considering my options. I had been accepted into the University of California at Merced to study nonimaging optics. It seemed like a great opportunity, but I felt a strong concern that the engineering companies I would inevitably end up working for were not worth my life energy. The revolutionaries I admired all spoke of an attitude toward science that would bring freedom to humanity. Unsure of my final path, I decided teaching high school science would allow me to explore this possibility. I went looking around for alternative high schools in Austin.

I had heard of Sudbury schools and free schools. Democracy and freedom, both core principles in these types of schools, stand out to me as values necessary for the dignity of humans, including high school students. The teenage years are a period when freedom of thought and action is of great importance. High school was the time in my life when my mind was reaching out most for ideals, trying to figure myself into the creation of a better world.

Over months of research it seemed that I must be searching poorly. I found numerous alternative schools for students under 13. I found college prep private schools. I found the public "alternative high school" attempts at places for kids who could not or would not fit into the standard model. I found that the more established alternative models sometimes, sometimes, sometimes find their way to the high school level. But I did not find the high school community of freedom, equality, and respect I was looking for.

It was nearly two years later that I did finally find a fledgling democratic school, for ages 5–19. It is just what I had hoped to find. At Clearview Sudbury School, where I now work, as students and staff we cultivate freedom through democracy and respect.

I have heard high school aged students at our school say that the younger students sometimes look up to them. They are a model that matters to more than themselves. These teenagers have skills that are useful and interests that are interesting. I have seen them take an equal part in some managerial aspects of the school. I have seen them use their time and energy to pursue online classes, college classes, and performance arts, as they felt suited them. They correct me sometimes, and they tell me about interesting things I didn’t know. I see that the freedom to learn that is the foundation of being an adult also prepares the young to be adults, and I wonder why institutions like this are so incredibly few.

The standard model has produced hundreds of millions of adults who are intelligent and reasonably successful. I myself survived to become a person I am quite happy to be. Yet most thoughtful people I know consider high school to have been largely a waste of their days, sprinkled only sparsely with deeply enriching encounters. (Not to mention, the standard model has churned out countless incompetent and dull examples as well.)

One tough issue that families interested in alternative education face is concern over the objective value of an alternative high school education. Students need to be accepted by colleges and offered jobs based on how they look on paper. But standard accreditation and state test scores interest neither employers nor most university admissions officers. It is the combination of emotional maturity, curiosity, life experience, and intelligence of the student that carries the day (and also SAT/ACT results, essays, interviews, portfolios, etc.).

Studies in this regard have been conducted on generations of students and graduates of the Sudbury Valley School. Sudbury Valley departs from the traditional high school model to the most extreme degree. Institutions requesting a transcript receive, instead, a letter saying, essentially, “It is not the place of our school or its staff to evaluate students.” Now, applying to a university without submitting SAT or ACT scores or without the required essays most likely would result in rejection. But generations of Sudbury Valley graduates have shown that the complete lack of any evaluation by this high school does not hurt. Something like 80 percent have gone on to higher education.

Alternative high schools of the type I envision are small and few in Austin, but they are growing and maturing. Though teenagers are still largely underrepresented in the struggle for a sane childhood, there are—and there deserve to be— real alternative high school options.

Elliot Hallmark