Dear Scott,
Thank you very much. You wrote that:
"the diploma is alien to the heart of Sudbury".
Exactly. There is a whole set of questions that we can answer by considering
the heart of Sudbury. Remember the question about "essential skills", and the
one about whether Sudbury had produced any trully outstanding people, like
Eienstien or such. The diploma question is a like minded question.
Just consider very carefully that the heart of Sudbury is this stunning
little notion that the child is a full person deserving of respect. And as a
consequece of that notion we offer no agenda or curriculum. And thus we come
to see that Sudbury has constructed the quite rare view that the child is not
an improver.
Now, from the perspective of the child who first arrives at Sudbury when they
are four, notice how this view (that the child is not an improver) can easily
inform all the early years. Notice that it easily informs all the middle
years.
Consider now the late years, the leaving, the end game. We are correct in
understanding that the leaving is an incredibly rich time. But we must also
understand whose time it is. Our stunning little notion (that the child is
not an improver) can also inform the last years by insisting that the end
game, just like the early and middle years, is owned by the child. And lets
be clear why the child owns this time. Certainly, in making all this happen,
the efforts of the staff and parents and founders has been substantial. The
efforts of the child have been monumental.
And so, I believe, that our stance at the leaving, at the loss, is most
directly expressed as gratitude. "Thank you, thanks for coming".
But also, I understand that people want stuff. Let's be crystal clear. The
diploma is the staff or parents or founders wanting something. Wanting ain't
bad. Just don't manipulate it till it looks like the child is driving this.
The notion of preparing to become responsible in the larger community is
simply not a notion that has informed much of the child's life at Sudbury.
Such a notion asks them to recast their experience into something it was not.
It asks them to make up a story. A fake story.
But in fact, the child has a real story. And like all the other parents and
staff and founders, I want something. I want that story. But the only thing
we can do is ask. After thanking them, we can only ask that they tell us. We
can ask them to write their own story, their real story, their own
ethnography. We will all bless the day we can sit around and read that.
Warm Regards,
Bill Richardson
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0.0 : Wed Mar 27 2002 - 19:39:48 EST