| Thank you for sharing that. Could I ask how you and your children cope with the boarding aspect of Summerhill. This was something my wife and I fundamentally disagreed on. (Un)Fortunately the cost of Summerhill made this a moot point. The unschooling link looks helpful. My three children all go to highly regarded UK state schools which are frustratingly conservative, inflexible and very focused on teaching for tests rather than life. However breaking out and homeschooling seems wildly risky and frankly not possible without me abandoning my business. Moreover I think that education should be a social and collective action so am pulled in both directions. I'd love to see people with influence and funds (pg!) apply themselves more in this area. I'd be willing to throw myself behind that. There's a keen and pressing need for humans to grow up happier, more self and environmentally aware and I doubt the current dominant educational paradigms and systems are going to provide this. Automated systems are replacing 'rote' jobs at increasing speed, so educational systems that cater for developing creativity (Summerhill, Steiner etc) are likely to have an increasing economic advantage. |
TBH I don't think daily contact with parents is _that_ important to children, certainly not mine, as long as they're in a happy environment.