The School’s Principles

As a teacher and a long time Humanist involved in the education debates of the last twenty years an important question to me is what would a school based on Humanist principles be like? Our state schools have the problems imposed on them of religious education and school assemblies that are supposed to be of a mainly Christian nature. And our education system, far from being a planned and designed affair has been inherited from the past of class distinction, testing and classifying children and training them for work. In many ways the language of the education debates now has lost it’s grounding in philosophy, the question of why we teach and learn, and instead flounder with questions of efficacy, measurement and effectiveness.

A.S. Neill created Summerhill School in 1921. He had been a journalist and a teacher. The school he created was international, at a time between the wars when there was a lot of anger towards Germany. The school was mixed and had a public philosophy of seeing sexual play as a natural part of child development. It had no religious instruction although there were lessons in history and philosophy, as well as the usual academic subjects. The basis of the school was to give space to children to develop and learn; to allow them to have responsibility for themselves and their community. The children could choose to attend lessons or not. They met to create or change the school laws, and to respond to daily problems such as stealing or name-calling. Decisions were made through a direct democracy, everyone, a child of six to Neill himself, had one vote.

Summerhill is based on the idea that children learn hatred, prejudice, intolerance and obedience from the adult authority figures and institutional structures around them. It has a positive view of human beings, as animals naturally caring, inquisitive, playful and loving. That these qualities are destroyed or inhibited to fulfil adult expectations of what children should be like and what they should become. Religion, as the most powerful institution that creates an authority over the individual and requires obedience to the messages of its God(s) and/or prophet(s), is one of the greatest threats to the development of the child. Parents and teachers, who see their role as active moulders of the child are also a threat.

Is this Humanistic?

The question remains, is this humanistic? I think the concept that we are freethinking individuals who create our values through social interaction within a community, through empathy with others, through acting as moral agents is a fundamental principle of Humanism. That there should be no external authority arbitrarily imposing values on us that we must be obedient to, even replacing God and the priest with the mother and father, is not only an anarchistic concept but a Humanist one.

Summerhill is an extreme example. It was set up partly to show the world that a school based on children’s rights would not only survive but would allow children to develop as moral, self-respecting, happy people who actively take part in their communities. It is ironic that now, some 85 years later, the UN, UNESCO, the European Commission, countries around the world, including the UK with its ‘citizenship education’ are exploring giving children rights, of the importance of children participating in their communities, of children developing values by being given the responsibilities that cannot be divorced from rights.

Summerhill students are actively taking part in the present debates. Reminding both adults and children that there is no need for a God, or Ten Commandments, or a central value of obedience for human beings to develop as respecting social animals.

What if Children had Rights?

I urge the Humanist community and its organisations to recognise the importance of places like Summerhill.

There are similar schools throughout the world, and to join our campaign to have them respected, referenced, researched and protected. Without them how else will we and out children answer the questions “what if children had rights?”.

I know there are Humanists who have a negative view of humans, and they will aggressively disagree with Summerhill and what it represents. My response is that our conception of ourselves is a part of what we are. Children will behave and see themselves partly as the system they are within treats them. My one hope is that the ‘negative’ view of our species does not control our schools … For they will ultimately and fatally ‘prove’ themselves right.

Michael Newman works at Summerhill School and is a Humanist activist.