An Introduction to Sudbury Valley School

#203, pamphlet, 2nd ed., 1995, 40 pages

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Designed for groups, classes, parents and others interested in a quick introduction to the basics of the Sudbury model, this booklet is short, easy to read and discussion-provoking.

“We thought that it made good sense for a school to be run democratically in a country where all forms of government are democratic. From the smallest town to the Federal level, all our institutions have been designed to be democratically controlled in one way or another. We asked ourselves why schools shouldn’t be run this way too, and the more we thought about it, the more we thought they should be. In a democratic school, the adult members of the community could apply to the school the same standards of citizenship they applied to their outside lives. And the children in the school could be nurtured in the principles and practices that make up the democratic way of life. By the time they became adults, responsible community citizenship would be natural to them, because they would have lived with it for a long time.”