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Title: Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood by Alexander Sutherland Neill, Albert Lamb, A.S. Neill ISBN: 0-312-14137-8 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.53 (19 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: "Summerhill" Ideas to Think About
Comment: In my reading of Summerhill, I found myself doing some hard thinking about what A.S. Neill's philosophy of education is really about. I do not agree with his philosophy of children being able to establish their own rules and changing them as they go along to fit the way that they live. However, I do feel that children should have an input into setting up rules. In reading this book, it is hard to believe that the ideas A.S. Neill had were 75 years ago.
I will admit that I was not overly thrill with the independence the children are given at Summerhill, but as I continue to research for the education class I am taking, I begin to rethink some of my ideas of education and what type of independence children might have. There may be something to Neill's philosophy regarding children and their right to free thinking. Summerhill's success in providing a happy environment for kids, producing happy, well-balanced men and women, stands as continuing proof of Neill's idea that "The absence of fear is the finest thing that can happen to a child". Summerhill has survived 75 years and a lawsuit, yet as the world has changed their fundamental principals have remained.
Again, I do not agree with his total philosophy, but Neill does give one something to think about regarding children in the classroom and at home. I recommend the book for reading especially for those who are already in the field of education or plans to make education part of their career. Summerhill gives a person another view of education and ideas of what may or may not work.
Rating: 5
Summary: A classic- but far from the truth
Comment: When I first read A. S. Neill's Summerhill, I was moved by what I saw as a brilliant and innovative solution to the problems of public school as I saw it. The intervening years, some research and a few degrees in psychology showed me something entirely different.
Neill's Summerhill was not exactly what he portrayed it to be; some students flourished there, and many did not. The same sort of petty schoolyard bullying and favoritism that occurs in any school went on at Summerhill. Neill was very much a typical utopian socialist who, like many before him, started with a theory and refused to let experience shape it.
Summerhill was the right environment for some of Neill's students, but it was by no means the right environment for all of them. While some flourished there, many spent years without obtaining any education whatsoever. The overall philosophy of a child-centered education is a good one, but letting the child decided what and when to learn is not a good preperation for the adult world, where we can't all be petulant children all the time.
So read Summerhill as a philosophy of how to love your child, or what a caring family could be like, or even as a utopian fantasy. There's much good in it. But don't take Neill's claims at face value.
Rating: 5
Summary: anarcho-syndical-communist, not a socialist
Comment: I read the original "Summerhill" in 1980 when I was in high school. I was completely blown away by the concepts, despite the fact that I grew up in Sudbury, MA, where there was a similar school. I was lucky enough to be exposed to this environment of freedom and flourished in it. I would not have traded it for anything.
But I must disagree with the characterization of A.S. Neill as a socialist. He may have had socialist tendencies, but he was more a Paul Goodman-style anarchist. Socialism is the regulation and limiting of actions by certain parties; anarchism is the opposite -- the deregulation of everything. And this is the environment that A.S. Neill fostered at Summerhill, to his credit.
It's really sad that the trend in the United States is towards the very opposite: the complete regulation of children's lives, scheduled down to the minute with safety the being the top priority. This tendency is creating a generation of children who lack spontaneity and creativity.
We need more free schools like Summerhill.
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Title: Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing by Alexander S. Neill ISBN: 0805512993 Publisher: Hart Pub Co Pub. Date: 01 April, 1984 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Awareness: A De Mello Spirituality Conference in His Own Words by Anthony De Mello, J. Francis Stroud ISBN: 0385249373 Publisher: Doubleday Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony De Mello (Image Pocket Classics) by Anthony De Mello ISBN: 038524939X Publisher: Image Pub. Date: 01 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: A Free Range Childhood : Self-Regulation at Summerhill School by Matthew Appleton ISBN: 1885580029 Publisher: Resource Center for Redesigning Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Are You My Type?: Or Why Aren't You More Like Me? by Claudine G. Wirths, Mary Bowman-Kruhm, Ed Taber ISBN: 0891060553 Publisher: Consulting Psychologists Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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