Journey from Smoking Rock
Given the lack of formal demands, Sudbury attracts its share of sullen and shy teens short on motivation. Stephanie was sinking in her SAT-pressured public high school when she decamped in junior year for Sudbury (her friends derisively called it "day care") for "the sole purpose of avoiding college." For several months, she puffed and sunned her days away on Smoking Rock. In time, she drifted over to the music barn. There she picked up a flute again and began playing purely for pleasure. Two years later she selected a college specifically for its new arts center.
Jessica was severely depressed in her community's high school. Numerous friends "shared my indifference, but they were content with their apathy. I was tortured by it." Her parents agreed to a change, but adapting to Sudbury was difficult. Jessica was shy. She brooded. She sat at the edge of the sewing room, pretty much the crossroads of the school, a large space on the first floor of the mansion where there's always animated debate or a raucous card game around a huge table. For a long time she just listened. Eventually she began contributing to political arguments, discussions of personal beliefs "and philosophies of education and just about everything else." Conversation and debate, she insists, were the source of her education.
Current educational theory corroborates her assertion. Increasingly across all the sciences, there is an awareness of social capital. Researchers in a variety of disciplines believe that human interaction is critical for learning and the best learning comes about as a result of social participation. Relationships provide both the deep motivation and context for acquiring information; people are driven by the desire to understand the perspective of others. Studies have shown that peer engagement, for example, clicks on both intellectual engagement and learning persistence amongst students.
Student Power
School government is a primary route to self-mastery at Sudbury. At weekly town hall-like school meetings, every student, like every staff member, has one vote, and students govern the school completely, debating and deciding on staff hires, budgets and all rules. That 5-year-olds have as much say as 17-year-olds may explain why all sit raptly through a two-hour meeting.
Day-to-day, an elected eight-person judicial council representing every age group enforces the rules voted in school meetings. A student might be charged with bringing illegal substances on campus or disturbing someone else's right to quiet; students and staffers alike can file a complaint; they come to see it as a way of protecting their special community. Over time, almost everyone serves on JC. Being able to judge and sentence one's peers creates confidence in the fairness of the school. In two days of JC meetings, I never saw a student defiant or defensive about even serious charges against him. All were keenly aware they had betrayed the trust placed in them. Some calmly presented exculpatory evidence, but all accepted the punishment handed down, from extra clean-up duty to short-term suspensions that could inconvenience their whole family.
Launchpad to the Future
There's only one graduation requirement and over 95 percent of students meet it. They have to write and present a thesis about how they're prepared to be an adult. It takes time to write, even more time to figure out. "Even kids who've never written before are articulate," says Greenberg, "because they have something to say."
About 50 percent of students go directly to college. Some choose to travel or try other things first. Many sample college while at Sudbury by taking courses at Northeastern University or Harvard Extension School—sometimes to reassure themselves that they can do the work, sometimes to further a long-standing interest, sometimes for the sheer challenge. They import the information to Sudbury and feed the general conversational din.
No doubt about it, Sudbury students throw college admissions officers into a quandary. "They structure their own education and have no educational documents," laments Martha Pitt, director of admissions at the University of Oregon, "while we need to make sure a student is prepared for success." But she finds that those from a nontraditional background who prove their proficiency do very well there. "So we welcome them."
Most make college a deliberate choice on their own timetable—82 percent enroll within six years of graduation—not something they simply hurtle on to, driven by parental expectations. Jeffrey Hohl has a 16-year-old son who wants to be a marine. "I'm not thrilled, but he has to decide that for himself." Another son, a 17-year-old senior, has no idea what he wants to do next year. Hohl isn't worried; it took him two stabs to get through college himself. "He'll probably struggle for a while with some low-level jobs. But that in itself is an education. When he's ready to take on some grander goals, which will probably include college, he'll do it."
Students have become lute-makers, auto technicians, musicians, equestrian-farmers, dedicated environmentalists. Some have started their own companies at 18. Others take retail or service jobs to get money for travel abroad for a year or two. Some continue their education cautiously, going on to community college. They do what they do not by default or by obligation but from a sense of understanding what they're doing and why.
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