Summerhill

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__**Book** **Name:**__ __Summerhill: A Radical Approach To Child Rearing__ by A.S. Neil

Summerhill is a book that focuses on a particular school that follows a unique structure for educating students. The Summerhill school is located in England and is a distinguished institute. Neil tells the story of his experience opening up this school with his wife. However, this was no ordinary school, it was a school where children have as much authority as the teachers. The focus of the school is significant as it finds it essential for the development of children to be placed in a setting where they can be free and equal individuals. At Summerhill there are some ideologies which are seen as guidelines in practicing what is believed to be the most suitable approach in educating children. Some of the ideas which are practiced at the school are that a child must be allowed to have freedom, independence, happiness and many others. A child should not have fear, feel guilt or that they are unequal beings within the school system. The school takes a different approach in its way that it runs business in comparison to the common and at times more demanding school structure. The school is funded by many parents of the students. Neil says, they donate money because they see how well their children develop. The goal of Summerhill school is to produce students who have matured and grown to be very creative and open minded. The students and the teachers are all involved when it comes to voting on school rules and regulations. The school does offer a radical approach to child rearing. Students are not required to attend class. The reason for this is that it is important that children must want to learn and not be forced to do so. Forcing children to learn by using authority only makes them bitter and resentful. From Neil's experience all children want to learn. When they do attend class they have to ability to choose what subject it is which they want to learn. Neil gives great examples of how everyone gets along at the school and respects one another. Many of the students that graduate go on to be succesful in their careers because of their enriching experience and the values they learned at Summerhill.
 * __Basic Summary:__**

"Parents and teachers have confused true nonauthoritarian education with education by means of persuasion and hidden coersion. Progressive education has been thus debased" (p xi). "Summerhill began as an experimental school. It is no longer such; it is now a demonstration school, for it demonstrates that freedom works" (p4). "Parents are slow in realizing how unimportant the learning side of school is. Children, like adults, learn what they want to learn. All prize-giving and marks and exams sidetrack proper personality development" (p25). "At Summerhill we have proved, I believe, that self government works. In fact, the school that has no self-government should not be called a progressive school. It is a copromise school" (p52). "Summerhill might be defined as a school in which play is of the greatest importance"(p62). "There is never a problem child; there are only problem parents...Only a handful of educators strive to allow the good in all children to grow in freedom"(103). "Punishment can never be dealt out with justice, for no man can be just. Justice implies complete understanding. Judges are no moral than garbage collectors, nor are they less free of prejudice". (p165) "Punishment has nothing to do with hot temper. Punishment is cold and judicial. Punishment is highly moral. Punishment avows that it is wholly for the culprit's good". (p169) "Thus, the wrong way to deal with a coprophilic child is to tell him he is being dirty. The right way is to allow him to live out his interest in excrement by providing him with mud or clay. In this way, he will sublimate his interest without repression. He will live through his interest; and in doing so, kill it". (p174) "It is almost incredible that ignorant doctors and parents should dare to interfere with a baby's natural impulses and behavior, destroying joy and sponteneity with their absurd ideas of guiding and molding. It is people like these who begin the universal sickness of mankind, both psychic and somatic". (p179) "One should never show a child how a toy works. Indeed, one should never help a child in any way until or unless he is not capable of solving a problem for himself". (p188) "To me, respect for a schoolteacher is an artificial lie, demanding insincerity; when a person really gives respect, he does so unaware. My pupils can call me a silly ass any time they like to; they respect me because I respect their young lives, not because I am the principal of the school, not because I am on a pedestal as a dignified tin god. My pupils and I have mutual respect for each other because we approve of each other". (p194) "It is far better and safer to postpone an answer than to do what some foolish parents do - tell a child far too much...or lie". (p219) "Many have called Summerhill a religious place because it gives out love to children. That may be true; only I dislike the adjective as long as religion means what it generally means today - antagonism to natural life". (p241)
 * __Key Passages:__**

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 * __Key Terms__**:
 * Development**- in its raw form it is the act or process of growth or progress. It is presented in Summerhill as an on-going phenomenon and is essential for all people, especially within children. It occurs naturally outside of school but is largely impacted and shaped in or by schools.
 * Problem parents**- Parents who do not pay enough attention to their children's needs. In Summerhill it would be described as a parent who does not understand how their authority plays a role in their child’s actions. The decisions which such parents force on their children are powerful as they can affect their children's outlook on a variety of matters including education.
 * Superfluous**- excess: more than is needed, desired, or required. Summerhill would describe this as irrelevant. For example giving a reward for doing a good deed is superfluous because the child should know to do that.
 * Justice**- means the quality of being just or fair. Neil would define justice as the idea that people should not be oblivious to the concept that children are individuals that too deserve to be treated fairly. Children are not subordinate to adults.
 * Punishment**- the practice of imposing something unpleasant or aversive on a person or animal in response to an unwanted or disobedient behavior. This idea is an abstract concept which would not be well accepted in its common manner within the school of Summerhill.
 * Taboo**- is stated to be proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable, prohibition or interdiction of anything; exclusion from use or practice. In Summerhill (chpt. 3) it is used as such against sex. "What I hope for is that in generations to come this beginning of freedom from artifical sex taboos will ultimately fashion a life-loving world." The families in Summerhill are very protective over their children and forces on them "awful ideas of sex" so they will grow just like them and will have the same repressed feelings about sexual moralities.
 * Masturbation**- is the stimulation or manipulation of one's own genitals, esp. to orgasm; sexual self-gratification. Masturbation to the child is satisfy their desire for happiness in Summerhill (chpt.3). At Summerhill masturbation is portrayed upon the youth as being "evil...You are a sinner." They make the child feel so guilty that they become less interested in the act of masturbation.
 * Unconscious**- is the state of not conscious; without awareness, sensation, or cognition. In Summerhill (chpt.4) unconscious is also the unknown "the unconscious has shown that most of our actions have a hidden source...we act but we do no know why we act." The drive to act in the unconscious is a lot strong that the conscious because they are so different. Being unconsciously aware does not mean a child is bad it all goes back to their "influences" as a child that make them the way they are today.
 * Repressed**- To hold back by an act of volition. In Summerhill (chpt.6) act of repressed is the way the children hide their feelings. "repressed feelings are not dead; they are only sleeping." The children react their feelings through "hate" which is "fear" because they never got the chance to understand the significance with shared feelings with their parents.
 * __Links:__**