Summerhill: Childhood Manifesto (please read!)

[H2O Man]

"In my lifetime I have seen two horrible wars, and I may live to see a much more horrible third one. Many millions of youths died in those two wars. When I was a boy, men died in an imperialist cause in South Africa. From 1914 to 1918, they died in the 'war to end all wars.' From 1939 to 1945, they died to crush Fascism. Tomorrow, many may die to crush or to further Communism. That means that the great masses of people are willing to give up their lives and their children's lives at the command of central authorities for causes that do not touch their individual lives.

"We are anti-life and pro-death if we are pawns of politicians, merchants, or exploiters. We are pawns because we were trained to seek life negatively, humbly fitting ourselves into an authoritative society, and ready to die for the ideals of our masters. Only in romantic novels do people die for love; in reality, they die for hate.

"That is the crowd aspect. But the individual is anti-life in his everyday existence. His love-making is in the main unsatisfactory; his pleasures are mostly tawdry, cheap, escapist. He is a moralist, that is, one who considers natural living to be wrong or at the best inadequate, and he trains his children accordingly.

"No pro-life child would ever be given a conscience about sex or lessons or God or manners or nice behavior. No pro-life parent or teacher would ever strike a child. No pro-life citizen would tolerate our penal code, our hangings, our punishment of homosexuals, our attitude toward bastardy. No pro-life person would sit in a church and claim to be a miserable sinner."

-- A.S. Neill; Summerhill; Hart Press; 1959

[H2O Man]

1. Summerhill was a school

in England run by A.S. Neill. It was a "freedom school," and the book about it influenced many of the teachers of the 1960s and '70s. The book has a fascinating foreward by Erich Fromm. I strongly recommend the book for anyone interested in the topic of children and "spanking," handcuffing, etc.

[redqueen]

2. Wow...

thanks for posting this!

It's going my reading list... thanks so much. :hi:

[H2O Man]

4. Thank you.

I think that this too often forgotten book should be re-introduced to this generation of parents and teachers.

[redqueen]

11. I'll certainly be sharing it with every teacher and parent I know.

Thanks again!

[H2O Man]

13. Posts by you,

_TJ_, and merh were my motivation for posting this. Thank you!

[radwriter0555]

3. Summerhill IS perhaps the best school literally in the world.

As a democratic school it has turned out amazing humans and has the best philosophy towards raising and educating a child of any school in existence.

Had I known about it when my child was younger, I would have absolutely put her in this school. It's brilliant...

[H2O Man]

5. I think it is tied

with the school at Onondaga. I figured that some DUers would remember it!

[radwriter0555]

7. There is a day school in los angeles called Wildwood which is run a

great deal like Summerhill. It is an amazing place turning out amazing humans who will do good things for this world.

How sad is it that we don't do better for our children?

[H2O Man]

8. Very sad indeed.

The only appropriate goal of discipline is to teach self-discipline. Anger and violence, which define a lack of discipline on the part of the parent/teacher/authority figure, will not teach discipline.

[Just Me]

14. It takes self-disciplined to teach self-discipline.

Presently, we have leaders who state, "bring it on" and "dead or alive" and "it's better (to wage violence) on their soil than ours" and so forth.

Thing is,...those leaders are incredibly self-disciplined,...in manipulating others' lack of self-discipline.

What do you do with that?

[H2O Man]

16. Usually, I do not agree

with anyone who, when confronted with their own misbehavior, says, "Yeah, but he ....." But this particular time in history is anything but usual. I think that the current president and all of his administration are setting a most dangerous example for young people. If you have a problem with someone, kill them. And if you need to kill a few innocent folk in order to find your enemy, it's your enemies' fault.

I realize that there have been brutal thugs in power throughout history. But I find this president to be as cowardly in his approach to using violence as any young thug that was in the jail groups I used to run. In fact, I have more respect for the majority of them.

**edited for spelling

[merh]

51. What a wonderful thread. Thank you H2O.

I will order this book tomorrow.

GWB does remind me of a "weak" gang leader. The only reason he has his power or respect is because he is the most brutal and he has the most thugs surrouding him and doing his dirty work, thugs he bought off with zoozoos and contraband. If he lost his power to reward he would lose his followers.

I find it very ironic that Pickles will be the one working to help put an end to gang violence. I mean, she has had such luck with her efforts on the home front. :eyes:

Thank you again. What a pleasant thread to read. Whew, there are still some progressives on DU. ;-)

:hug:

[H2O Man]

52. I once had

a mother who was indicated for neglect, and who was unabled to protect her children in any way from her very abusive father, apply for a position at the agency I ran before I went to mental health. I think of her when I see Pickles planning to update "To Sir With Love."

[G_j]

15. I attended a school based on Summerhill in the 60s

www.pinehengeschool.com

it is really nice to see Neill quoted here. Thanks!!
:toast:

[H2O Man]

17. I had one teacher

in high school who taught based on this philosophy. He introduced me to the book in 1974. He was fired, of course, in 1975.

[G_j]

23. our teachers were refugees from the system

I want to thank you again for your post.
It is so very relevant today.
I was 17 when I first enrolled at Pinehenge School.
We had about 14 students ages 4 to 18. The four yr old was a day student, the rest of us lived in a big farm house together.
It was remarkable.
I can't even begin to express what a positive building block that has been in my life.

[H2O Man]

26. I think you express it

on DU often. It's not surprising that you are a product of such a school.

[G_j]

28. and not surprising

that I find occasional refuge here with folks like you H20 Man!

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. I believe it is still operating

I read an article in a teacher magazine about a year ago about Summerhill. It is being operated by the founder's daughter.

[_TJ_]

6. Cool Post - I think I've heard of this school before

They stopped caning the kids decades before the rest of the UK.
What a great place it must have been! A.S Neill was someone who
REALLY cared about kids!

[H2O Man]

10. He was one of the most advanced

thinkers of his time. Those four paragraphs, by no small coincidence, address a large number of the issues that have been the source of bitterness and acrimony among various DUers in the past month.

The book is also worthwhile for the foreword by Erich Fromm. Any book by Fromm is worth reading.

[Just Me]

9. There is no "reason" to deny our FREE WILL to make real what,...

,...we say or think or want. There is always "rationalization" for exercising our WILL to make real the nightmares we inflict.

IOW the outside reflects the inside. The day we OWN what's outside as a reflection of our own inner production may be the day that we actually FIX the cause of suffering we ourselves create and inflict.

Someday, we will no longer suffer by our own hands because we will address the suffering within ourselves.

Someday.

[H2O Man]

12. Only those who are free

can free. It has been an interesting experience to read some of the posts that indicate how wide-spread the confusion about hitting, hand-cuffing, and self-esteem actually is. It is a delusion to think that a presidential candidate in 2008 is going to redeem the quality of our lives, while we ignore our own self-inflicted suffering.

Someday!

[G_j]

18. it makes me very sad

to realize how much hope we had, how far we were advancing, how much we were learning, how love was our guiding light.
I still am not sure what happened.
In some ways I think the rise of the RW was a direct reaction to the power of what we were doing.

[acmejack]

30. I couldn't agree more.

I so often think of those heady days when we really believed we could and would change the world. For the better not this disaster, we never foresaw the rise of crass commercialism and the "Me" generation.

[Just Me]

19. What's really interesting is how this guy PULLS out what's within us.

The BFEE/neoCON adminstration is so deep in projection of their dark world view that they are literally FORCING an opposing human WILL to lighten the shadows and darkness imposed by such destructive human elements.

The Bush administration is FORCING humanity to confront themselves and make a decision about the path we will pursue.

Fascinating times. We'll go forward,...with a great deal of conflict and confusion. Growing pains,...hurt.

[Me.]

24. That May Be The Lopsided, Upside Down Benefit

from the BFEE, "FORCING humanity to confront themselves and make a decision about the path we will pursue".

It would be amazing if these years of anguish turn out to be a blessing in disguise. We all certainly know, for sure now if we didn't before, what we do and don't want, what we consider valuable, what we want our world to be reflective of and how we want to live our lives.

[H2O Man]

29. Some books change the

course of our lives. There was a line in the movie The Hurricane: we don't choose books, they choose us. I like that.

[G_j]

20. nominated !! n/t

[redqueen]

21. Why didn't I think of that?

heh... seconded!

[_TJ_]

22. Me too!

[BrklynLiberal]

25. Contrast this with the Manual for Beating Infants: Freeper Family Values

from a post here last Sunday:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3534018

<snip>

But these opponents of God's methods may object, "What you are suggesting will hurt the child and may even bruise him!" My response would be, "That is correct." A child may in fact be bruised by a session of difficult correction. In fact, the Lord has already anticipated this objection and has discussed it briefly in the Scriptures. "The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly" (Proverbs 20:30). One may say, "That is talking about a child who has bruised himself in an accident at play."

No, the latter part of the verse explains that God is giving this passage in the context of physical chastening for correction. God makes the point that if a child is bruised during one of these sessions of correction that a parent should not despair but realize that the blueness of that wound cleanses away the evil heart of rebellion and willful stubbornness that reside in that depraved little body. I must hasten to add that no parent should deliberately seek to bruise his child nor should that be the goal of Biblical correction. I simply must agree with the Lord and declare that if a bruise does occur, God knows about it and will use it to cleanse the guilty heart of that erring child.

<snip>

When to begin?

When should a parent start using the rod of correction on a child that the Lord has brought into the family? There is no clear and specific answer to this very good question. However, it is my opinion that the correction of children should start as soon as the need for that correction is made manifest. Every discerning parent who has been blessed with a little child in his home realizes that his initial impression of the sweetness and the innocence of the child is in reality an illusion. A child very quickly demonstrates his fallen, depraved nature and reveals himself to be a selfish little beast in manifold ways. As soon as the child begins to express his own self-will (and this occurs early in life) that child needs to receive correction. My wife and I have a general goal of making sure that each of our children has his will broken by the time he reaches the age of one year. To do this, a child must receive correction when he is a small infant. Every parent recognizes that this self-will begins early as he has witnessed his child stiffen his back and boldly demonstrate his rebellion and self-will even though he has been fed, diapered, and cared for in every other physical way.

http://www.hbcsomerset.net/Familyarticles/correction_and_salvation_of_chil.htm

EDIT: To me there is no question which process is likely to produce more worthwhile, compassionate, caring, loving humane human beings.

[H2O Man]

27. How sick.

That person has moral rabies.

[mopinko]

32. where little freepers come from.

and little nazis, too. has there ever been a comprehensive study relating child rearing practices and peacefulness of a society? i would be very interested in hard facts to counter this biblical crap. not that that ever worked, but still.....

[BrklynLiberal]

35. I am sure that the more peacefully and less violently a child

is raised, the less violent, and more peaceful that child will be as an adult. I am sure that child rearing practices are reflected in the society and vice-versa.

EDIT: Margaret Mead would seem to be a good source for information about this.

[H2O Man]

40. Good point.

We can also look at the "prehistory" of the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations iroquois Confederacy. There was a point in time when they went from being hunters & gatherers, to agriculture. Cultigens had been introduced by the Ohio river vallet empire(s), known as the Adena and Hopewellian cultures. These city/states needed resources from the outlaying areas, and the Iroquois peoples became dependent, in large part, on the trade system.

Also, the introduction of agriculture shifted their society. Women replaced men as the primary suppliers of food. Then, as always happens, the empire(s) fell. And the tribal people began to suffer the effects: tribal groups began having battles which led to blood feuds. Violence is not controlled by people -- it controls people. Violence spread to within extended families, or clans. It wasn't safe in your community, and it wasn't safe to travel outside your community.

Kind of like today.

A prophet we call the PaceMaker came, with his helper, the historical man named Hianwetha.(Not a character from Longfellow's poem.)They taught something called The Power of the Good Mind. That philosophy lead to the Great Law of Peace, and the White Roots of Peace. (In his introduction to Paul Wallace's "The White Roots of Peace," John Mohawk notes that the Great Law "has been treated (by non-Indians) as more of a historical curiosity than as a legitimate source of clear thinking political philosophy.... (it) deserves to be judged on its own merits, not as an artifact of the past. We should investigate it today, question it, expand on it, learn from it just as we would from any doctrine of political thought. It will stand against that kind of scrutiny.")

A basic "law" was you could not hit children. Old women had advised the PeaceMaker that hitting children helped put energy into the cycle of violence that was destroying families and communities. How much farther this thought might have taken the 13 colonies when Jefferson and Franklin were meeting with the Iroquoia, and planning a Confederacy of their own, it is hard to say.

Of course, the Revolutionary War era damaged the Iroquois Confederacy. In 1798, the most recent Iroquois prophet, Handsome Lake, taught his vision. Much has to do with the environment. But there are parts where Handsome Lake warned about the widespread abuse of children marking the turning point in the fall of a culture.

I think it's good to study history from a native point of view.

[MountainLaurel]

54. Have been studies of the reverse

Read Alice Miller "For Your Own Good," which is an incredible work on how the abusive discipline of 1800s Germany created a generation of people willing and able to aid the Holocaust. I notice on Amazon that she has a new one coming out next month: "The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting."

[mopinko]

55. i have heard of this work

but i was wondering if broader studies had ever been done. it seems like common sense ot us. but there must be data that could be compiled to outweigh the bible for at least some people.

[blue neen]

33. Beating a child by the time he reaches the age of one year.

How totally despicable. He thinks he is a big man because he beats his children, but he's a lowly coward because he won't call it by its name.

"Physical chastening for correction." That's bullshit. Hitting is hitting is hitting is.....

[H2O Man]

36. I was employed

in social work for decades. I had a lot of experience with all types of family violence. The most evil parents were those who justified their savagery in terms of God's will. I always believed in making every effort to re-unite families, but sometimes it is not possible. The cowardly shits who refuse to take responsibility for their actions need to be kept away from their victims.

[blue neen]

38. I am employed in social work now.

Some of the things I see and hear literally keep me awake at night.

I work with some absolutely wonderful parents. Then others make me wonder how long I can keep this up. It's disturbing.

[H2O Man]

41. I used to think about

the saying of that fellow who loved fowers and animals, Francis, about changing what I could, accepting what I couldn't change, and always knowing the difference between the two. I had sleepless nights, too. You have to take care of yourself -- but I know you know that. It's a tough line of work.

[blue neen]

46. The kids are what keep me going.

The one child in particular I just love to pieces. She's one of the lucky ones--she has great parents. So many are not so fortunate.

[H2O Man]

47. Good.

I have from time to time run into some of the kids I used to work with. Some have become pretty successful. Others appear in the local police blotters. I have to admit that I have enjoyed having some of these young adults recognize me, and show me their children, or talk about their jobs.

[mopinko]

31. the unschoolong movement in homeschooling

is based, in part, on summerhill. welcome to the homeschool LEFT.

[H2O Man]

34. I have always thought

that homeschooling seemed like an attractive option. My wife and I discussed it at times. We've been lucky that our children have gone to good small schools in the early grades. They have had talented teachers, and their classes are small (under 20 kids). We live outside of a small farming community, and all the kids have pretty much known each other all their lives. But junior high and high school are different.

[BrklynLiberal]

39. Some resources: Peaceful childrearing

PEACE AND CHILD-REARING
by Anita Remignanti, Ph.D.

Parents are well-meaning and sincere human beings who set out to raise their children in the best way they can. Children are small human beings who come into this world well-equipped perceptually and emotionally to learn from their parents. From birth children behave in a myriad of different ways depending on what they need and how they feel. All of children's initial behaviors are neutral, they are clearly not bad and in some behaviors we can see motives which are intended to aid or help others. When a baby grasps a glass object and lets it smash to the floor, most adults will agree there is no harmful intent. Interpreting baby's behavior gets more difficult for parents as s/he grows and learns. A two-year old who throws herself onto a crowded supermarket floor in a fit of rage is acting developmentally appropriate. It is often hard for mother to remember this because the event is upsetting and disruptive, not to mention embarrassing.

more...
http://www.wipa.org/peace_and_cr.htm

Child Raising In Non-violent Cultures
SOME CULTURES on our planet are, or have been, basically non-aggressive, non-violent. That is, adult behavior includes few, if any, examples of war, homicide or intentional injury - physically or psychically - to other human beings. Cooperation, rather than competition, is the modus operandi, in contrast to our mainstream Western cultures. Why are there these differences? Is there anything useful we in the modern world can learn from these non-violent cultures?

There are perhaps many reasons for the varying expressions of violence in different cultures, from historic patterns to genetic propensities to economic influences. But whatever the predisposing factors are, there seem to also be some characteristic child rearing practices common to most of the known non-violent cultures. To illustrate this, I will draw on my own two years' experience in East African villages and on the work of a number of other anthropologists contained in Ashley Montagu's anthology, Learning Non-Aggression: The Experience of Non- Literate Societies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

Montagu credits Margaret Mead with pioneering work in the examination of aggressiveness in non-literate societies:


Years ago...in her book, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, she pointed to the existence of a strong association between childrearing practices and later personality development. The child who received a great deal of attention, whose every need was promptly met, as among the New Guinea Mountain Arapesh, became a gentle, cooperative, unaggressive adult. On the other hand, the child who received perfunctory, intermittent attention, as among the New Guinea Mundugomor, became a selfish, uncooperative, aggressive adult.

Later research among non-literate civilized peoples has substantially confirmed this relationship. . .
How were these needs "promptly met"? What did these children experience that turned them into gentle, cooperative, unaggressive adults?

Infants up through their second year are in close bodily contact with, primarily, their mothers, but also with others, usually women or older children. The Mbuti child, on about his third day of life is passed among close friends and family members, "not just for them to look at him, but for them to hold him close to their bodies. Another educational event has taken place in that young life: at the age of three days the infant boy is learning that there is a plurality of warm bodies, similar in warmth (which is comforting) but dissimilar in smells and rhythmic movements, which he may find disconcerting enough to make him cry, in protest. If that happens his mother immediately takes him back and puts him to her breast." The infant, in all these cultures, is carried and held almost constantly, less frequently being placed near the mother where she is working. Infant presence is not an intrusion into adult life, but rather an expected and welcome part of all adult activity.

more.....
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC04/McElroy.htm

PEACE CULTURE:THE PROBLEM OF MANAGING HUMAN DIFFERENCE
by Elise Boulding
Peace culture, neither a fantasy nor accident, is as central to human nature as war culture.

<snip>
The familial household can also be the source of violence. Exercise of power in the patriarchal family model too often leads to wife- and child-abuse. Boys can be gentled by their experience of growing up male when the values of nurturing and sharing exist in the community and women are visible and equal participants in the more public life of the society. If we look at societies that set a high value on nonaggression and noncompetitiveness, and therefore handle conflicts by nonviolent means, we can see how certain distinctive child-rearing patterns produce nurturing adult behavior.

The Twa people in northeastern Zaire (or Congo), now endangered by the civil war that has swept over their country, provide a striking example of how a peaceful society raises its children. The Twa are hunter-gatherers who dwell in the rain forest. The basis for their peacefulness is their relationship to the rain forest, which is mother, father, teacher, and womb. The family hut is also a symbolic womb. Children grow up listening to the trees, learning to climb them at an early age so that they can sit high in their branches. Twa is a listening culture, but also a singing and dancing culture, as adults and children sing to and dance with the trees. Ekima, quietness, is highly valued over akami, disturbance.

Although this preference for quietness and harmony is reinforced at every stage of life, it does not preclude children's rough-and-tumble play. There is also a lot of petty squabbling among adults, which tends to be controlled by ridicule. While children are slapped when they engage in forbidden activities and nuisance behavior, they are also taught interdependence and cooperation. Adults seem to enjoy horseplay and noisy disputes. Semi-humorous "sex wars," in which men and women line up for tugs-of-war, serve as tension-dissipaters; they break up with much laughter. They are also an indication of the companionable equality between women and men. Most groups have a "clown" whose antics also help to keep conflicts from getting out of hand. For all of the squabbling, disagreements rarely get serious.
<snip>

http://www.crosscurrents.org/boulding.htm

Article about the Peaceful Societies website
http://cpnn-usa.org/cgi-bin/read/articlepage.cgi?ViewArticle=235
http://www.peacefulsocieties.org/

[H2O Man]

42. Great resources!!!!

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing these with us!

[G_j]

43. good stuff

it is well worth reading about cultures that bring up their kids non-violently.

[OneBlueSky]

50. I still have many original issues of "In Context" . . .

I was an early subscriber, and I probably have 30 or 40 of the original issues, beginning (I think) with Number One . . . gonna have to make a point of digging those out . . . great articles in most every topical issue, full of new ideas and connections; I recall eagerly awaiting every new issue, and pretty much reading them cover to cover . . . wonder if they're still publishing . . .

[Terry in Austin]

44. Summerhill

I read A.S. Neill's book my senior year in high school, and it really shaped my life. Never had kids of my own, but the world view and ideas it presented were a real eye-opener as to what we are and what we might become, and they've been with me ever since. The "pro-life" idea, especially -- how that one has been torqued around since then!

Neill has gotta be right up there with Gandhi and Einstein. Total humane, humanitarian guy.

[H2O Man]

45. Yeah.

He was kind of like a Gandhi for children. I think that he was so much smarter than most of us, that if you read the book with an open mind, it is very reassuring. Yet I can imagine a George Bush-type reading it and thinking, "What a jerk!" What is perhaps troubling is the number of DUers who would agree.

[G_j]

48. wing nuts

hate "bleeding hearts". I suppose their alternative is being "heartless". And that's a good thing?
I wish they could hear themselves.
Beneath their "tough" exteriors there must be some serious hurt.

[H2O Man]

49. Yes, yes.

It takes more bravery to look inside yourself, than to strike out at a child. Even those with the tough exterior know, on some level, that they are cowards. We rarely see adults slapping someone who can easily turn the tables. People are selective, in always trying to find a smaller, weaker victim. I haven't heard many people talking about spanking their large, strong teen-aged sons or students.

[G_j]

53. kick