Finding the Right Educational Path for our Family: How I Ended up Helping to Start Katuah Sudbury School

The Initial Intro

When my oldest child was a baby, I was living in Denver. Almost all the friends I had were made through La Leche League. It’s a really wonderful community, and we all had a lot in common and a lot of shared values. Through the sharing of those friends, especially the ones with lots of experience under their belts, I made the decision to homeschool. From a few I began to hear a little about a new school opening called Alpine Valley. The jury was still sort of out on it, but we were all intrigued. Some of the mamas I respected most said they would put their kids at Alpine Valley if they ever had to put their kids in school.

We heard strange things. Kids were allowed to do whatever they wanted all day, including, gasp!, play video games. Apparently they were even allowed to leave school grounds. One of our crew went to visit, but they were so new they didn't have hardly any supplies. We all decided it was probably a grand idea but maybe a little weird. None of us were quite ready to venture in.

My Slip to the Dark Side

As the years went round, I learned more about unschooling and became much more aligned with the ideals of allowing my kids the freedom to decide what they really wanted to do. I wanted them to learn to regulate themselves and learn how to motivate, direct, and take responsibility for their own lives. Suddenly Alpine Valley made more sense. Still, I wanted to continue unschooling, and we had moved to Asheville anyway.

He can even decide to be a Sith Lord if he really wants to

Then my little man turned six, and he really, really, really wanted to go to school. He was an insanely social little person, and he was losing his mind hanging out with me and the baby. So I pushed the boundaries of my unschooling ideals by letting him choose school. First grade. It didn't take long for him to realize it was not what he was expecting. It was an alternative charter school, and it wasn't horrid, but it certainly wasn't what he was used to. The most offensive bit for him? Morning circle time where they sit and sing songs together. Reuben was born a little man, and the whole idea of sitting and singing silly songs was offensive. I was more offended that he was forced into doing something he didn't want to. And of course homework. I find homework revolting.

So we had made the commitment before he started that he would finish the semester, and by the end of the semester we had an exit plan, so we decided together he would finish the year at the charter school.

The Exit Plan

When things were really awful, I started scrambling to find a different solution. I was thinking a lot about the Alpine Valley School, and I began to look deeper into the Sudbury Valley School and the Sudbury model, which Alpine Valley was based on. I was quickly rather enamored with it. And then I saw a sign for a meeting to begin planning a Sudbury model school in Asheville. Talk about divine timing!!

I jumped right in, and we started pushing to open the school by the fall. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to plan for another year, but I was incredibly anxious to get my boy out of that school and into something more in alignment with our values.

The intro book to the Sudbury model available here

I really had no idea how much work it would be. You have to set up a non-profit, which is an enormous task all on its own. You have to find a location, do a bunch of pr and marketing to get students. Set up your bylaws and policies and procedures. Then there’s a bunch of inspections and certifications. It was a storm. Somehow we managed to open on October 5, 2005. We only had 5 students at the time, but it was a start. My boy was free from the public school nightmare.

WHAT MAKES SUDBURY SO SPECIAL?

It may seem crazy to you that I would go to all that trouble. To be honest, it was a lot more trouble than I am sharing here. Countless arguments with people who told us we were crazy and that the model is wrong. Thousands of hours of unpaid mental and physical labor. I love this model of education, though. It is truly extraordinary, and those 5 years were worth every single struggle we went through.

Our values from our founding documents were Freedom, Trust, and Responsibility. It exactly aligns with my values as a parent. Children were truly free. They did exactly what they wanted all day every day. They played, explored, read, played video games, wrote stories, played music, made up plays, did a LOT of art, talked about anything and everything, and sometimes just sat. They were free. We never suggested they should do anything other than exactly what they were doing in that very moment.

In freedom, we can determine what our values are, what our passions are, what our limits are. Many of us, as adults, are still trying to figure out our limits. How much time in front of the computer screen before I turn psycho? How many cookies or beers before I feel sick? Of course they weren’t allowed to drink at school because that’s against the law, but you get my drift. We spent our whole childhoods being told when to go and when to stop. What was and wasn’t enough. Teachers literally tell children what to do for the vast, vast majority of a 7 hour day. It’s really a lot easier to learn your limits when you are young and don’t have to pay bills. And how many of us struggled long past 18 to figure out what we were passionate about, what we really want to do with our life force energy? I know I did. These kids hit boredom, and it's a great thing to hit. Eventually they get sick of the current options. They really won’t just play video games all day every day. It gets boring. In that boredom they have an opportunity to decide what they really want. That is really powerful.

All this leads us to our second value, Trust. We have to trust children to put them in this environment. We have to trust them to make good choices for themselves and their own life. We have to trust that they will also make bad choices and learn from those. We have to trust that failure is a wonderful thing and that they can handle it. We have to trust that they will follow their heart and their conscience.

And in the end they will be Responsible. Because we have trusted them, they know the seriousness of what has been placed in their hands. They take responsibility for their own learning. For their happiness. For achieving their own goals. No Sudbury staff member hand-holds a child through their learning experience. If they ask a staff to meet with them at a certain time, they are responsible for showing up on time. If it is really important to them and they are really passionate about it, they will be there, they will commit, and they will learn anything in this world. We had a student who was self-taught fluent in four languages. She was just fascinated. There is no end to what a child can learn when they are driven by their own passion. We just have to patiently let them find it.

The kid who spent years playing video games found another passion

A Little More on the Video Game Dilema

When my older ones were little, I was really strict about a lot of things, including video games and tv. Over time as I began to really immerse myself in Sudbury, I let go, not just practically but energetically. I decided to let them decide when enough was enough. And my son did play a lot. For a couple years in fact. Even as a teenager, he would still play a little bit most days with his friends. I would share with him when I noticed him being a jerk that he might want to check in with himself to see if he was overcooked. Other than that, I left him alone unless he was yelling at the tv and driving me nuts. I’m always all about preserving my own sanity. In any case, he learned to balance himself. I don’t worry about him spending too much time on social media or staying up too late or not getting to work on time because he learned to regulate himself. He spends far more time hiking than gaming, and he’s probably the most responsible 19 yo I’ve ever known.

The really beautiful bit is that I learned a lot too. I learned that children are smart enough to understand the difference between real and pretend violence and that we’d be wise to be more worried about the glorification of real war on the news and in our culture than video game violence. I learned that children learn a lot from playing video games. They learn to cooperate with each other and problem solve together and on their own. They learn to navigate through complex situations and figure out which paths lead to the desired outcome. I’m not here to convince anyone to love video games. I would, however, like to give people an idea that it might be possible that they are not the root of all our social ills. I suppose that’s a whole other post. The main point is that if we are going to say we trust our kids, then we really need to trust them to know what is right or wrong for them. The school never bought one tv or one piece of video game equipment. There was a video game corporation, and they raised money and/or brought in their own systems. More responsibility.

Multi tasking while watching his little brother the day my fourth baby was born

There was also a Cooking Corporation, Art Corporation, Computer Corporation, etc. Every major activity had its own entity that applied to the school meeting for a budget, raised money for the remainder, and set the guidelines for how people would become “certified” to use the equipment. This is more of the responsibility. Computers, pottery wheels, microwaves all cost money, and you had to show someone you knew how to use it before being allowed to use it.

The Inner Workings of a Sudbury School

In fact, I think it would be good to get into a bit more of the nitty gritty of running a school like this. To begin the school is run by the school meeting. This is a weekly meeting where every staff and student has one vote. It is run according to Robert’s Rules of Order. All members can make a motion to be voted on by the community. There are no sacred cows. Every rule, every budget decision, everything. Every staff member is rehired (or not) in the spring by a secret ballot of the members of the school meeting. There is no tenure.

All rule violations are handled by the judicial committee. Each student and staff must periodically sit on the committee for a week. It is composed of a Chair, who is always a student and holds that position for the entire year, a secretary, and several other committee members. There is always one staff on the committee, though they usually keep pretty quiet. Conflict of interest always recuses someone from a case. For example, I could never sit on a case involving my kids. By and large, the children are very fair and just. The consequences are always reasonable and appropriate. It’s really a beautiful thing to watch.

Judicial Committee Meeting at the original Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts

photo source

So there you have the basics of the Sudbury experience and how I came to start such a beautiful thing. After 5 years I was ready to leave Asheville, and unfortunately no one was willing to keep it going. Turns out not a lot of people are down with working crazy hours for free. I’m sure you have questions. Ask away, and don’t be afraid of offending me. I promise I have heard it all.

Learn more about Sudbury Valley School

All pictures mine unless otherwise sourced

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