A Good Education Doesn’t Have to Cost a Childhood, by Je’anna Clements

When I was five I spent hours scrambling around on a rocky hillside with a group of other kids led by a ten year old girl, with no adult in sight – climbing trees and scraping knees and having a wonderful time. This involved much exciting challenge, decision making and risk assessment. Stick with the others or head off alone? Brave the Big Rocks, or not yet? Try to find the boys’ secret hideout?

That lifestyle is rapidly disappearing for many children – some people think that’s a good thing; others know in their bones that this is a great loss. What few people realise is that there are big implications both for education and for children’s rights.

Sudbury schools offer opportunities for safely unsupervised free play with mixed age peers, within a physically and socially structured rich environment that’s built on a foundation of respect for children as full human beings with their own rights. It’s a lot like that rocky hillside, only better in a number of ways.

Firstly, there’s a lot more to play with than rocks. Secondly, knowledgeable, respectful adults are available any time they are wanted (and out of the way as needed). Thirdly and most importantly, the overall culture is mindfully curated – children are empowered to be able to initiate activities, and to co-create rules, structures and boundaries that add an important extra dimension to the whole experience. Instead of a hillside bully being able to take over, or kids failing to figure out what mom meant when she said ‘be safe out there’, Sudbury offers clear ways for children to explore how to make things work well – learning lessons that will last them the rest of their lives.

But… do those lessons teach anything more than how to play together? When people first hear about the Sudbury approach, it sounds too good to be true. How can children who are free to play all day right into their teens, always free to choose how they spend their time and effort, possibly get into college/uni or get a good job once they’re done?

Most people are puzzled when they find out that there is actually no evidence that mainstream approaches to education are any better than the Sudbury approach at preparing young people to be able to live satisfying and meaningful lives. On the contrary, there is a growing body of evidence that Sudbury ‘lifers’ – those who have never experienced any other kind of education – are able to author their adult lives at least as well as anyone else, and are often happier than average.

Here’s how the puzzle unravels when we take a closer look.

It turns out that humans have innate drives that our ancestors relied on before schools were invented – and they still work perfectly when given the chance.

Most schools don’t give those drives much chance. Curiosity is a nuisance when you’re keeping a class on track, as is playfulness when you need kids to focus by the clock. Sociability mostly interrupts the teacher. Who needs planfulness when you have a curriculum and schedule to rule your days?

When I had to leave my hillside to go to school I entered a world where suddenly everything was decided for me – from what I should read (boring stuff about Spot and Jane), to how much I could talk to friends (hardly at all), to when I could pee (not soon enough for comfort). Play wasn’t a lifestyle anymore but just a brief thing squeezed in between gulping down sandwiches. Before long I needed glasses due to lack of sufficient outdoor time.

In Sudbury settings, life is very different to the schools I attended and a lot more like the hillside, with added benefits. Educational experiences emerge naturally as children continuously co-create opportunities for mastery in play-based ways, with adults acting as assistants when needed. As children get older they naturally play with things that life tells them they need. Just as they once felt it urgent to learn to whistle, they find it feels urgent to master reading and making change, and, depending on their personal talents and interests, many other things too – music production, entrepreneurship, physics, agriculture – anything they personally need for their fledgling careers.

What we didn’t know when schools were first invented is that every human being has deep needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Researchers investigating what all humans need for optimal growth and development have now spent decades developing Self-Determination Theory. Across all ages and all cultures explored, they have found that those three core needs are absolutely key to human thriving, including motivation and learning.

Mess with those needs, and you have to work a whole lot harder to get kids educated – classroom management really becomes high art. Fulfil those needs thoroughly – within a well planned environment, of course – and education pretty much takes care of itself.

An extra bonus is that when these needs are properly taken care of, all of the child’s rights enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) get fulfilled as well. You can’t fulfil the need for autonomy without freedom of expression, thought, belief, movement and association, for example. Only children exercising their right to be heard and taken seriously can really feel a sense of competence. Healthy boundaries, respect for ourselves and the rights of others is core to a strong sense of relatedness. And then of course, children have not only a need, but a right, to play.

“Play and recreation are essential to the health and well-being of children and promote the development of creativity, imagination, self-confidence, self-efficacy, as well as physical, social, cognitive and emotional strength and skills. They contribute to all aspects of learning.”

– General Comment 17 on article 31 of the UNCRC

This is where the final puzzle piece clicks into place to hold it all together. In educational contexts, the following are three different ways to describe the same thing:

1. Children’s rights as enshrined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
2. The meeting of the core needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness identified by Self-Determination Theory.
3. The Sudbury approach to education.

Like milliliters, tablespoons and ounces, these are just different expressions of a recipe for childhood conditions that offer children the chance to thrive.

Three decades after my own hillside adventures, I found myself collaborating with the humanitarian NGO Save The Children on projects in two different South African provinces. This involved working in participatory ways with young people, taking their input seriously and learning about children’s rights, which was eye-opening. Two years later I became a mother and went on a quest to find a form of education for my family that would fulfil the full range of children’s rights instead of undermining most of them.

After finding the Sudbury model I never had cause to look back. My eldest has just graduated from Riverstone Village, the Sudbury-style learning community where I am privileged to be staff, and is now deciding which of his many competencies and interests he wants to pursue next year. Studying neural networks perhaps, tertiary level mathematics, or 3D digital modelling. Or game creation, or music production, or IT, or how about video editing? On the other hand he’s always loved physics, but… maybe voice acting? The younger kids at Riverstone say he’s an excellent coding tutor.

He has more options, more maturity, and more confidence than I had on leaving my ‘excellent’ mainstream school – and he’s had a full and rich childhood the whole way along. He knows plenty about climbing trees in spite of being born in Gen Z. Naturally, I asked his consent to include this paragraph – because that’s just how Sudbury rolls.

About the Author

Je’anna Clements is a mother, writer, and passionate advocate for children’s rights. She is the co-founder and facilitator of Riverstone Village, a Self-Directed Education (SDE) community in South Africa. With an Honours degree in Psychology, Je’anna went on to pursue self-education in SDE, becoming a specialist in the field. She offers international training and support for SDE facilitators and unschooling parents, focusing on empowering young people, including those with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA).

Je’anna is also the co-founder of the Rights-Centric Education Network, which is a conscious collaboration of people and organisations aiming to pull education into alignment with human rights. If you have not already done so, please sign the Declaration of Child Rights-Centric Education.

This article was first published on Sudbury-international.org, a network and platform for sharing, collaboration and support within the Sudbury-inspired, self-directed learning community.

IMAGE CREDIT: Je’anna Clements; Riverstone Village Graduates