This week the staff has been buttoning things up around the campus and getting ready to (mostly) shut things down for the summer. Inevitably it is a reflective time, and I want to share some of what we’ve been thinking and talking about. In our day-to-day during the year, we often focus on what’s broken at school, so we can fix it, and we become ensnared in the details of our duties and relationships. We tend to forget why we’re running a self-directed democratic school – a school so radically different it could reasonably be called THE alternative to EVERYTHING else. And we forget how remarkable the place really is.
This school year presented special challenges, but spring was wonderful, and we ended the year with the largest and most successful event we’ve ever had and several days of school-wide outdoor activity and games, all ages laughing and playing together “in the natural way,” as one of our graduates called it. For me, it was a celebration of one of my favorite aspects of the school: the familial structure of our community, and the relationships that develop over days, months, and years. Rather than moving on to a new grade, a new teacher, a new school, we all stay together, and move on to a new year. It’s sweet, it’s powerful, and it’s challenging. Sharing resources, figuring out how to get along and set and keep reasonable boundaries, navigating social dynamics, and adapting to everyone’s ongoing development is hard, and inevitably it’s a lot of what goes on here. From the perspective of the school that’s quite appropriate, because so much of our experience in this life depends on relationships and our ability to cultivate and maintain them. In his thesis, one of this year’s graduates wrote that, at Sudbury he learned “how important it is to accept people for who they are without judgement.” The value of that lesson is immense, and in this age of social media, disinformation, and tribal polarization, more valuable than ever before. Living in a tightly-knit community, everyone makes mistakes and occasionally shows their less savory aspects. Everyone goes through annoying phases, everyone does something that offends somebody else. Being a community is fun, and it requires constant work.
Despite how hard the work is, our students do tend to focus on it, because it’s often what is most vital, and because personal growth and interpersonal skills are the foundation for resilience and fulfilment. And they are intertwined. As another of our graduates wrote in her thesis, “I started to find more courage to try new and different things. I soon found that all around me were people who, with kindness and compassion invited me into their community. I learned that, for me, trying new things is hard and tiring, but also incredibly rewarding and empowering.” The community here draws people out and encourages them or otherwise challenges them in whatever way they “need” to be challenged. We’re like stones in the river, clicking together and smoothing each other’s rough edges over time. We all want friends, the support of our community, and to be accepted and valued and loved. This school is about the most fundamental and important human things.
Over and over again, we witness that when students stay in a challenging situation, the result is growth, and a strengthening of relational bonds. When students preserve through enough of them, this school becomes a second home and a second family to them. It becomes the place they grew up, not merely the place they were educated. When yet another of our graduates said goodbye on the final day, she added, “Don’t worry! I’ll be back!” with tears streaming down her face. And we’re not too worried; we know that most of them will come back and remain a part of this community because they love it, and we know that they have a deep reservoir of real human learning to draw upon as they walk their paths.
Best wishes, and have a wonderful summer.