Summerhill

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Parents at Summerhill
Whereas inside the school there are “weak distinctions between public and private spaces” and boundaries in general are often rather weak, an example for which is that students of different age groups have lot more contact with each other than they do in regular schools6. A different example for weak boundaries in Summerhill is the close relationships between staff and students, pupils state “you know them as well as you know another child” .
When it comes to boundaries between the school and for instance student’s parents, it is handled quite contrarily. Parents are allowed to visit on specific visiting weekends, but apart from that, they are usually not involved in their children’s school life . If a child wishes his parents to remain uniformed about his curricular performance, the school may deprive the parents of their child’s reports . It is part of the school’s philosophy to allow children to live their own life without depending on their parents .
As a result, if all schools would follow the philosophy of Summerhill, British children would not only be separated from their parents as they visit a boarding school, the school’s philosophy would put an even greater distance between the relationships of parents and their children, which I believe to be incredibly problematic for many parents, as they wish to have a close relationship with their children. Plus, the idea most people have of a family, parents and their children living together and being united , would be distorted.
Accordingly, putting the Summerhill concept into practise throughout the country would increase the distance between children and their parents, which is undesirable for parents as well as for children and would cause major chang...

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...of the Relational Touch at Summerhill School, In: American Educational Research Journal, March 2008, p.13
Ian Stronach, Heather Piper: Can Liberal Education Make A Comeback? The Case of the Relational Touch at Summerhill School, In: American Educational Research Journal, March 2008, p.34, “ ‘it disrupts the whole life of the community to have people coming and going’ “ http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/typical-summerhill-day.php, 26/02/14 “We do not send reports to parents unless they are needed for college or school recruitment. Children will be involved in this process.” http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/the-very-basics.php, 21/02/14 http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/family, 21/02/14 http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/the-very-basics.php, “we do have day pupils”, 25/02/14 http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/the-very-basics.php, 25/02/14

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