S2: Reflection 6 - (Reflective Tutorial)

Perspectives on the Lives of Children & Teachers 

In our tutorial today we watched a video about a school called Summerhill in the UK founded by A.S. Neill in the 1920’s. He set up the school on the basis that children have complete freedom. He wrote “All crimes, all hatreds, all wars can be reduced to unhappiness”. The school still stands today, it provides a wide range of subjects however there is no compulsion for the pupils to attend. This really resonated with me as I have been learning about the importance and development of self-regulation in my Assessment module. Self-Regulation builds confidence, discipline and tolerance. It is a huge step to give total freedom to children but it did make me wonder, how effective is ‘partial’ freedom? Does it undermine children - ‘we trust you, but only a little bit’. Is this building them up or holding them back?