Schule mit Herz

Three of us arrived in the Schule mit Herz
("school with heart") yesterday,
while the others are still up on a mountain catching goats from Hof Allne Wind

Today Aris from Solvenia arrived here to meet up
and make an interview with us for an article for Slovenian newspaper and for Euro 26 (a European "stupid" as she sais travellers newspaper that sometimes does have some useful stuff in it also and that is published in almost all European languages).
We met her through couchsurfing and she also wants to travel with us for a while later on,
but first she'll have to go back to Slovenia for a while.

When we arrived here in this beautiful place in nature,
far off from any towns and cities,
we had big expectations about this school,
that is influenced by the ideas of Sudbury Valley School.

But first thing we had to realise is,
that is is a school without any pupils up to now.


The idea to built up a free school in this area came up 2 years ago,
since then the people have put a lot of effort in organising money and support for the school, setting up conceps and getting permissions.

They have everything now, nice school building, money, permissions ... but no pupils yet.

Irene, who is something like the leader of the school, explained to us
that many people were interested in the beginning
and there is still a lot happening, like parents visiting the place, etc...
but that many people are quite afraid of letting their children be in such a pioneer-project,
as one -of course- can't really tell if their concept will work
and especially if the children will ever have the right exams to go to universities, etc.

The concept os Sudbury Valley School is nothing new and unproved:
there is around 30 or 40 schools worldwide that work with the concepts of this 40 year old school in the USA and define themselves as Sudbury schools.

Sudbury schools are based on the idea,
that every child knows exactly what he/she wants like any "grown up" human being-
and should have the freedom to chose what and if it wants to learn, to play or do something else.

The idea, that children should be given all the time they need
to develop interest in things in their own speed...
Children WANT to learn and don't have to be forced to do it, their natural curiosity makes them want to learn anyhow...

So well, even though the experiences of other also called "democratic schools" already proved
that it can definetely work to let children learn whatever they like,
the Swiss people in this region seem not to be convinced yet and
this school will need some more time to get going.

But Irene, Lena and the other people here are quite optimistic about the future:
It's all just a question of time.
Til then they are livin in this big building as an age spanning community of women
and preparing for the kids to come...

We are spending lots of time in the bureau
enjoying to have as much internet as we like
and be such a small group for a while
- int he meantime having some nice discussions about indigo children
and the new learning and living life-
that has to and that will come, slowly but surely :-)
sudval
sudbury
summerhill uk