Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: COHOUSING-L digest 22

[Scott Cowley (scowley]

My two cents on the role of children in community:
Having been a teacher in an alternative school for 3 years I found that 
the idea of complete freedom for a child can be pretty tragic.  "All of a 
sudden" the child finds that s/he may not know how to read, how to multiply,
how to act in a group of straights, how to get along with adults, etc.  This can
easily result in a spiral of embarrassment, failing self-esteem and 
incompetence.
  One of my heroes, A.S. Neil of "Summerhill", coined the term "Freedom without
license".  Too many readers of Summerhill never got past his first chapter
before running out to build "free schools", and unchain the raw power of 
youthful
freedom.  It took a decade or two to find out that the main job of adults in
hanging out with children is to show them the reasonable limits to behavior,
and that they should be aware of them at the same time that they are joyfully
testing them.