Abstract
Just as with the unintentional reflection of myself in the photograph I took of a child through a window, I set out to study children and inevitably ended up having to take a close look at myself. When working with children I just did what I felt was right, and although I could retrospectively justify my actions with theory, there was a dimension of intuition and an ethics of being “on the side of the child” (Neill, 1969, p. 5) that seemed to be more powerful in guiding action than standards and regulations. This “intuition” was an affective state of doing something good, something caring. At Summerhill School, where I have been working for the past five years (at the time of writing), this became more prominent, but it has always been difficult to communicate just what this state of caring, of being guided by intuition, meant and how it felt. This autoethnography is an attempt to convey, if only a tiny bit of what being a Summerhillian means to me.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The pupils that are part of this story have all given their consent to being written about and have read the parts that mention them. This is our shared story, and they take as much pride in being part of it as I do. I have changed names and occasionally gender to ensure the anonymity of the children. The school, however, agreed to be named.
- 2.
Alexander Sutherland Neill founded Summerhill in 1921 as part of the Neue Schule in Dresden, Germany. After several moves, it settled in Leiston on the southeast coast of England in 1927, where it still resides today. Not everyone has agreed with Summerhill’s model of democratic education, but it has undoubtedly influenced many educators and institutions.
- 3.
Beddies Officers are part of an elected committee that is in charge of waking the school up in the morning, putting everyone to bed in the evening and making sure they stay there for the night. Two members of the committee are on duty each day. Not an easy job.
- 4.
It was once pointed out to me by a visitor how quiet the dining room is even when full of people. They observed that in a normal school the dining rooms are hell and patrolled by staff in an attempt to keep order. We have no one patrolling.
- 5.
There are four living areas in the Summerhill: the San houses the youngest kids aged six to nine; the Cottage (currently part of the House) houses the kids aged 9–10; the House kids are aged 11–13; the kids in the Shack are 13–14; and the oldest kids live in the Carriages and have individual rooms.
- 6.
Nobody is allowed to go back to sleep until noon.
- 7.
Ombudsmen are elected by the community and help sort out all the small disputes that arise between people when living together in a small space. I do not envy them for their job. I once tried being one but gave up after a few terms.
- 8.
See Stronach and MacLureure (1997).
- 9.
Sendak (1963).
- 10.
Swearing is allowed at the school. The young kids especially make creative use of this.
- 11.
There are visitors’ days every term, and in addition to these, we often have journalists, researchers, school start-ups, prospective parents or other people walking around. It often feels a bit like being an exhibit in a museum or animal in a zoo.
- 12.
A space with a kitchen, projector and some games that can be used by anyone who has proposed it in the meeting. There is an elected committee in charge of the Café, and they have to sign people in and out, checking that everything is clean.
- 13.
Not much.
- 14.
I don’t have a kitchen, so this public space is where I cook.
- 15.
Besides the bed there is a beanbag and some large cushions.
- 16.
It is a strange feeling for the first few days after the kids leave. I don’t know what to do with myself and especially if I am at school I wait for someone to come around a corner at any moment.
- 17.
I am currently the houseparent for two areas, so I am part of two consecutive bedtimes that last from 9:30 until 10:30 p.m.
- 18.
There is a “common room” with some sofas, a fridge, a sink and some games.
- 19.
People cannot go to bed in the same clothes they wore during the day, and the Beddies Officers can fine them if they are not changed by five minutes to lights out.
References
Carlin, M., & Wallin, J. (Eds.). (2014). Deleuze & Guattari, politics and education: For a people-yet-to-come. New York: Bloomsbury.
Christians, C. (2000). Ethics and politics in qualitative research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Deleuze, G. (1988). Spinoza: Practical philosophy. San Francisco: City Lights Books.
Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition. London: The Athlone Press Limited.
Deleuze, G. (1998). Essays critical and clinical. London: Verso.
Foucault, M. (1984, October 1–9). Of other spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Architecture/Mouvement/Continuité. Retrievable from http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/foucault1.pdf (Original work published 1967).
Gilbert, J. (2014). Common ground: Democracy and collectivity in an age of individualism. London: Pluto Press.
Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Harrison, P. (2007). “How shall I say it…?” Relating to the non-relational. Environment and Planning, 39, 590–608.
Hetherington, K. (1997).The badlands of modernity: Heterotopia and social ordering. London: Routledge.
Hubbard, P. (2006). City. London: Routledge.
Johnson, P. (2006). Unravelling Foucault’s “different spaces”. History of the Human Sciences, 19(4), 75–90.
Johnson, P. (2013). The geographies of heterotopias. Geography Compass, 7, 790–803.
Massumi, B., & Manning, E. (2013). Series foreword. In M. Combes (Ed.), Gilbert Simondon and the philosophy of the transindividual. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Morgan, D. (1996). Family connections: An introduction to family studies. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Neill, A. S. (1969). Introduction. In H. Lane (Ed.), Talks to parents and teachers. New York: Schocken Books.
Neill, A. S. (1977). Summerhill: A radical approach to child rearing. New York: Wallaby.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics & moral education. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.
Ruth, L. (2011). Shutting the bathroom door: Parents, young teenagers and the negotiation of bodily boundaries at home. In L. Holt (Ed.), Geographies of children, youth and families: An international perspective. London: Routledge.
Semetsky, I. (2006). Deleuze, education and becoming. Rotterdam, Sense Publishers.
Sendak, M. (1963). Where the wild things are. London: Random House.
Spinoza, B. (2001). Ethics (R. H. M. Elwes, Trans.). Retrievable from Project Gutenberg: www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm. (Original work published 1677).
Stronach, I., & MacLure, M. (1997). Educational research undone: The postmodern embrace. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
Thrift, N. (2006). Space. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2–3), 139–146.
Wallin, J. (2014). Education needs to get a grip on life. In M. Carlin & J. Wallin (Eds.), Deleuze & Guattari, politics and education: For a people-yet-to-come (pp. 117–140). New York: Bloomsbury.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Klaus, P. (2016). An Ordinary Day. In: Lees, H., Noddings, N. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41291-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41291-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-41290-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-41291-1
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)