A. S. Neill
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Alexander Sutherland Neill (October 17, 1883 - September 23, 1973) was a Scottish progressive educator, author and founder of Summerhill school. He is best known as an advocate of personal freedom for children, and has been correspondingly criticized as an instigator of permissiveness.
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[edit] Personal background
Neill was born in Forfar, the son of a schoolteacher. After acting as a pupil-teacher for his father, he studied at the University of Edinburgh and obtained an M.A. degree in 1912. In 1914 he became headmaster of the Gretna Green School in Scotland. During this period, his growing discontent could be traced in notes which he later published. In these notes, he described himself as "just enough of a Nietzschian to protest against teaching children to be meek and lowly" and wrote (in A Dominie's Log) that he was "trying to form minds that will question and destroy and rebuild".
[edit] Educational philosophy
Neill believed that the happiness of the child was of paramount consideration in the child's upbringing and that this happiness grew from a sense of personal freedom in the child. He felt that deprivation of this sense of freedom during childhood and all the consequent unhappiness experienced by the repressed child was responsible for most of the psychological disorders of adulthood. This idea was controversial at the time. Today, while not nearly universally accepted, the concept does have other advocates, such as some in the unschooling movement.
Neill founded Summerhill school on the basis that children should not be compelled to attend lessons. In addition to this novel attendance policy, the school is democratic. Meetings are held to determine school rules and pupils have equal voting rights with school staff.
Neill felt that the Summerhill School showed that, free from the coercion of traditional school, students responded with their own motivation rather than self-indulgence. He felt that children who attended Summerhill were likely to emerge with a healthy and mature skepticism towards adult society.
These tendencies were perhaps all the more remarkable considering that the children accepted by Summerhill were often from problematic backgrounds, where parental conflict or neglect had resulted in children arriving in a particularly unhappy state of mind.
A Freudian, Neill was strongly opposed to sexual repression and the imposition of the strict Victorian values of his childhood era. He said that to be anti-sex was to be anti-life.
[edit] Life at Summerhill
As headmaster of Summerhill, Neill taught classes in Algebra, Geometry and Metalworking. He often said that he admired those who were skilled craftsmen more than those whose skills were purely intellectual. (Neill held that although attendance was optional, the classes themselves were rigorous.) He also had special "private lessons" with pupils, which included discussions of personal issues and amounted to a form of psychotherapy. He later abandoned these "PLs", finding that children who did not have PLs were still cured of delinquent behaviour; he therefore concluded that freedom was the cure, not psychotherapy.
During his teaching career he wrote dozens of books, including the "Dominie" (Scottish word for teacher) series, beginning with A Dominie's Log (1916). His most influential book was Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing (1960) which created a storm in U.S. educational circles. His last work was his autobiography, Neill, Neill, Orange Peel! (1973) He also wrote humorous books for children, like The Last Man Alive (1939).
A. S. Neill was married twice; his second wife Ena Wood Neill administered Summerhill school with him for many decades until their daughter, Zoe Readhead, took over the school as headmistress.
[edit] Influences on Neill's thought
Neill's biggest mentor in education was the British educator Homer Lane. Neill was also an admirer and close friend of psychoanalytical innovator Wilhelm Reich and a student of Freudian psychoanalysis.
Another major contributor to the field of Libertarian Education was Bertrand Russell whose own self-founded Beacon Hill School (England) (one of several schools bearing this name) is often compared with Summerhill. Russell was a correspondent of Neill and offered his support.
[edit] Criticisms of Neill
Many accused Neill of naivety and unrealistic idealism, or moral indifference. Neill was also roundly criticized for bringing notions of Freudian repression into an educational setting. Many people misunderstood the sexual liberty at Summerhill, such as Max Rafferty, California Director of Education. He wrote that he "would sooner send my children to a brothel" than send them to Summerhill.
[edit] Neill's educational legacy
Neill's notions of freedom and education, considered controversial in their time, influenced many of the progressive educators who came after him, notably John Holt, who spearheaded the Unschooling movement.
[edit] Works
- A Dominie’s Log (1915)
- A Dominie Dismissed (1916)
- Booming of Bunkie (1919)
- Carroty Broon (1920)
- A Dominie in Doubt (1920)
- A Dominie Abroad (1922)
- A Dominie’s Five (1924)
- The Problem Child (1926)
- The Problem Parent (1932)
- Is Scotland Educated? (1936)
- That Dreadful School (1937)
- The Problem Teacher (1939)
- The Last Man Alive (1939)
- Hearts Not Heads in the School (1945)
- The Problem Family (1949)
- The Free Child (1953)
- Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing. (Preface by Erich Fromm) (1960)
- Freedom, Not License! (1966)
- Talking of Summerhill (1967)
- Children's Rights: Toward the Liberation of the Child (with Leila Berg, Paul Adams, Nan Berger, Michael Duane, and Robert Ollendorff) (1971)
- "Neill, Neill, Orange Peel!" (1972)
[edit] Published Correspondence
- Record of a friendship: the correspondence between Wilhelm Reich and A. S. Neill, 1936-1957 (1982)
- All the Best, Neill: Letters from Summerhill (1984)
[edit] References
- Neill, Alexander S.: Summerhill School - A New View of Childhood. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1996 ISBN 0-312-14137-8.
- Croall, Jonathan: Neill of Summerhill - The Permanent Rebel. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983 ISBN 0-7100-9300-4
- Croall, Jonathan (ed): All the Best, Neill. Letters from Summerhill. London: André Deutsch, 1983 ISBN 0-233-97594-2 (A collection of letters by Neill to people like H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Henry Miller, Wilhelm Reich, Paul Goodman, Homer Lane, and others)
- Walmsley, John. Neill & Summerhill: A pictorial study. Baltimore: Penguin, 1969 ISBN 0-14-080134-0
- Sims, Hylda: Inspecting the island. Ipswich (UK): Seven Ply Yarns, 2000 ISBN 0-9538797-0-4 (A novel by an ex-Summerhill pupil)
