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Comprehension check

1 In the first paragraph, what is the contrast that the writer makes between his new school and how he felt on his first day there?

2 What were some of his fears?

3 What did he do with his 'three half-crowns'? Why?

4 Why didn't Churchill understand the task that the Form Master set him?

Do you think he knew what Latin was? Did he know what declensions are?

5 Why did the Form Master threaten to punish Churchill?

6 Churchill obviously felt very miserable on his first day at school. Find the words in the text that describe his negative attitude to the day.

Examples

a dark November afternoon (lines 11-12)

the fear of spilling my cup (line 15)

What do you think?

1 Have you ever learnt Latin or Greek? How was it taught?

2 Have you ever learnt a modern language in the way Churchill had to learn Latin? What did you think of learning in that way?

 

Reading

In the following text. A. S. Neill describes his famous school, Summerhill, which he founded in 1921. Before you read, look at the pictures. In what ways do you think life at Summerhill is different from life at a more traditional school?

Now read the first part of the text.

THE IDEA OF SUMMERHILL

This is a story of a modern school - Summerhill. Summerhill began as an experimental school. It is no longer such; it is now a demonstration school, for it demonstrates that freedom works.

When my first wife and I began the school, we had one main idea: to make the school fit the child- instead of making the child fit the school.

Obviously. a school that makes active children sit at desks studying mostly useless subjects is a bad school.

It is a good school only for those who believe in such a school, for those uncreative citizens who want docile, uncreative children who will fit into a civilization whose standard of success is money.

I had taught in ordinary schools for many years. I knew the other way well. I knew it was all wrong. It was wrong because it was based on an adult conception of what a child should be and of how a child should learn.

Well, we set out to make a school in which we should allow children freedom to be themselves. In order to do this, we had to renounce all discipline, all direction, all suggestion, all moral training, all religious instruction. We have been called brave, but it did not require courage. All it required was what we had — a complete belief in the child as a good, not an evil, being.

My view is that a child is innately wise and realistic. If left to himself without adult suggestion of any kind, he will develop as far as he is capable of developing.

Logically. Summerhill is a place in which people who have the innate ability and wish to be scholars will be scholars; while those who are only fit to sweep the streets will sweep the streets. But we have not produced a street cleaner so far. Nor do I write this snobbishly, for I would rather see a school produce a happy street cleaner than a neurotic scholar. What is Summerhill like? . . .



Questions for prediction

The text goes on to describe Summerhill. Before you read, discuss what you think the answers are to these questions.

1 Can the children choose whether to go to lessons or not?

2 Is there a timetable for lessons?

3 Do children have classes according to their ages or according to their interests?

4 Does Summerhill have special teaching methods?

5 Are the children happy?

6 Is every single decision about everything made democratically by both teachers and children?

7 Does Neill find it easy to influence the children at Summerhill?

Now read the second part of the text.

.. . Well, for one thing, lessons are optional. Children can go to them or stay away from them – from them for years if they want to. There is a timetable - but only teachers.

The children have classes usually according age, but sometimes according to their interests. We have no new methods of teaching, because we do not consider that teaching in itself matters very much. Whether a school has or has not a special method for teaching long division is of no significance, for long division is of no importance except to those who learn it. And the child who wants to learn long division will

learn it no matter how it is taught.

Summerhill is possibly the happiest school in the world. We have no truants and seldom a case of homesickness. We very rarely have fights - quarrels; of course, but seldom have I seen a stand-up fight like the ones we used to have as boys. I seldom hear à ñry,

because children when free have much less hate to express than children who are downtrodden. Hate breeds hate, and love breeds love. Love means approv­ing of children, and that is essential in any school. You can't be on the side of children if you punish them and storm at them. Summerhill is a school in which the child knows that he is approved of.

The function of the child is to live his own life - not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educator who thinks he knows what is best. All this interference and guidance on the part of adults only produces a genera­tion of robots.

In Summerhill. everyone has equal rights. No one is allowed to walk on my grand piano, and I am not allowed to borrow a boy's cycle without his permission. At a General School Meeting, the vote of a child of six counts for às much as my vote does.

But, says the knowing one, in practice of course the voices of the grownups count. Doesn't the child of six wait to see how you vote before he raises his hand? I wish he sometimes would, for too many of my proposals are beaten. Free children are not easily influenced; the absence of fear accounts for this phenomenon. Indeed, the absence of fear is the finest thing that can happen to a child.

Questions for discussion

1 Were your answers to the 'Questions for prediction' right? Were you surprised by any of the answers?

2 In what ways does a child usually have to fit a school? To what extent do you think Summerhill fits a child?

3 What are the freedoms that children at Summerhill enjoy ?

4 Neill holds quite strong views on education, the innate qualities of children, and the way adults interfere with learning. Which of these views do you agree with?

5 What do you understand by the last sentence of the extract? What were you afraid of when you were young?

6 Here are some more of A. S. Neill's ideas. What is your reaction to them?

I hold that the aim of life is to find happiness, which means to find interest. Education should be a preparation for life.'

'Most of the school work that adolescents do is simply a waste of time, of energy. of patience. It robs youth of its right to play and play and play: it puts old heads on young shoulders.'

•[Traditional education produces children] for a society that needs obedient sitters at dreary desks, standers in shops, mechanical catchers of the 8.30 suburban train

Read the Language study on avoiding repetition (page 21) and do the practice exercise.

 


Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1674


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