Pressure to conform at school almost put me off education
I’D have loved to have attended the Green house education Project in Somerset (Mail) as a child — and I say that as someone who taught adults and children for 35 years here and overseas. There are no formal exams, uniforms or rules. Children spend days outside, learning how to whittle with knives, climb trees and take risks, as mistakes are the ‘stepping stones to success’. Congratulations to teachers anna Robinson and Cindy adams for an alternative to the miserable regime of desks, uniforms and rules. The schools I attended in the Sixties and mid-Seventies ranged from strict/ traditional to easy-going. The first was a prep school, and, in the picture of me above, being posed with a monkey and a parrot for a street photographer, I had to obey firmm regulations about uniform (shorts, long socks, shirt, pullover, blazer, cap — the works). Discipline was strict, too, and ‘learning by heart’ common. Few teachers thought it necessary to explain the reasons for learning (let alone what use it might be). We learned Pythagoras’s Theorem but never really understood what it was for, so I tuned out and was written off by the school. at 13, I went to a ‘progressive’ boarding school, with a simple, practical uniform (grey trousers, pale blue shirt and navy blue pullover). Discipline was intended to make you responsible (if you dropped litter, you had to empty a bin for a week). Teaching was still quite conventional but we were told that doing well academically was the road to u understanding the world, finding a good job and contributing to society and my school work improved. I then went to one much closer to Green house education Project in spirit for the fifth and sixth forms. Modelled on a. S. Neill’s Summerhill School, there was no dress code, classes were small, discipline was minimal and everyone was on first name terms (from the head to the cook). I loved it and passed nine O-levels and three a-levels. after studying at the University of Kent, I went back to teach there. I wish I’d attended a school like Green house. having to conform made me uncomfortable and compulsory ‘games’ put me off sport for life!
Richard Tagart, Haywards Heath, W. sussex.