A Child's Right to Pursue Happiness

''...this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.''

—Albert Einstein

Alpine School — a place of freedom, respect, and responsibility — promotes discovery, learning, and self determination in its community. As an alternative school patterned after the Sudbury model, I was interested in hearing another perspective and how this model might be applied in an environment that has adopted, rather than developed, the idea.

Diane: Please explain the democratic idea of schooling as it relates to what you're doing at Alpine Valley School.

Larry: Well, the root is historically in the idea of self-government — where a group of people can come together of their own free will and establish some sort of constitution or set of laws to protect individual freedom. One of the ways of insuring this freedom is by making sure that everyone in the community has a say in every issue.

Diane: So there are rules and laws at a school dedicated to freedom?

Larry: Well, of course! The laws are geared to protect individual liberty. That is their purpose. Everyone has the right to pursue their happiness at this school, providing that it doesn't injure somebody else. So nearly anything is possible. Nearly...

Something that could harm somebody or someone else is not free to happen here. But if I want to study physics, or biology, or human interaction in some context, I'm free to do that. I can study whatever I want to study, I can do whatever I want to do, as long as I'm not hurting anyone.

If you read the Declaration of Independence, I think you will find that this definition of freedom is primarily how this country was founded. People have the right to pursue their happiness, and governments are instituted among men to protect this right.

The pursuit of happiness also relates to the bigger picture, in that the children here are absolutely allowed to fail. Failure is an important part of the school.

Somebody might decide that they might want to study calculus and find they just can't do it. They might want to become the judicial clerk and find that they just can't do it. They might want to start a corporation within the school corporations, and find out that it is more work than they want to do, and stop doing it. That's the kind of failure I'm talking about.

Diane: ''Failure'' is a really difficult word. My sense of the word failure is that it implies a sense of defeat.

Larry: Sometimes children are defeated. Sometimes they fall on their faces and are down in the dumps about it for months. It happens to all of us. When we tried to open the school in 1994, we failed, and several of us were down in the dumps about it for six or seven months.

And then we picked ourselves up and tried again. The second time we opened the school. Failure, in my way of thinking, is not bad, because it can lead to one of two things: the realization that the goal is not worth it, or the realization that the goal is difficult and we have to try again.

Diane: So what else happens in the school?

Larry: The kids play an enormous number of self-generated games. They invent games, they invent the rules, they invent how to play it.

Diane: So how does that benefit them in the future when they leave the school and go out into life?

Larry: They learn to deal with other people in a group setting. They learn to make decisions and go forward with those decisions. If the decision is wrong, or if the game turns out to be a stupid game, they have a huge self-correcting mechanism — they learn self-correction.

Diane: When I spoke of the Sudbury model to other parents, they looked at me as though I were crazy, and they said that if you don't provide discipline, if you don't show students what to study, then they won't get an education. In other words, they felt that a child given the choice to fool around and play all day would never choose to learn academically. How do you answer that?

Larry: The most important thing that kids learn here is self-discipline, self-education, and self-responsibility. No one can learn true responsibility, no one can truly learn about themselves, no one can truly learn any subject by being forced. When you force people to learn, they learn for the test, and then the information is gone.

The idea that you have to force children to learn certain things is asinine.

Have you personally been around infants? Have you shared in child rearing? Out of the womb children come, and within some number of months they start to lift their heads up. Did you have to teach them to do that? After some more months, they learn to roll over. Did that have to be taught? After some more months, they get up on their knees and they walk. They crawl. Are those things taught? No. Are they essential for understanding the world and for living successfully? Yes. Is reading, writing, and math essential for living. Yes. Do children know this? Yes. Do they need to be forced to learn it? No. If you leave them alone they will learn it because they know it is essential.

Diane: How do children know these things are essential? In my mind, that kind of knowledge would not be an innate, biological urge.

Larry: What makes you think standing up is innate, or learning how to speak is innate? I don't think it's necessarily innate. I think what IS innate is the desire to be successful, and the desire to be competent. That's the desire. That desire is what is innate. The desire to succeed, the desire to grow, the desire to learn, those things are innate.

Diane: So what you are saying is that there is a biological urging which is about survival in one's environment which in this case is the structure of our society?

Larry: Sure. There is a biological urging, or some innate drive, to master your world. An argument could be that children two thousand years ago didn't naturally want to learn how to read. Well, of course they didn't, because they naturally wanted to learn to use a mataka or something, or go hunt — those are the things they naturally wanted to learn. They were drawn to them because they saw the adults in their environment doing these things and saw that this was what it meant to be successful. That's what it means to be an adult? How do I get there?

Diane: So are there instances where something needs to be learned that isn't learned? I'm just thinking of my stepdaughter, who comes from Switzerland. Her parents are very interested in her grades' being near perfect. They and her teachers are very strict about studying and discipline. In my mind it is a very militeristic way of looking at education and learning. She's a brilliant and creative child, even in that environment.

Larry: Have you read about the history of schooling? I suggest you read several books, especially John Taylor Gatto's Dumbing Us Down and the Underground History of American Education.[1] You should read these books because when you say it's ''militaristic'' I have to laugh. Of course it is. The whole system of education in this country is based on the Prussian model from the 19th century. Another book to read is called Separating School and State by Sheldon Richman, produced by the Future of Freedom Foundation.[2] These books will make you sick. Honest to God, it is so gross and sickening when you realize what the true purpose is of this country's system of schooling.

Diane: What purposes is that?

Larry: To make children docile. Happy doing repetitive tasks. Obedient. It was designed to make them non-critical thinkers, to make them...

Diane: Slaves to society?

Larry: No.... to make them uniform, or similar.

Diane: That's scary.

Larry: It's frightening! It is absolutely frightening. One of my biggest frustrations about being the registrar — I talk to every parent who wants to enroll a child — is when, for instance, some mom will call me and she'll describe how the public school is damaging her child and has been doing so for several years. I describe our school and she agrees that it sounds like a good thing. And then she asks how much it will cost and I say $3,580.00. And she'll say, Oh, we can't afford that. I guess my child will have to stay in public school.

I've heard that so many times it just wrenches me to hear a mother say that about her child. Three thousand dollars is not that much money! My wife and I pay, just like everyone else. We don't get a discount here. But we have set our priorities. Schooling is first — before a vacation, before a new car. It's very disheartening to hear families capitulating to the system.

Diane: Well, that's because we are used to free education and tuition connotes ''private school.''

Larry: That's correct.

Diane: And adults looking at new alternatives for there children are dealing with over 100 years of educational programming...

Larry: You've been brainwashed.

Diane: So if we have an entire society that is brainwashed, how are we going to make the shifts that need to happen, especially when schools like Alpine and Sudbury are still considered by the masses to be ''out there'' in their philosphy?

Larry: Public schools need to be closed.

Diane: How likely is that, though?

Larry: I don't know. But that's the solution. As long as there are public schools — and let's stop calling them ''public'' shall we. Let's call them what they are. They are government schools. There is nothing public about them except that they are publically funded. They are government schools. They are run by the government.

There is still this mythology of local control. There are still people who say that education is a local matter. Well, it's not anymore. Look at how much the department of education at the federal level spends on schooling. They are influencing children daily, and they do it by mandate, and they do it very cleverly. If a school accepts government funds, they are a public school, and they will have to do what every other public school does.

If we educate people to understand the purpose of public schooling — or government schooling — hopefully they will come to the realization that they need to remove their children from those schools. The only solution is to close public schools or abandon them.

Diane: Most of the parents I've talked with hate the idea of their children attending public school. They detest them, but they don't feel there is any other recourse.

Larry: They haven't looked. They've been raised in the system that says there is no other recourse. It's my way or the highway — I'm the teacher, I'm the boss. Mine is the right answer. Whether it's right or wrong is irrelevant because it is my answer that is going to be on the test. If I tell you that the only thing out there is public education except for ''elitist'' private schools, then that's all there is for some. People have been conditioned that there is no other option. There is home schooling, for crying out loud! If you don't like public school, there's home schooling. It is not a choice I would make, but it is a legitimate choice. In some countries, home schooling is illegal.

Diane: Do you mean that what you are saying about abandoning public school, though desirable, is also realistic?

Larry: Sure — it might take 50 or 60 more years of people realizing the truth of what's really going on. Once you read these books, I think you'll understand what I'm saying more thoroughly. The public government school institutions that we see today were not pushed on America all at once. It was gradually put there over the course of many years. Slowly, slowly. The compulsory attendance laws that are on the books now are a fairly recent addition.

Diane: So who's doing this, Larry? Who's responsible for the educational controls in this country?

Larry: The Carnegie Ford Foundation and the Rockefellers were largely behind creating the compulsory school.

Diane: They seem to be behind a lot of different things that look like control of the population.

Larry: Sure. My child's mind is not controlled by the government. How many people can truthfully say that. My child will never be controlled by the government. He will be a free-thinking individual.

Diane: Where do these ''free thinking'' individuals end up?

Larry: They end up doing what they want to do. They are productive, happy, successful people. Look at the graduates of Sudbury Valley. You'll find that 80 percent go on to college, 40 percent end up being an entrepreneur of one thing or another. These are happy, contented people who know what it is to work, and they know how to get things done.

Diane: What are the downsides of the Sudbury model?

Larry: I don't think there are any. We graduate happy, productive people. What's bad about that? They are missing out on the chance to be totally irresponsible for their life.

For 12 years, they can be obedient and compliant servants and leave all the responsibility on the adults' shoulders. Or they can be here and be complete, volitional children making real decisions.

We had a School Meeting today, which most of the student body and staff attended, where we decided whether or not to admit a new child into our school. That's real power! This is a nice young boy, and this is what we do with all new kids. We have them here for a week, and then we have a school meeting and we decide whether they are going to come. Five-, six-, eight- and eighteen-year-olds get to talk about it freely. I thought he was a great kid or I thought he wasn't, and here's why. They have a vote, and I have a vote.

Diane: That sounds scary in a way. I was just thinking if I were a child going into a situation like that, I would want to be accepted. Going through the judgment process might be difficult.

Larry: It's not really a judgment process. It's not that we sit around and say, He kind of had some funny hair. It's based on actions, and the only questions we have are about the kids who might hurt people or bother people. It really has to go over a clear line. The standard is not, He looked at me funny once, therefore I'm voting no. It's, He kept bugging me, and I kept asking him to please stop, and he never stopped. That is the kind of thing that might stop someone from being voted in.

Diane: What are some of the challenges you deal with concerning the parents of these kids?

Larry: Most parents are programmed, some are not. Some come to the philosophy quite naturally and there's no problem. The real problem for many parents is that they find themselves in the position of having to trust their child without getting extensive external feedback. We don't send home report cards. We don't give evaluations. And so a parent will say, How do I know how little Johnny is doing? Our standard response is, Ask little Johnny how little Johnny is doing. Communicate with your children. Get to know them. That's probably the hardest thing for parents, knowing that their kid is going to be okay.

Diane: Could this system be used for adults?

Larry: This is what adults do when they are outside. It might be more accurate to make the statement that this is the sort of education that adults pursue. It is need-based. An adult needs to learn accounting, so he goes and learns accounting. At this school, a children determines they need to learn whatever to accomplish some goal, and so they go and learn it. Is this appropriate for adults? Sure. We are ultimately trying to create adults who can do this.

Diane: Thanks very much Larry for your passion and your courage in fostering a healthier learning environment for our children.

Resources:

Gatto's website is at johntaylorgatto.com.

Sheldon Richman's article titled ''Freedom 101'' can be found at www.libertyhaven.com/thinkers/sheldonrichman/freedom.html His review of ''Separating School and State'' is at sepschool.org/reading/richman.html.

Alpine Valley School is located at 4501 Parfet Street, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033, phone 303-271-0525, website alpineval.org.

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