“At Summerhill school, students choose for themselves which lessons to attend. Furthermore, there is no grading system of any kind. No punishment is incurred for skipping classes” (Wikipedia). Can this school be called a kind of libertarian project?

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Recently, the left-anarchist channel Prometheus posted an article about anarchism and education, which is, in turn, a summary of an article by Ekaterina Tolkacheva titled A Little Anarchism for the Education System. It discusses Summerhill and many other similar projects specifically as examples of the implementation of a libertarian approach.

From what I quickly googled about Summerhill, it is clear that it is one of the most consistently libertarian educational projects, where a child’s freedom is limited only by the fact that they are physically in a boarding school, but otherwise engage in whatever they please. As far as can be judged from the excerpts I found from the book “Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing” by the school’s founder A.S. Neill, the earlier a child entered the school, the more eagerness they showed for activities: children infected by compulsory education needed time to regain their taste for learning.

Graduates of the school usually turned out to be people with an entrepreneurial streak, or geeks whom no one hindered from pursuing only what they enjoyed, and they continued to specialize in this in their adult lives. At the same time, no absolute geniuses graduated from the school: whether this is a characteristic of the educational methodology, or whether the modest number of students—no more than a hundred children of all ages—played a role.

Thus, I can suggest that this school was far ahead of its time: in the industrial era, a different type of graduate was in demand, but now it is precisely such people who are mainly needed. Ekaterina Schulmann discusses this, for example, in an interview with the publication “Takie Dela”. She describes the problems of the modern Russian school in light of changing trends in society—but does not provide recipes, because she does not know them. However, one of the recipes is boarding schools like Summerhill. Perhaps this is even better than homeschooling, because parents’ pedagogical abilities can be modest.

The main drawback of Summerhill is that such education cannot be mass-market. Therefore, the only real alternative to modern compulsory secondary education is simply the total abolition of its compulsory nature. In modern society, a person has an incredibly long childhood. During this time, the minimally necessary skills for further adult life are acquired even from aimless surfing on the internet, simple housework, and communicating with friends. Those who desire more will find extremely motivated teachers in various “Summerhills.” And for those who cannot afford such things, online courses will remain. The experience of Summerhill shows that when a child is left to their own devices, they eagerly absorb new information; it is enough for them to know that they will obtain their knowledge at the moment they seek it.

Of course, there are many professions for which compliance with strict standards is necessary. In a system of free education, it is sufficient that these standards be known. Those children interested in a profession will know exactly what to achieve, and once they master the required amount of knowledge, they will simply take an open exam. No state regulations are needed for this; professional standards are ultimately dictated by employers.