🎒👦Summerhill Kids #1🌳🏄

Between 1953 and 1963 I lived at the then famous school Summerhill in Suffolk England and these writings are some rememberences of those times and the people in them.

By @possiblememes

Stealing

Quite nearly invariably everyone went through a period of_
stealing at Summerhill. Stealing was interpreted in various_
ways. Neill thought that when a child stole, it was Stealing_
love. Often new kids stole. We thought that when new kids_
stole, it was because of their reactions to their new found_
freedom, while as yet their loyalty to the school was still_
undeveloped.

Stealing was tolerated at Summerhill. It was a nuisance as it_
meant that anything of value had to be kept under lock and key. ._
. and there ware many locks and keys on the grounds of the_
school. Nevertheless, it was tolerated anyway, and for what_
better reason than any other, because children were considered_
more important than things.

Stealing was considered a stage that most every child would go_
through, and nearly everyone did. Most of the kids came out of_
their stealing as though it was a phase that they went through. _
At some point or another most of us would realize that stealing_
from our fellows was a licence against their rights as human_
beings. . . and I think at that point--though it may not have_
been that clearly intellectualized--we would come to a stop, a_
halt in our thieving. Important was the fact of its being a_
personal, unforced decision of the child.

Not that the community recognized stealing as something good in_
itself. No. We tried to stop it with various devices such as_
the Theft Committee which went around after the act of a theft,_
like the police, questioning and tracing clues as to the wheres,_
whys, and what fores of the act. Usually most of the community_
knew who done it anyway, but also there was usually no way of_
proving it, and even when something was proven, the consequences_
were usually Light.

Neill, on occasion during the earlier years of the school, had_
been known to reward a child for Stealing. It happened once or_
twice with children during the time I was there, that the_
Saturday night meeting would reward someone something for theft_
instead of fining them or making them pay back what they had_
stolen. There was usually very little motive for revenge by the_
community after an act of theft, even though the theft may have_
been committed against other members of the pupils. It was_
mostly just a matter of paying it back and letting it go at that.

The ones that were rewarded ware often obviously in the throws of_
problems, or they were chronic thieves that nothing else seemed_
to work with. The reward system tended not to work all that_
well, even though it might have served some shock value in_
getting through to the thief. After the book Summerhill came out_
in the states, a lot of the kids that were coming to Summerhill_
had already read the book and were familiar with that type of_
somewhat naive psychology. That is that the Americans were too_
sophisticated for those types of maneuvers. . . too much TV and_
psychological orientation. It might be worth noting that after_
the book Summerhill came out, the character of the school also_
changed.

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By @possiblememes

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