Free school and Happiness

The principle of Sudbury Valley School is based on the trust which school and parents have toward children that children are constantly working to understand the world they are in, and they take responsibility for their own education, so there is no curriculum and evaluation—children find the way they spend their time, and find ways to evaluate the way they do things. “Because so many decisions go into utilizing such complete freedom each day, every person leans, first and foremost, to trust themselves and their own methods of learning and growing”. Growing up under this circumstance, many of Sudbury Valley School alumni feel that they have control in their lives. They love their lives because they decide how they live. They don’t blame anything because that’s what they chose to do. One alumnus says: “People are in the conversations because they want to be there. They’re not trying to impress with their knowledge, they’re not trying to win praise, and they’re just talking about these things because they’re so interested”. They want to talk, so they do. They are intrinsically motivated to inquire the topic. I think intrinsic motivation and happiness is closely related.
Regarding to the “Free School” by Jonathan Kozol, I didn’t know that plenty of Free schools now have so many of white, rich kids but not so many of other children who have different ethnicity. I think Free school should be open to everyone, and should not include only white, rich people. It should not be the place for racial segregation; rather it should be the place where children can interact with diverse people so that they can nurture broader view…interacting only with somewhat similar people may make them nurture narrower, biased view.