Alexander Sutherland Neill

AS Neill on his birthday (year undated)

Alexander Sutherland Neill (mostly abbreviated AS Neill , born October 17, 1883 in Forfar , Scotland , † September 23, 1973 in Aldeburgh , Suffolk ) was a teacher and long-time director of the Democratic School of Summerhill, which he founded in Leiston (Suffolk).

Biographical background of the reform ideas

Childhood in a conservative family of origin

Neill started school at the age of four and a half in the one-class school where his father taught. At that time it was common (not only) in Scotland to discipline children with punches and severe punishments. Since Neill was not to be considered preferred as the teacher's son, he was treated particularly severely. Neill's mother also worked as a teacher, but had to give up her job: married women were no longer allowed to work as teachers.

Neill had seven siblings. In his autobiography he describes himself as the "black sheep", the disadvantaged family.

Career finding

At the age of fourteen, Neill began training as an accountant and retailer in succession. However, he was not happy in these professions and therefore became a pupil teacher (a kind of apprentice teacher) at his father's school in 1899 . After a four-year apprenticeship, he got his teaching diploma and was now an assistant teacher. From 1903 to 1908 Neill worked at various Scottish village schools, but this task did not satisfy him because he rejected the usual pedagogical approaches and during this time developed a deep aversion to the harsh educational methods customary at the time. In addition, he took private tuition to obtain his university entrance qualification and finally studied agricultural sciences at the University of Edinburgh from 1908 to 1912 , but soon switched to English and literature. He completed his studies with a master's (MA) . He then worked for a year as an editor on an encyclopedia and went to London , where he worked as an artistic assistant for Piccadilly Magazine .

Tailwind for first attempts at reform

In 1914 , after the outbreak of the First World War - Neill had been classified as unfit for military service - he became head of the Gretna Public School in Scotland, deputy to the rector who had gone to the front. His experiences at this school led him to an intellectual turning point. Until then, a reluctantly adapted teacher, he now developed new ideas in school education and tried them out - largely uncontrolled by the school inspectorate due to the war. He rejected the compulsory learning and the punitive system and placed more emphasis on play and enjoyment. For example, his students could leave class if they wanted to. He describes his time as headmaster in Gretna Green in his first book, A Dominie's Log . The 1915 publication marked the beginning of his career as both a writer and a reformist. The book became a bestseller in the UK, and Neill went on to write four more Dominie books.

Influence Homer Lanes

During this time he made his first contact with Homer Lane . Neill became Lane's student, friend, and patient, and adopted many of his principles. Lane believed in the innate goodness in every child. He had considerable success in the "Little Commonwealth", a home for children who are difficult to raise. Here Lane applied his revolutionary therapeutic measures such as psychoanalytically motivated "paradoxical sanctions", which Neill later used, for example, when he encouraged students to break window panes or did not punish thieves for their crimes, but rewarded them. When Neill wanted to work with Lane after his military service, to which he was still called up in 1916, he learned that his experiment had ended with the closure of the "Little Commonwealth".

So he applied to the King Alfred School of John Russell in Hampstead . This co-educational reform school had abolished grades and corporal punishment . Following Homer Lane's example, he introduced “self-government” there. When there were protests within the teaching staff regarding the sometimes turbulent self-government in Neill's class, Russell suggested that he stop working at this school.

“Education of the New Era” as a platform

From the spring of 1920 he published the magazine “Education of the New Era” together with Beatrice Ensor . Now he was able to deal with a wide range of topics and get to know various school experiments in Great Britain and on the continent on his travels. In his “editorials” he strongly criticized the existing school system. During this time he got to know the increasingly popular Montessori pedagogy . He rejected this approach as too scientific, too neat, too didactic. On the other hand, his temporary work in the Hellerau experimental school around 1921 influenced his own conceptions considerably. Neill's radical stance, which he made known on lecture tours and through publications, sparked many discussions and controversies with other reform pedagogues.

pedagogy

Positions

Neill is widely regarded as an important reform pedagogue . His pedagogy is influenced by the findings of psychoanalysis . At different times he used different psychoanalytical approaches, but towards the end of his life he concluded that his pedagogy would endure even without these components. He was friends with Wilhelm Reich , with whom he also went into therapy. Neill is considered the founder of anti-authoritarian education in Germany , as the German translation of his most famous work was published under the misleading title Theory and Practice of Anti-Authoritarian Education . Some of his work is also associated with the term anti-pedagogy . He distanced himself from both ascriptions, while under these slogans he became famous in the German-speaking world in the student movement . Neill himself uses - following Reich - the term self-regulative education . There were numerous approaches to 'democratic child rearing' in connection with the 1968 movement that were influenced by his work.

Believe in the "good" in the child

Neill is convinced that the child is "good" from birth and, in particular, capable of compassion and love; Neill relies on observations, among other things, according to which small children, for example, are in horror if they even observe violence against small animals. According to Neill, it is traditionally conservative educational goals such as obedience, suitability for war and various traditional forms of ideals of masculinity that, in the course of an authoritarian upbringing, lead to the fact that this " good ", the child's natural compassion, is gradually destroyed. Neill sees the educational goal of obedience as a contributory cause of the world wars and the Holocaust .

According to AS Neill, modern schools should act as a shelter for children in order to spare the younger generations from the "pernicious" influence of the old. Modern schools should no longer reproduce social conditions, but prepare for their renewal. The influence of adults should be as little as possible, since an old generation who caused the world wars and the Holocaust could no longer even be entrusted with the education of a rat.

Sexual freedom

In contrast to contemporaries such as Janusz Korczak or Maria Montessori , who were very religious - and from Neill's point of view all too prudish - thinking of reform pedagogical contemporaries, Neill's radically liberal childhood ideal also included the permissive development of sexuality. Teaching disorders, but also violent pornography and rape, according to Neill's radical librarian psychoanalysis, can be traced back to the fact that, as children, people are restricted in their sex drive and urges “build up”. The childhood self-love also on the sexual level, manifested in the masturbation instinct, the most important of all play instincts for Neill, is valued by radical librarian psychoanalysts like Neill as a prerequisite for the later ability to meet other people in adolescence - possibly also same-sex as a bridge-building transition - and finally in adulthood to turn to the opposite sex in stable relationships. Convent schools that forbade masturbation were a hateful enemy of Neill. The church, which warned of the late effects of masturbation, appeared to him to be a symbol of institutional child abuse.

Learning psychology

According to Neill, children are naturally “willing to learn”, but the conventional school paralyzes this intrinsic learning instinct through extrinsic overstimulation: The non-free compulsory school child fixates on exams, transfer hurdles, classwork - afterwards the material is mostly forgotten. The child thus learns for school instead of for life; in the midst of the sheer madness of notes and all fear of sanctions, it loses the feeling for the natural joy of learning. In this way, the child becomes passive, dependent, and even dependent on external pressure. The authoritarian propaganda promptly pointed the index finger at it to prove that nothing works without coercion. A vicious circle begins with this false evidence: more and more pressure from outside, more and more passivity on the part of the child. Neill rejected a school curriculum similar to that in compulsory schools: In phases of life that should serve to promote self-discovery, time-consuming, externally imposed compulsory courses lead to self-alienation. As a result, young people lose the feeling for their own vocation or begin to disregard them. On the other hand, if a “free” child sooner or later becomes enthusiastic about his or her own destiny to be an artist, doctor or linguist, according to Neill, inner psychological processes naturally lead to the child being curiously “absorbing” the necessary knowledge.

A life for Summerhill

School founded in Germany

In 1921 Neill was traveling in Europe on behalf of the New Era . In Germany he visited Lilian Neustätter in Dresden- Hellerau , an acquaintance from the time at the King Alfred School. In Hellerau there was the Jaques Dalcroze School, which Neill described for the New Era. Neill stayed in Germany and founded 1921 with Christine Bear, a student of the reform pedagogue Émile Jaques-Dalcroze , and Dr. Otto Neustätter and his wife Lilian Neustätter founded the international school in Hellerau. This gave Neill the chance to run a school according to his ideas. He soon quit his job with the New Era to turn his own school idea into reality.

For example, he took up the form of “self-government” again, made participation in classes free for every student, abolished the class system, applied “paradoxical sanctions” and introduced “private lessons”. In 1923 the school stopped working. The reasons for this were de-registrations of mostly foreign students as a result of unrest that broke out in Saxony . This broke the economic basis for Neill's school experiment.

Unsuccessful new beginning in Austria

After her divorce from Otto Neustätter, Neill married Lilian. In Austria , a new location was found for their school in a former monastery building in the Sonntagberg community . Regular classes did not take place at this school. If the total of only nine students had questions, a group was formed to deal with certain issues. Neill took a neurotic student to an analysis with Wilhelm Stekel in Vienna and then underwent such treatment himself with this former student of Sigmund Freud . The school on the Sonntagberg met strong resistance from the population and the school authorities. So, after less than a year, the decision was made to relocate the school to England . The main reason for this was that Neill did not give (and did not want to give) any religion class. The school authorities refused to grant permission for the school. "Tired of constant confrontations with biased officials and hostile villagers, Neill and his wife brought their five British students back to England in 1924 and settled with them in Dorset [...]."

First successes under the name "Summerhill"

A house in Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset was rented as the seat of the school , which was on the "Summerhill". This is where the school finally got the name with which it was to become world famous. The school specialized in problem children who appeared difficult, lazy, sluggish and / or anti-social at other schools. In 1926 the popularity of Neill's school rose abruptly as a result of the publication of his now eighth book, The Problem Child .

The Lyme Regis building was soon to be used for another purpose, and Neill went looking for a new school building. In Leiston on the English east coast he found a former boarding school for girls with suitable buildings and green spaces. He took out a loan and bought the property in 1927.

Worldwide lectures

In the 1930s, Neill began to give lectures abroad and after a lecture tour in 1936 even considered opening a branch of Summerhills in South Africa . However, this idea was not realized due to the religious reservations in the South African public. He traveled through Scandinavia, gave lectures in Stockholm and Oslo, and met Wilhelm Reich , who had emigrated from Germany in 1937 and who had meanwhile developed his psycho- and character-analytical method into vegetotherapy . Neill took a few sessions with Reich and was delighted. Both quickly formed a friendship that would last until Reich died. The correspondence between the two documents the various intellectual stimuli that were important for Neill and that came from Reich. However, he did not accept Reich's orgone theory.

School relocation due to the war

In 1940, Leiston had to be left until the end of the war, as the military confiscated the building due to its location on the east coast. Temporary replacement accommodation has been found at Ffestiniog in North Wales. Neill was not happy with the situation there. Difficulties with the staff that challenged him for his leadership position, the Calvinism of the area and the bad weather greatly affected him and his interest in the school. Despite the war, there was a waiting list for Summerhill - mainly because the rural location was safe from bombing. In 1944 Neill's first wife Lilian died in Ffestiniog.

Marriage with Ena and birth of Zoës

After the death of Neill's wife Lilian in 1945, at the age of 62, he married Ena May Woof , 27 years his junior , who had previously cared for his first wife. A short time later, the school in Leiston was able to return to the school building, which was very dilapidated due to military use, where Neill's first and only child, daughter Zoë , was born on November 2, 1946 . Neill took Ena and the baby on their first lecture tour through the USA and visited his friend Wilhelm Reich, who had settled in Maine.

Dependence on school inspections

The first state-ordered school inspection took place in June 1949. Contrary to Neill's fears, which were based on the subordination of the state to arbitrariness, the school performed surprisingly well. In 1959 another school inspection of this kind took place, the result of which, from Neill's point of view, was "fair but disillusioning". In this context it can also be seen that the number of registrations fell around 1960.

Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing

Student numbers rose again when the book Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing was published in the United States in late 1960 . The book is a compilation of texts from five previous books by Neill. The compilation was made by Neill's American editor Harold Hart without any source information. Neill was dissatisfied with the randomly compiled bundle, especially with the deletion of some passages that dealt with psychoanalysis and its influence on Neill's pedagogy. But the book's economic success and new popularity reconciled these shortcomings. Under the influence of the book success, Neill received the first of a total of three honorary doctorates from Newcastle University in 1966 .

Use of Bernstein's study

In 1968 Emmanuel Bernstein's study of former Summerhill students appeared, which by and large had a positive effect on Summerhill. The study is based on a rather narrow empirical basis: Bernstein had traveled through England on a motor scooter and interviewed former students. Although this database and its preparation were highly questionable, the study was gladly used by Neill to justify his school idea with empirically proven successes.

Autobiography and death of AS Neill

In 1972 Neill's autobiography Neill! Neill! Orange Peel in the USA and a year later in England (German Neill, Neill, Birnenstiel , 1973). At that time, Neill's health was already very poor, and his wife Ena had already taken the boarding school management into her own hands. He died on September 23, 1973 in the hospital in the neighboring town of Aldeburgh. Now Ena has officially taken over the management of Summerhills.

aftermath

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

A. S. Neill has contributed to highlight the connection between authoritarian education and the initiation of world wars and the Holocaust. His publications gave the pedagogical discourse an impetus to reflect on whether the educational goal of obedience in world history had not caused much more damage than adolescent maladjustment. In particular, it is to Neill's merit that the pedagogical consequences derived from this are not only presented theoretically, but also put into practice in the form of Summerhill. But even beyond Summerhill, through his bestseller books, Neill worked together with other reform pedagogues to allow more freedom for children in their upbringing, both within families and in state schools in western countries in the second half of the 20th century than ever before.

Several schools around the world have been founded and successfully established on the basis of A. S. Neill's ideas. The most significant of these are the Sudbury Schools in the United States and the Democratic School of Hadera in Israel.

criticism

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Even among liberal educators, Neill's views are considered quite radical, especially in his belief in the “good” in children, which is criticized as naive. It has not been proven that when a child is unaffected by adults, he develops best, as Neill points out in his books. As a kind of historical-pedagogical counter-reaction to very authoritarian educational methods in Germany (Empire, National Socialism), Neill's ideas can even be legitimized from the perspective of today's conservative educators. Erich Fromm criticizes that A. S. Neill overestimates the importance of childish sexuality for character development in unreflective reference to Sigmund Freud.

Summerhill today

Ena Neill took over the management of Summerhill after the death of her husband. The boarding school has been run by their daughter Zoë Readhead since 1985 . Summerhill has a particularly large number of Japanese students. In Japan, Neill's school idea had been very popular since the 1950s and was seen as an alternative to the rigid Japanese school system. Summerhill has been inspected several times since the 1990s and should be closed at the instigation of the authorities. The school went right up to the Supreme Court of Appeal and in 2000 succeeded in having different standards applied to international private schools than to other public schools. At the same time - and this was important to Zoë Readhead - it was possible to ensure that the freedom to attend classes was retained as an essential element of Neill's pedagogy. The school became well known again as a result of the trials and is attracting many students again. The number of Summerhill children is almost the same as in the years of World War II , when concerned parents sent their children to rural Ffestiniogh.

Works

• Self-management in the school . Translation Ilse Krämer . Pan Verlag, Zurich 1950 (also: Verlag Pestalozzianum, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-403-08649-6 )
• Summerhill: a radical approach to child rearing. New York 1960. (German first edition: Education in Summerhill. The revolutionary example of a free school. Szczesny-Verlag, 1965, ISBN 3-499-60209-1 ; also as: Theory and practice of anti-authoritarian education. The example of Summerhill. Rowohlt paperback , Reinbek 1969, ISBN 3-499-16707-7 ; all each with a foreword by Erich Fromm )
• The Summerhill principle, questions and answers. Rowohlt Paperback, 1971, ISBN 3-499-16690-9 .
• The green cloud . Rowohlt Paperback, 1971, ISBN 3-499-20794-X .
• Neill, Neill, pear stem. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1973, ISBN 3-498-04613-6 .
• Certificates of friendship. The correspondence between Wilhelm Reich and AS Neill 1936–1957. Edited and introduced by Beverley R. Placzek. Translated from the English by Bernd A. Laska, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-462-01784-5 . (Original: Record of a Friendship. The Correspondence of Wilhelm Reich and AS Neill, New York 1981.)
• All the Best, Neill - Letters from Summerhill. Jonathan Croall, Ed. André Deutsch, London 1983, ISBN 0-233-97594-2 .
• The New Summerhill. Edited by Albert Lamb and Zoe Readhead. Penguin Books, London 1992, ISBN 0-14-016783-8 .

literature

• Summerhill - for and against. 15 views on AS Neill's theory and practice. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1971, ISBN 3-499-16704-2 .
• Paul and Jean Ritter: Free upbringing of children in the family. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1972, ISBN 3-498-05671-9 .
• Jonathan Croall: Neill of Summerhill - The Permanent Rebel. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1983, ISBN 0-7100-9300-4 .
• Beverley R. Placzek: Introduction, in: Testimonies of a friendship. The correspondence between Wilhelm Reich and AS Neill 1936–1957. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1986, pp. 7-24, ISBN 3-462-01784-5 .
• Axel D. Kühn: Alexander S. Neill. (= Rowohlt's picture monograph. 549). Reinbek 1995, ISBN 3-499-50549-5 .
• Axel D. Kühn: AS Neill and Summerhill. A reception and impact analysis . This dissertation as full text in HTML and other examination papers
• various authors: on biography and complete bibliography up to 2000: biographies / bibliography
• Friedrich Koch : The dawn of pedagogy. Worlds in your head: Bettelheim, Freinet, Geheeb, Korczak, Montessori, Neill, Petersen, Zulliger . Rotbuch-Verlag, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-434-53026-6 .
• Andreas Paetz, Ulrike Pilarczyk (ed.): Schools that were different. An overview of twenty reform pedagogical models. Berlin 1990.
• Johannes-Martin Kamp: Children's Republics. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1995, ISBN 3-8100-1357-9 .
• Thomas Nitschke: The garden city of Hellerau as an educational province . Hellerau-Verlag, Dresden 2003, ISBN 3-910184-43-X .

Web links

• Literature by and about Alexander Sutherland Neill in the catalog of the German National Library
• Official homepage of the Summerhill boarding school: summerhillschool.co.uk
• Summerhill. The pedagogy of Alexander Sutherland Neill. ( Memento from March 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Radio feature in the "radioWissen" series on Bayern 2 (August 19, 2009) (MP3; 15.9 MB)
• German-language information portal on Neill's "Summerhill" on paed.com - a reform pedagogical education server: summerhill.paed.com
• Discussion of his work "The Last Man Alive" (The Green Cloud) "

Individual evidence

1. ^ Summerhill. The pedagogy of Alexander Sutherland Neill. ( Memento from March 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Radio feature in the "radioWissen" series on Bayern 2 (August 19, 2009) (MP3; 15.9 MB)
2. ↑ Beverley R. Placzek: Introduction , in: witnesses of a friendship. The correspondence between Wilhelm Reich and AS Neill 1936–1957. Edited and introduced by Beverley R. Placzek. Translated from the English by Bernd A. Laska. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1986, p. 13.
3. ↑ Testimonies of friendship. The correspondence between Wilhelm Reich and AS Neill 1936–1957. Cologne 1986.
4. ^ E. Fromm: Foreword. to: Alexander Sutherland Neill: Theory and Practice of Anti-Authoritarian Education. In: K. Beutler & D. Horster (Eds.): Pedagogy and Ethics. Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 164-173.