Welcome to the Sudbury in Depth series, where we take a deep dive into the philosophy and practice of the Sudbury model. Each episode, 3-4 staff members from different schools will share their perspectives and experiences on a topic. This time, we'll be discussing the concepts of equality between students of all ages, as well as equality between students and staff.

Ideally, there is no hierarchy. There are individuals that are all equally working with the school and trying to make the school the best place it can be. This means we can't have levels where I'm better than you, because you can't then freely speak to me and freely engage with me, if you're feeling like, I'm talking up to the adult now.

Caroline: The culture promotes the ability for kids to say no to us, to reject our wonderful advice and suggestions. I feel encouraged when I'm written up for something. I remember one time I was written up. I overheard some students talking, and a comment flew out of my mouth and it was a little bit sarcastic. And I got written up for it. I'd had it with some behavior and I was reacting as a human being. But I agreed with their write-up (which was Preamble, by the way, which is a pretty big rule for us; it means by joining our community, you're agreeing to take care of it). Things like that are encouraging, when students do feel comfortable holding us accountable and calling us out.

Greg: One student one vote is how we run the school. Everyone is an equal participant, but our expectations of people is based on who they are and what their ability is. To say that we treat everyone as equals would be to deny their individuality. We have students that are unable to sit in a school meeting for an hour and a half in order to have their voice heard or in order to get their vote in on the thing that matters. So we try to work around all of the different personalities that we have and make sure that all of them have equal access to having their voice heard and their intentions honored. We've had an instance where someone was so shy at public speaking that we had to basically allow them to have sidebar conversations and have an advocate come in and help put words to how they were feeling about a particular thing. So to say that we treat everyone as equals is true spiritually, but we hold different people to different standards based on their ability and their comfort level in participating in groups and in smaller conversations.

Caroline: It's equal in that we all have a vote, and we all have a say, and I don't have the power to make someone do something just because I'm an adult. But as adults we have to kind of check ourselves, because we're very influential, for good and for not so good. We might have more experience, but we might also have more biases or prejudices or experiences that lead us to act in ways that are not great or healthy or positive. I think that is a huge part about what makes a successful staff person. They need to have enough self-knowledge or awareness to be able to dial it back if they are feeling like they want to step in and push someone in one direction, or show displeasure or judgment.

Daniel: A lot of times before we join a Sudbury school, we tend to think that the adults are the ones that are wise, that have the answers, because we have a lot more experience, so we know how to deal with things. And my experience is that that's not true. A lot of times I have seen that the idea I had in my mind of how to solve an issue was not the best one after I heard a bunch of kids come up with ideas, or share different perspectives. One part of that is because they are creative. They can really think from another perspective that a lot of times the adults have lost.

Greg: We do not intentionally limit anyone's rights or responsibilities based on their age. It's really much more based on their abilities. So in the Sudbury model, we use a process called certification. If there's something that's dangerous or something that's expensive, something that we're worried could cause the downfall of the school if it went terribly wrong, we'll create a certification, which is essentially a way for us to have a conversation with the students and make sure that they're ready to take on that responsibility, such as operating a commercial oven.

For the things that really matter, like our open campus policy, where students might leave campus for hours at a time without adult supervision, we actually put those decisions in the hands of the school meeting. In most schools, you would expect the adults in the room, the staff, to use veto power and to say, no, this person can or can't have that extra privilege because we trust them or we don't trust them. But we actually look to the students to have those probing conversations. And a lot of it sounds like, what would you do in this scenario? What would you do if you felt like someone was following you? What would you do if someone you were with was shoplifting? But it doesn't start or end with what a student's age is. It really starts and ends with whether or not that student is ready to take that responsibility on.

Rick: Certification is our process of giving privileges to students, especially when it comes to anything that could have any danger involved with it or any cost to the school involved with it. Most of the different art supplies have different levels of certification. Anyone can just grab a crayon, pen, or paper, but if you want to use the glue gun, you have to go through the certification. It's just a set of questions, but not delivered in a way that it's a test. We try really hard as staff when we give certifications to make sure that we keep it from being a tense situation where they think, if I get one wrong, I'll never be able to do this. It's more like, we're going to talk through this, I'm going to ask you the questions, and make sure you can show me how to use things responsibly.

Caroline: We don't have very many rules that are age-based. When a student is 16 or older they can have an abbreviated schedule at school, for example if they're getting a job or taking community college classes. And we ask that you're 18 if you want to graduate.

We have some rules around our wood shop, saws, power tools, and stuff like that. Those are age-based, but it's more like the table saw is not built for a little hand. It's like you're just physically too short, too small to handle this this equipment. If there was somebody out there making circular saws for 10-year-olds, maybe we would do that.

You can go off campus if you're 5 years old, but you have to be with at least two other people, and the youngest and the oldest age of the people going off campus has to equal 20. So that means a 5-year-old would have to go off campus with a 15-year-old.

Daniel: We have always pushed back when somebody proposes age-based rules, because it's normal that somebody comes and says the ones that are less than 10 years old should not be able to use this equipment. But we know that there are many kids who are older than 10 and are not responsible and we wouldn't want them to use it. And then we know other kids who are eight, seven, and four that are super responsible and that I would happily allow them to use this equipment.

So what we do is a very structured process. Every week, you can propose a person, staff member or student, because you have seen that that person is either very responsible or not responsible. If everybody in your community perceives that you are not very responsible, then probably you're not very responsible. So even though it's subjective because it's a perspective, it's a general thing.

Rick: There are no rooms for specific ages. We have all ages working together and all ages doing things at the same time. And students are able to choose who they are interacting with without it being age-based. I think this is incredibly important. It's one of my favorite things about the model. It is one of the most freeing aspects of being able to learn in a self-directed way.

There is no truth to "at this age, you have to be at this level." And in fact, I think that mindset creates pressure that you won't see in a school with age mixing. Because if I'm 9 and I'm working on something in reading that has been hard for me, and I'm working with a 6-year-old, I'm not in a situation where I'm supposed to be 3 years ahead of you, or, I'm 3 years behind you, so I'm not going to try. It's just, we're both working on this thing and most of the time working together on it. And then just showing that we're all trying to better ourselves and get to a better place. Your age really doesn't have anything to do with that.

Caroline: We acknowledge that there isn't a truth, a universal timeline, that everyone should be on. Kids learn to read at wildly different times, from very early to maybe 11 or 12 or so (I think that's the latest I've seen). We kind of throw that out the window and take at face value where the students are. I mean, they get there eventually. They learn to read, they learn enough practical math, they learn other things.

Daniel: We have two worlds. In one world, we're going to put together all the 15-year-old boys in one group. And we're going to set them to compete in everything: who's taller, who's stronger, who has the most beautiful girlfriend, who has the best car, who has the bigger house, who has better grades, who's best in the sports, and so on. So you create this toxic competitive environment within this group. What's going to happen? Obviously they're going to be pushing around everyone and trying to prove that they are better than the other one and make the others feel worse. If you do that, obviously there's going to be a lot of bullying and problems. That's a very toxic environment. So it's not about one person in that environment, it's the environment itself.

In this other world, you have people from all ages and everybody's enjoying what they're doing. And there's no competition that is pushed by anybody. They're just doing their own things. So imagine that a 15-year-old boy is walking through the hall, and he sees a 4-year-old girl that just fell to the floor and she's crying. Do you think that boy is gonna just laugh at her and say, oh, you deserve it, you're so blah, blah, blah, blah. Is he gonna trash her? Of course not. I have seen it every time. They will just get down on their knees and they will ask her, are you okay? Do you need help? How can I help you? And they will do something about it. That happens all the time. We don't give classes to the kids about civil rights and being a good human and ethics. We don't give speeches. They just have the opportunity to connect with their humanity and saying, I feel bad for that little girl. I want to help her. I put it in those terms of ages, but it happens the same for a 10-year-old girl helping a 12-year-old boy that has a cut in his arm and he's hurting and she wants to help him.

Then it also has a lot more advantages. One is that the little ones, or the less experienced ones in certain things or subjects, get inspired to do more things. And they get great teachers from all of them. Sometimes as you grow up, it's not very well seen that you still want to play with imagination and play games. Again, if you're in a group where everybody is judging each other in the same age, "you're such a little boy, you shouldn't do that, or you shouldn't cry, or you shouldn't laugh like that," and everything is suppressed... But if you are in this environment, you can so easily connect with any of the kids, and start running around and laughing and playing. It allows you to connect to what some people call their inner child.

There are so many amazing things about age mixing. The fears that people have about age mixing, like bullying, it's completely the other way around. The way to solve bullying is by getting rid of the age categorization and competition.