The Macomber Center is a home education resource center in Framingham, MA, for families interested in giving their children an opportunity to come together to socialize and learn. The Center follows a pedagogical model of free, democratic education, where children are natural learners and guide their own education. The values of responsibility, freedom and respect are at the core of this group. Visit the Macomber Center's website. You can find the original writings here and here.
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence” – Aristotle
When I speak with other people who share the unique experience of having gone to a democratic free school, what we end up talking about is not how it prepared us for success in adulthood – we take that as a given – but how grateful we are to have had such an idyllic, happy childhood; that we were free to spend every day doing just what we wanted.
People in the worlds of unschooling and progressive education spend a great deal of time arguing that these alternatives do an even better job preparing children for success than traditional education. This has, of course, been necessary in order to legitimize these alternative movements within the mainstream. But it leaves intact the basic assumption that childhood is merely a means to an end, that the purpose of childhood is to prepare for adulthood. But childhood, just like all of life, is to be lived fully and enjoyed.
