By Valerie S. Johnson
Imagine a school where there are no grades, classes, tests, or homework. Instead, the students, ages 5 to 15, can do whatever they want all day. The annual tuition is $10,000 although those who cannot afford it pay less. The students spend their mostly unstructured days playing video games, reading, doing yoga, filming horror movies, or observing others.
The Brooklyn Free School in New York, founded in 2004, "places the highest emphasis on the personal development of each student and seeks to minimize, or if possible eliminate completely, undue influence, pressure and stress that accrue from expectations on students to acquire the accepted wisdom of present day society or meet arbitrary standards, so that each child can become an independent learner and thinker."
"Free schools" were popular in the 1960s and 1970s but it is unknown how many still exist today. Proponents of these institutions claim that children learn by doing what interests them and working at their own pace, rather than having subjects forced on them. Based on studies of alumni of the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, it is claimed that students of democratic free education grow up to be "successful" adults.
Visit the
Brooklyn Free School's website for more information.
Attend a “Free School” for $10,000
