Ben Rogers comment reflection

(as submitted to https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/38872073/posts/3712591092)

Please find paragraph 2 written by Libby Purves in The Times (December 12 2021) in the article entitled:

A telling experiment in childhood freedom: AS Neill’s Summerhill School in Suffolk has survived a century of change and anxious interference by the government

It is heady stuff and in the first years of parenthood few of us would gainsay it. We rejoice at a cheerfully grubby toddler in a sandpit learning basic physics and material science, making private aesthetic decisions and (if accompanied by teddy and a bucket of water) probably experimenting with the basics of drama and storytelling. Sometimes we wish it could stay like that: a blissful, undirected private discovery of the world under loving eyes. But we also need children to learn facts and understand ideas, fit into society and earn a living. For most parents, especially now that two pay packets are usually needed to house a family, there must be school. And schooling is an inexact science. No generation has ever got it inarguably right: even the most altruistic and earnest of educators make mistakes, leave scars, stunt or fail to seed good qualities. And the ghost of Neill is always with us, murmuring that every attempt to impose order might be a malign interference.

Certainly, whilst playing with my one year old twin grandkids, I can relate to the beginning of this, but I now appreciate your point of view more as I see how Libby develops her argument — though there is a twist at the end.