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Videos & More

FAQ

The Sudbury Approach to Education

Dignity - Intrinsic Motivation - Time Management - Lifelong Learning Habits - Curiosity - Creativity - Fulfillment

At The Miami Sudbury School, students are part of a 50 year history of innovation, intrinsic motivation, and independence. While all models share the goal of educating children, the Sudbury model achieves that goal in remarkably different ways:

• Sudbury is a unique learning environment that truly allows young people to practice self-drive, democratic decision making, and authentic socialization skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives in any academic, professional, or personal pursuit.
• Sudbury questions the conventionally-held idea that our children must be pressured to learn and achieve. 
• Sudbury seeks to support a child’s social, emotional, and cognitive development in a manner that more closely mirrors the natural course of their development.

The ability to choose the course of one’s day builds interior muscles in children that cannot be developed for that child by someone else. What may look like “just play” is so essential to personal and social development that studies are now published on a weekly basis challenging schools to reassess things like evaluation and homework. Why? Trying to fit young people into a mold that’s developmentally inappropriate for them is a recipe for anxiety, depression, or simply educational burnout. Our children deserve better, and we are delighted to offer better.

Since 1968, the Sudbury model of education has shown that children are capable of incredible things when we stop making them face a chalkboard (or even a “smart board”) and let them collaborate, create, question, and cultivate in an open yet supportive environment that is responsibly shared and truly their own. Through this unique methodology, Sudbury students around the world have become wildly successful academically, interpersonally, and entrepreneurially. ​​

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Self-Directed Education

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​As shown through research and historical evidence, human beings at every age make greater intellectual and emotional strides when allowed to pursue their own interests. While traditional schools are now widely regarded as the only way to learn, they go against the way people actually learn most effectively. There is a robust body of literature supporting self-directed education and the human instinct to learn. Please see our Library page for a few examples.

The Miami Sudbury School, along with other self-directed schools, hopes to normalize the kind of education that truly nurtures the human learning instinct, provides real skills that young people need today and in the future, and allows young people to learn authentically and deeply, developing into lifelong learners and leaders.

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History

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​Started 50 years ago in Sudbury Valley, Massachusetts, this time-tested model for innovative, student-owned learning is currently utilized in 80 schools found in 23 states and 11 countries around the world. 

The Sudbury model of self-directed education replaces the passive learning approach of "conform and perform" with active learning. The Sudbury style of education values curiosity, trial and error, interest-driven "play" in an accountable environment that does not place grade performance above process and experiential learning.

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After Graduation

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Sudbury graduates report higher levels of personal satisfaction than traditionally-schooled graduates, while maintaining exceptionally high levels of acceptance into top-tier universities along with high levels of entrepreneurial success.* Graduates attribute these positive benefits to years of experience in an environment that encourages personal accountability, fulfilling interpersonal relationships with a wide range of ages, and a freedom to pursue and develop their interests and passions.**

 Graduates also report experiencing a significant advantage when they start college. While they may need to catch themselves up in some content areas, most report feeling very capable of doing that and feeling very at ease with time management, having practiced that at their Sudbury School. Please visit our Library page for videos and podcasts featuring Sudbury graduates.
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​*Sudbury student outcomes http://www.educationfutures.org/outcomes.htm
**Sudbury alumni http://www.sudval.org/05_alumni.html