We have to be careful with words. It’s a miracle they ever mean the same thing to any two people. Often, they don’t. Words like “love,” “peace.” “trust,” “democracy” — everyone brings to these words a lifetime of experiences, a world view, and we know how rarely we have these in common with anyone else.

Take the word “class.” I don’t know what it means in cultures that don’t have schools. Maybe they don’t even have the word. To most people reading this, the word conveys a wealth of images: a room with a “teacher” and “students” in it, the students sitting at desks and receiving “instruction” from the teacher, who sits or stands before them. it also conveys much more: a “class period.” the fixed time when the class takes place: homework; a textbook, which is the subject matter of the class clearly laid out for all the students.

And it conveys more: boredom, frustration, humiliation, achievement, failure, competition.

At Sudbury Valley the word means something quite different.

At Sudbury Valley, a class is an arrangement between two parties. It starts with someone, or several persons, who decide they want to learn something specific – say, algebra, or French, or physics, or spelling, or pottery. A lot of times, they figure out how to do it on their own. They find a book, or a computer program, or they watch someone else. When that happens, it isn’t a class. It’s just plain learning.

Then there are the times they can’t do it alone. They look for someone to help them, someone who will agree to give them exactly what they want to make the learning happen. When they find that someone, they strike a deal: “We’ll do this and that, and you’ll do this and that — OK?” If it’s OK with all the parties, they have just formed a class.

Those who initiate the deal are called “students.” If they don’t start it up, there is no class. Most of the time, kids at school figure out what they want to learn and how to learn it all on their own. They don’t use classes all that much.

The someone who strikes the deal with the students is called a “teacher.” Teachers can be other students at the school. Usually, they are people hired to do the job. Teachers at Sudbury Valley have to be ready to make deals, deals that satisfy the students’ needs. We get a lot of people writing the school asking to be hired as teachers. Many of them tell us at length how much they have to “give” to children. People like that don’t do too well at the school. What’s important to us is what the students want to take, not what the teachers want to give. That’s hard for a lot of professional teachers to grasp. The class deals have all sorts of terms: subject matter, times, obligations of each party. For example to make the deal, the teacher has to agree to be available to meet the students at certain times. These times may be fixed periods: a half hour every Tuesday at 11:00AM. Or they may be flexible: “whenever we have questions, we’ll get together on Monday mornings at 10:00AM to work them out. If we have no questions, we’ll skip till next week.” Sometimes, a book is chosen to serve as a reference point. The students have their end of the deal to meet. They agree to be on time, for instance.

Classes end when either side has had enough of the deal. If the teachers find out they can’t deliver, they can back out — and the students have to find a new teacher if they still want a class. If the students discover they don’t want to go on, the teachers have to find some other way to occupy themselves at the appointed hour. There is another kind of class at school, from time to time. It happens when people feel they have something new and unique to say that can’t be found in books, and they think others may be interested. They post a notice: “Anyone interested in X can meet me in the Seminar Room at 10:30AM on Thursdays.” Then they wait. If people show up, they go on. If not, that’s life. People can show up the first time and, if there is a second time, decide not to come back.

I’ve done this kind of thing several times. The first session, I usually get a crowd: “Let’s see what he’s up to.” The second session, fewer come. By the end. I have a small band who are truly curious about what I have to say on the subject at hand. It’s a form of entertainment for them, and a way for me (and others) to let people know how we think. Excerpted from ‘The Sudbury Valley School’ by Daniel Greenberg