What happened to those who studied in a school without classes, without tests, and without grades

This article is not mine: it is a summary, in Portuguese, of a study by Peter Gray and David Chanoff. The research is theirs — published in the American Journal of Education in 1986, about what became of the graduates of Sudbury Valley School. My work here was to read the original article, summarize the findings, and translate the cited statements, because there was nothing of it in Portuguese. Everything that follows is the authors' conclusion, except for the last section, where I explain why I pursued this.

Sudbury Valley School opened in 1968 in Framingham, Massachusetts. It has no curriculum, compulsory classes, tests, grades, or report cards. Children decide what to do all day, from ages 4 to 19, and the school is governed by an assembly where every student and every staff member has exactly one vote.

The question every parent asks in the face of this is always the same: what then? Peter Gray, a professor of psychology at Boston College, and David Chanoff went after the answer: they sought out, one by one, the graduates from the school's first eleven years. It is the most cited study on the subject, and what follows is what they found.

How the study was conducted

Between June 1970 and June 1981, 82 people left the school as graduates — 78 with diplomas and 4 who left at age 16 or older without submitting a final thesis. The researchers located 76 of them and obtained responses from 69: 91% of those located, 84% of the total. There were 47 written questionnaires, 15 phone interviews, and 15 in-person interviews.

The graduates were divided into two groups: those who entered the school up to 6th grade (group 1, those who spent more time there) and those who entered from 7th grade onwards (group 2).

How much time they spent studying “subjects”

Little, and that's not a figure of speech: 29% of group 1 and 56% of group 2 reported not having taken any courses or tutoring at the school. When asked to estimate how much time they dedicated to recognizably academic activities, the average of the responses was 8%.

The results

Just over 50% went to college

They had completed or were enrolled in an undergraduate degree at the time of the research — 64% of group 1 and 47% of group 2. Another 25% had pursued some higher education without being enrolled in an undergraduate course.

86% and 54% entered selective colleges

This is the proportion of enrollments from group 1 (6 out of 7) and group 2 (13 out of 24) that occurred in one of the approximately 220 most selective institutions in the United States, according to the 1982 Fiske guide.

And with no academic transcript with grades

About half first entered a less selective college and then transferred, using their performance there as a credential. The rest entered directly, with SAT scores, letters of recommendation, and, in some cases, interviews or tests administered by the college itself. Among those who already had a bachelor's degree, six were in graduate school or already degree holders — two of them doctoral students, in theoretical physics and anthropology.

None regretted it

To the final question — “overall, are you glad you attended SVS instead of a more traditional school?” —, 56 answered “yes, very much,” 11 answered “yes, moderately,” 2 left it blank, and none answered that it would have been better not to have studied there.

And the disadvantages? The study also records them

This is the part often omitted by those who promote the school, and it is precisely what gives credibility to the rest. Of the 35 graduates in the college subgroup, 13 said the school disadvantaged them in some way: eight reported arriving weak in some academic area — mathematics was the most cited; three felt disadvantaged by not having an academic transcript when applying; and two said they felt intimidated at first, finding college very different from school. One of them delayed entry for a few years because of this.

The same 13, without exception, also answered that the school benefited them — and most made it clear that the benefit outweighed the disadvantage. In total, 32 out of 35 said the school benefited them for further studies. The two most cited reasons, each by about half of them: greater desire to continue learning, and the habit of being responsible for their own education.

What they worked as

Among the 69, careers spanned arts (15), health and caring professions (13), management and business (8), administrative work and sales (6), academic careers (5), applied science and technology (5), skilled trades (9), and various (8).

Half of the graduates in group 1 — those who spent more years at the school — pursued careers in the arts: an international company ballerina, a landscape photographer who supported himself with studio portraits, a ceramics apprentice, a rock musician, a pianist and arranger trained at a prestigious conservatory.

What they themselves said

“I am grateful to the school for the education it gave me about people, life, and coexistence. I am much more tolerant of those different from me. There, everyone is an individual. In public school, being different in any aspect is something to be avoided at all costs.”

“The discussion of democratic philosophy, especially the debates about individual responsibility, profoundly impacted me. I continue to strive to know what my responsibilities are and to fulfill them. And this, of course, has helped in all areas of my life.”

“I am happy to have gone and to have lived with those people, because it transformed me from a rebellious child into a person in control of my own life. I gained confidence to do whatever I want.”

What this study does not prove

The article is honest about its own limits, and anyone who cites it should be too. The sample is small and from only one school. The data is self-reported. The researchers had ties to the school and acknowledge in the text the risk of this influencing the responses. And, most importantly, the population is not random: 83% of respondents had at least one parent with a university degree. A family that chooses such a school is already an unusual family.

What the study allows to affirm is more modest — and yet remarkable: growing up without a curriculum, without tests, and without grades did not prevent these people from entering university, pursuing varied professions, or being at peace with their own education. The question “what then?” has, at least, a documented answer.

Original and full reading

Gray, P. & Chanoff, D. (1986). Democratic schooling: what happens to young people who have charge of their own education? American Journal of Education, 94(2), 182–213. doi.org/10.1086/443842

The full article, in English, is made available by the author himself in PDF, and has an entry in the Alliance for Self-Directed Education.

Who wrote what: the research, the numbers, and the conclusions are by Peter Gray and David Chanoff. This text is an original summary in Portuguese, written by me from the original article — it is not a translation of it, whose rights belong to the authors and the University of Chicago Press. The quoted excerpts are statements by the graduates cited in the article, in my free translation. If you read in English, read the original: it is better than any summary.

Why I summarized this

I am trying to gather a group to open such a school in Porto Alegre, and I started with the simplest step: a weekly meeting, in the same place and at the same time, for children to play freely, without organized activity. If this interests you — as a parent, as an educator, or out of curiosity — write to vladimir.brasil@gmail.com.

About the original school: sudburyvalley.org. The book that tells its daily life is Free at Last, by Daniel Greenberg — still without a Portuguese edition, and that's what we're trying to change.