We congratulate the winner of the 2010 Mary Langman Prize Essay Competition who is Sumi Hollingworth. Read her essay below.

The relevance of the Peckham Experiment in the 21st Century: community empowerment and education

For many of us, the experience of Peckham was a unique laboratory of anarchy, it was a study of the living structure of society, exploring principles of organisation, applicable not only to health but to every aspect of social welfare… (Ward 1985, cited in Goodway, 2007)

The intention of this essay is to discuss the implications of the Peckham Experiment, and the philosophy of the Pioneer Health Centre at Peckham, specifically for the organisation of formal education in the UK. As Colin Ward highlighted, the work of the centre does not simply have implications for health and the health care system but much wider relevance to social welfare- indeed how we organise welfare today. Really quite pioneering for its time, the Peckham Experiment preached a holistic approach to wellbeing, not a hundred miles away from the policies of New Labour with their promotion of ‘joined up’ services and their focus on ‘one-stop shops’ to encompass all the families’ needs. I argue that what is missing from current welfare policy (and for the purposes of this essay, education policy) is an understanding of the importance of individual autonomy, and the capacity for community and collective self-organisation, as realised by Dr Scott Williamson through the Peckham Experiment. Lessons could be learnt for how we more successfully implement social policy, and organise communities and the education of their members.

I begin the essay by outlining the aspects of the Peckham experiment that I believe have significance to the realm of education and how education and welfare is organised (if indeed education can be separated off from other aspects of life in this way). I then go on to demonstrate the relevance and application to school based education, using examples from libertarian approaches to education. The third part of the essay entertains the implications of the Pioneer Health Centre as a model for New Labour’s Extended Schools programme, Family Learning and the implementation of welfare policy more broadly.

The Peckham Experiment and the ‘maintenance of autonomy’

The Pioneer Health Centre, open in 1935 in its own purpose-built premises, was an experiment in preventative health and in family and community regeneration (Gruffudd, 2001). It resembled (not what we might recognise today as a health centre or clinic but) a leisure centre of sorts, but much more than a leisure centre. Its’ founders, biologists, Dr Innes Pearse and Dr George Scott Williamson, stressed the importance of environment for humans to develop happily and healthily and believed that they could provide an environment in which people could develop physically, mentally and socially; thus preventing illness (rather than focusing on treating illness after it has occurred). Well before the introduction of the welfare state, Pearse and Williamson set up the centre with charitable funding, and it provided a space and facilities for the local people of Peckham. It included a large swimming pool; a gymnasium; a theatre; a recreational area for darts, billiards, table tennis; various spaces for flexible use such as for dancing or social meetings; outside space; a covered play area; a nursery; an organic garden and a cafeteria. Local families were the target group and they paid a membership fee to attend. Most significantly, in addition, all members were provided with regular medical checks. The centre was a unique social experiment in that the doctors running the centre were able to monitor the actions, activities and health of the members.

Alison Stallibrass (1989) in her study of the Peckham Experiment sets out what she sees as the five essential conditions of the experiment that, in her opinion, were vital to its success:
1.Periodic medical examination
2.Family and local membership
3.Financial contributions by members of the centre
4.The building
5.The maintenance of autonomy

In this essay I focus specifically on this last condition and its relevance for the organisation of communities today. By ‘the maintenance of autonomy’, what Stallibrass is referring to is the individual freedom that members were given in the centre- what Williamson, the founder, called the freedom of the individual and his environment (in ibid). People had free run of the building and could do whatever activity they chose, or, importantly, could choose to do nothing. As she rightly points out, ‘a person is not free if he feels obliged to be engaged in activity’ (Stalibrass, 1989: 45). There was no professional leadership as such; activities were taken up spontaneously (see Stallibrass 1989: 43).

Stallibrass refers to this ‘maintenance of autonomy’ as a ‘sort of anarchy’i. Contrary to the populist understanding of anarchy, this did not mean promotion of a lack of organisation and an endorsement of chaos, but the freedom of members to self-organise. An organic approach to community development and organising was advocated, where activity was ‘neither ‘planned’, nor ‘reconstructed’ but living’ (Pearse and Crocker, 1944:298 cited in Gruffudd, 2001: 404). For this reason, it was widely believed that this approach, along with the mechanism whereby families paid a membership fee to attend, gave ownership of the centre (and the goings that went on there) to the people, and for this reason, it is argued, engendered a real sense of community.

Pearse and Williamson’s rationale behind this was that:
‘Individuals, from infants to old people, resent, or fail to show any interest in anything initially presented to them through discipline, regulation or instruction, which is another aspect of authority.’ (Williamson and Pearse, 1938:38 cited in Stalibrass, 1989:45)

While this may be a slight exaggeration, it does not detract from the fact that the alternative: of ‘merely providing an environment rich in instruments for action-that is giving a chance to do things’ (ibid) appeared to be a valuable method. In this environment, they hypothesised that, ‘slowly but surely these chances are seized upon and used as opportunity for development’ (ibid).

Fairly anarchic principles of self-direction; self-service; and self-organising were built into the design of the centre in the self service cafeteriaii and flexible facilities to be adapted to suit purposes, but also this underpinned the governance of the centre, which was essentially ‘bottom up’ or ‘grassroots’. Stallibrass claimed there was little to distinguish members from staff -rules and regulations were actually restricted. Williamson was noted to have said: ‘I am the only person with authority and I use it only to prevent anybody from using authority over anybody else’ (cited in Stallibrass, 1989:53).

Ultimately self-organisation and co-operation ensued. People formed their own clubs such as billiards; and collective activities such as badminton, boxing, tap-dancing. They organised, rehearsed and ran theatre productions and shared skills such as dressmaking, woodwork, first aid (Goodway, 2007). Indeed, there were occasions when certain members called for a more hierarchical structure and centralised management in response to organisational difficulties arising, but this was discouraged by Williamson and his colleagues and self-organisation won out.

Libertarian education and the importance of children’s autonomy

One of the most striking findings of the Peckham Experiment was that this ‘maintenance of autonomy’ or ‘anarchic’ governance appeared to work with the children too. Scott Williamson wanted to extend the opportunity for freedom and self-direction to the children of the centre as well as the adults (Goodway, 2007). Similar principles to those of the Peckham experiment have been applied in educational settings with children, though only a small number of remote cases, which I shall discuss here, making comparisons to the Peckham case.

A key example given in the literature about the Peckham Experiment is that when the centre reopened in 1946 the children and teenagers started to run riot throughout the building. The doctors ‘put this down to hysteria as a reaction to the claustrophobia caused by school and cramped housing conditions’ (Williamson, cited in Gruffudd, 2001:414) but also the centre was short of equipment after the war. The adults urged for disciplinary measures but Williamson ‘insisted that order would eventually be implemented by the children themselves’ when equipment arrived and they responded to the ‘stimuli’ (Goodway, 2007). According to the literature (Stallibrass, 1989; Gruffudd, 2001) this is indeed what happened. When equipment arrived, the children eventually settled down and occupied themselves.

Another example given is that the children originally were unable to use the pool and gym unsupervised but when the centre allowed the children to use them (by operating a ticket system whereby they were assessed by an adult to use the equipment according to their ability), they complied and order ensued. Crocker (cited in Stallibrass, 1989:47) claimed that even the swimming bath lacked appeal if it involved instruction- children resisted this and didn’t turn up to lessons. So they allowed the children to enter according to their ability using the ticketing system, and children preferred to teach themselves. The same situation was seen in the Gymnasium: the children were resistant to instruction, but when they introduced the game ‘shipwrecked’ the children learnt to use the apparatus themselves. They ‘worked individually at devising new skills and actions’ and ‘they practiced their acrobatic skills for hours on end, using the equipment to suit their needs.’ (Stallibrass, 1989:49).

Williamson found that left to their own devices, the children took this autonomy to the extreme wanting to choose what to do from minute to minute – not days or weeks in advance. This, Stallibrass argues is a good model for how to learn. The argument is that the children continually responding to the changing circumstances of their surroundings, and at the same time, their learning needs’ (Stallibrass, 1989:50). This is truly self-directed learning, and –she argues- when left un-interfered with, happens organically.



This truly self-directed learning resulted in children able to concentrate on their own learning and learn at their own pace, as opposed to a school based scenario when their learning is being constantly watched/ recorded/ monitored and external target-bound. By operating in this way, the children’s learning was not influenced by what they thought of the instructor or the teacher (Stallibrass, 1989:64). They were not pushing themselves to attain a standard set by someone else, nor were they trying to compete with other children. Stallibrass claimed ‘it seemed that they were doing what was deeply satisfying to them’ (1989:215).

Summerhill School open 1921 by A.S Neill, still running today, and now based in Suffolk, operates a similar philosophy to the Peckham Experiment: that children learn best with freedom from coercion. All lessons are optional, and pupils are free to choose what to do with their time: what the prospectus calls ‘intelligent choice’. ‘[…] students must decide each day how they will use their time…they can play, they can involve themselves in a variety of constructive social situations, they can be by themselves to read or daydream, they can engage in self-directed group projects and activities, and they can choose to attend formal lessons… each day the children define themselves by choice and action…this is a profound experience that leads to a strong sense of personal agency and self knowledge.’iii

The school criticises the current compulsory education system which is too target and testing driven.iv The organisation and management of the school, as well as its approach to learning, is also non-authoritarian and democratic- the running of the school is conducted in the school meetings, which anyone, staff or pupil, may attend, and at which everyone has an equal vote (Ofsted, 2007).

Another UK school which in some respects echoed the philosophy of the Peckham biologists was Risinghill School in North London running a short life from 1960-65. The status quo at the time that Risinghill School was reacting against was corporal punishment. Duane (the Head) felt that an authoritarian approach to discipline was counterproductive. Parallels can be drawn with writings about the Peckham Experiment in the understanding that children living in cities are so restricted in their movements that a place and space for free expression (or as Leila Berg refers to it, ‘larking about’ (1968:13)) free from authoritarian measures is necessary. Berg, writing about Risinghill, claims: ‘the aim was self-discipline: not authoritarian, imposed from above by more powerful adults, but collective, and the few general rules there were, had been arrived at after discussion with the children and evolved from their common experience’. Duane advocated no corporal punishment because the aims were to ‘free the children from the distortions caused by fear’ in order ‘to help them acquire self confidence and the ability to live harmoniously’ (1968:31).

Leila Berg describes a very similar process entered into as to that described by onlookers to the Peckham Experiment in which initially faced with an absence of authority, children misbehave, but that gradually with time, they plateau. She cites an article in Punch about the school in which the headmaster claimed: ‘you go through a period of sheer chaos with each incoming batch […] the children don’t believe there is no cane. They have to test your statement. They shout and yell and fight […] you have to stand there […] and you have to go on talking and whatever happens keep your temper. […] when the children grasp the fact that there really isn’t any cane they calm down. […] they get tired of chaos eventually and then you can start to talk to them like reasonable human beings. It works in the end.’ (Berg, 1968:153)

The article continued ‘The school was orderly –the children appeared to be usefully employed and not carving up each other or the staff’ (in ibid).

Similar to Summerhill School democratic policies were implemented. Now rising in popularity in schools, Risinghill was one of the first state schools to run a school council consisting mainly of pupils. Berg argues ‘Risinghill had more discussions than any school I know’ (1968:104). This, she argued, gave them more a cooperative environment and a feeling of it being ‘our school’ among staff and students (ibid: 29).

One might ask how productive these non-authoritarian, self-directed approaches to education have been. Stallibrass (1989:199) claims that, at the Pioneer Health Centre there was indeed evidence of a development in the children’s skills and learning over time. It was noted, that this approach was even successful in drawing in others less enthusiastic or reticent-‘gradually the spectators became also doers’ (Stalibrass, 1989:45). Children engaged in activities which enabled the development of their own talents and interests-physical, intellectual and social.

At Risinghill, a ‘sink’ London comprehensive school the improving exam results spoke for themselves: In 1960 only 18 pupils were entered for O Levels and 5 passed. By 1964, 80 pupils were entered and 42 passed. 3 took A levels and 2 went to university. Further, in 1960, 98 pupils were involved with the law and were on probation; in 1964 this was only 9. (Berg, 1968:211)

In 1999, Summer Hill School was threatened with closure by the government’s school inspection body, Ofsted, due to its policy of non-compulsory lessons. This led to a court case at the independent schools tribunal but the government’s case fell apart and a settlement was agreed. The 2007 Ofsted report recognised for the first time, the schools’ right to its philosophy and confirmed that ‘The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of the pupils is outstanding’ and their progress satisfactory.’v

Wider implications: ‘joined up services’, extended schools and family learning

The autonomous nature of the way the Pioneer Health Centre was run was in part responsible for its closure – it was based in autonomous administration, not the centralised administration of the National Health Service (NHS), and it charged its members to attend, which did not fit the NHS model. Despite efforts, the centre was not subsumed into the new National Health Service (NHS), and in 1951 the centre closed. The centre was essentially seen by its critics as in opposition to state provision of health care (Gruffudd, 2001:404). Retreat from state provision is often automatically conceived of by the liberal left as embodying the evils of privatisation: putting the wellbeing of communities into the hands of profit-making companies that do not have their true interests at heart. However, through this essay I hope I have opened up the possibility of conceiving of an alterative model.

It is possible, and has been argued by some, that the centralised administration and control of public welfare, not just the NHS, but education, social security and housing, restricts autonomy, community self-organising and some say, consequently self-respect (Esping-Andersen, 2003), never mind community cohesion (Goodway, 2007; Ward, 1966). Goodway argues that the formation of the welfare state was responsible more widely for the erosion of spontaneous human associations; working class self-organisation and mutual aid (for example, cooperatives, trades unions, and working class self-education). Citing Buber, he argues that ‘the tradition of fraternal and autonomous associations springing up from below’ has been successively displaced by one of ‘authoritarian institutions directed from above’ (Goodway, 2007).

Today, Eileen Conn, in her forthcoming work, argues that this is an inherent problem with current government attempts at community engagement (or lack thereof) (Conn 2009). The hierarchical, bureaucratic, centralised institutions of the state are at best, disconnected, and at worst in opposition to, the very nature of voluntary and cooperative grassroots organisations. As Williamson advocated, people are not best motivated through rules and regulation from ‘above.’ This is perhaps the problem with community ‘cohesion’ today- the centralised welfare state has removed the opportunities for self-direction and self-organising.

So what could an alternative model of welfare look like today? As I highlighted in the introduction, the ideals of the Peckham Experiment are at least in part, mirrored in some New Labour welfare policy. The government has recognised the need for more ‘joined up’ services and is developing a more holistic approach to health, education and wellbeing. Specifically with regard to children, the Every Child Matters government framework aims to develop ‘joined up services’ dealing with a child’s wellbeing, such as education, the health service, social services, youth work, benefits agency and the justice system, which previously lacked communication and coordination between them. The framework also has parallels with the Peckham experiment in its preventive approach: as the Every Child Matters document argues: ‘The services that reach every child and young person have a crucial role to play in shifting the focus from dealing with the consequences of difficulties in children’s lives to preventing things from going wrong in the first place.’ (DfES, 2004:3).

For the purposes of this essay I would like to use the example of the current governments’ Extended Schools programmevii, as an example of New Labour attempts at implementing holistic organisation. However, I argue that what is crucially missing, that we can learn from the Peckham Experiment, is the capacity for community self-organisation.

Like the Pioneer Health Centre, extended schools provide services and facilities outside of school hours for children, their families and the local community. These include childcare, social and leisure activities and support for learningviii. The services and activities proposed by extended schools include academically-focused activities (e.g. extra tuition), homework clubs, arts and creative activities, sports activities, and other recreational activities, including play. These services for children are combined with childcare, parenting support, adult education and community access to school facilities (see DCSF, 2008).

The Pioneer Health Centre was said to occupy a ‘zone of mutuality’ between the family, the home and society (Williamson, cited in Gruffudd, 2001:404) and extended schools are charged with similar principles. The Children’s plan cites ‘a new role for schools at the centre of their communities’ (Children’s Plan, 2007:3) similar to how Stallibrass accentuates the Pioneer Health Centre as ‘in the community’ and not ‘shut away in an artificial world of its own’ (Stallibrass, 1989). The extended schools agenda has been charged with the task to ‘involve parents fully in their children’s learning, help to make sure that young people have interesting and exciting things to do outside of school, and provide more places for children to play safely.’ (DCSF, 2007:2) One aim of extended services is for education to have ‘a close relationship with health and social care’ (DCSF, 2008: 2). The idea is that health and family support services are keyed into extended schools in an integrated approach. There are clear parallels here with the philosophy of the Peckham Experiment: a place for children and families to go, to relax, to learn, to play, with the philosophy that this will improve family wellbeing.

To take an example aspect of extended schools provision, Family Learning is at the heart of the extended schools agenda. Common is providing accredited adult education classes, family literacy and numeracy, and family learning with ICTix. However, this tends to be formal structured provision, delivered by an accredited tutor or facilitator, and not self-directed and collaborative.

I argue that current family learning provision has a lot to learn from the Peckham Experiment in its approach to enable family learning but through organic means. In the Pioneer Health Centre there was an absence of the generation divide. However, in extended schools ‘family’ and ‘adult’ learning stands outside of children’s formal learning as an ‘add on’. At the Pioneer Health Centre adults as well as the children used the centre equally and were both engaged in amusing themselves, growing and learning, in autonomous and unstructured ways. The literature suggests that people in the centre tended to share skills and talents rather than ‘leaders’ taking over. And for all at the centre, being able to watch others develop their skills and learning was an important aid to their own learning and motivation (Stallibrass 1989). According to Stallibrass the Centre children had a great educational advantage from this. They had the experience of being a useful member of the group-participating voluntarily in shared activity, experiencing cooperation, contributing, as well as learning valuable skills. Also Stallibrass (1989) argued it gives children a range of role models –and choice of role models- who are going about their real lives, rather than just a select few, operating in more contrived situations, such as teachers and trained leaders, who are also in positions of power over children.

An evaluation of the extended schools programme so far found ‘schools commonly experienced better relations with local communities and an enhanced standing of the school in its area’ (Cummings et al, 2007:3). However, I argue the fundamental ‘top down’ nature of the initiative and its hierarchical structure will hinder its success. A recent policy document about extended schools claims, ‘What is offered will depend on what parents, children and young people want following ongoing consultation, together with needs identified in the school improvement plan’ and. ‘services need to be shaped by and responsive to children, young people and families, not designed around professional boundaries’ (DCSF, 2007:5) however, despite a rhetoric of community, family and child-centeredness, the approach is still based around fairly formal structured activities run by professionals.

Conclusions
In this essay I have focused on the anarchic principle of the ‘maintenance of autonomy’, followed by the Pioneer Health Centre. I have attempted to demonstrate that in the 21st century, we could learn from this style of community organising and that this could be applied to the way in which we organise welfare more broadly, but also to inform our current approach to how we educate people.

With regards to the education of children, I have shown the possibilities for an educational approach which gives children autonomy over their own learning, allowing them to direct their own learning and to choose when, what and how they learn, free from compulsion. As I hope I have demonstrated from the example of the Pioneer Health Centre, Risinghill and Summerhill school, children can respond well to being given responsibility over their own learning and can make progress.

Central to the principle of ‘autonomy’ is its non-authoritarian nature. It follows that self-directed learning is also joined by self-directed governance. In Summerhill school and Risinghill school, a flat, cooperative and democratic structure in which children have not only responsibility for their own individual learning, but collectively their school, can enable empowerment and ownership.

I argue that this is what is missing from current understanding of community development and community engagement: that a hierarchical, centralised system is unable to offer true empowerment and ownership as the presence of authority and an authoritarian structure makes individual choice and autonomy tokenistic. While the extended schools agenda is a welcome recognition of the need for holistic, joined-up services and organisation of education, health and wellbeing – one which brings together the needs of whole communities, the ‘top down’ nature of its structure and implementation hinders real community empowerment and the learning opportunities this brings. What we can learn from the Peckham Experiment is that coordination of welfare provision with more ‘bottom up’, ‘grassroots’ self-organisation is what breeds more responsible citizens, both adults and children.

References

Berg, Leila (1968) Risinghill: Death of a Comprehensive School London: Penguin

Conn, Eileen (2009) presentation at the European Conference on Complex Systems 2009, Putting Complexity to Work - Supporting the Practitioners, Warwick University 24th September.

Cummings, Colleen; Dyson, Alan; Muijs, Daniel; Papps, Ivy; Pearson, Diana; Raffo; Carlo; Tiplady, Lucy And Todd, Liz With Crowther, Deanne (2007) Evaluation Of The Full Service Extended Schools Initiative: Final Report London: DCSF

DCSF (2007) The Children’s Plan: Building Brighter Futures, TSO: Norwich

DCSF (2008) Extended Schools: Building on Experience, DCSF: Nottingham

DfES (2004) Every Child Matters: Change for Children, DfES: Nottingham

Esping-Andersen, Gosta (2003) Why we need a new welfare state, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Goodway, David (2007) Anarchism and the Welfare State: The Peckham Health Centre. History and Policy, 55: May http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-55.html accessed 28/2/10

Gruffudd, Pyrs (2001) Science and the stuff of life: Modernist Health Centres in 1930s London Journal of Historical Geography 27(3):395-416

Ofsted (2007) Summer Hill Inspection Report London: Ofsted

Shepherd, Jessica (2007) So, kids, anyone for double physics? (But no worries if you don't fancy it) The Guardian, Sat 1st December

Stalibrass, Alison (1989) Being Me and Also Us: Lessons from the Peckham Experiment Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press

Ward, Colin, (1966) Anarchism as a theory of organisation http://www.panarchy.org/ward/organization.1966.html