Education and PDA at a Sudbury School: A Conversation With Bryer Newlin | Ep. 180

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What if a school had no mandatory classes, no grades, no homework, and no age segregation, and instead gave students a genuine vote in how the school runs? That is the Sudbury Democratic model, and it offers some real benefits for PDA children and teens. In this episode I speak with Bryer Newlin, a youth rights and disability justice advocate, self-identified PDA adult, and staff member at Clearwater School in Seattle. We talk about what it means to experience autonomy as a bodily sense, how equalizing behavior is translated in a school setting rather than punished, why clean up can be a can't rather than a won't, and what the misconception of no rules really misses about how democratic…