One time when I was in grade 12 we had to do a presentation on a theme based off of our two independent novels so I chose the generic theme of freedom. I began my presentation by asking people to place a dash on a scale of 0-10 (0 not free and 10 is very free)I drew on the chalkboard of how free they feel. It was a really good visual to see how free people felt. Most of the dashes were around the 6 mark.
I asked the class some leading questions and the one leading question was "Where do you feel the least free?" the class almost immediately responded with saying "school". I astounded my english teacher.
As a teacher I would think it would seem quite frightening to hear this. At first it does not seem like a big deal but in the terms of liberal education it becomes an enormous deal that students feel the least free in school.
Liberal education means questioning everything. Putting everything up for question and allowing freethinking to happen. If people do not feel free in a classroom, liberal education is not going to flow easily.
If there is a place for voicing your opinion and bouncing ideas off of other people, school should be this place. Especially high school. High school is when people are figuring out the world and who they are and who they will be in the world and if they are spending 8 hours a day in a building that doesn't have an atmosphere that encourages freedom of ideas or freedom in general we are just going to mass-produce chunks of people and not individuals.
Although, is this not what we are doing with the world? Creating stereotypes for people to fall into in order to better classify the earth, especially in the terms of consumerism and culture.
Anyways, I have a theory on why students feel the least amount of freedom in school.
1) Too many rules. High school is filled with a bunch of useless rules that intimidates students. For example: not wearing hats in the halls. This rule is so useless and I am pretty sure the only reason it is still around is because it gives authority figures a reason to assert their authority. This leads me to my 2nd point.
2) Too much authority. Obviously for safety reasons teachers and principals need to have a degree of authority over students but when a student walks into a classroom where they are instructed lessons and not encouraged to join in conversation equally with their teacher and classmates, they are not going to be successful in thinking freely. I had an amazing teacher once who was able to do both assert her authority over the class while also encouraging class participation. How? She didn't take bullshit and had a tough exterior but was also understanding and showed a great deal of compassion. She was also passionate about her subject she was teaching. She encouraged conversation by refusing to continue until people replied to her questions. She used group-work more than once a week to encourage classroom relationships. She wouldn't force you to work but would encourage it. It was the perfect amount of authority.
Anyways. This is just what I think. We need freedom in classrooms to be able to actually learn without bias. This is the gold nugget all teachers should strive to capture in each and all of their lessons, classes, days, and in their career. It is very important that students both get the factual material but also are given the chance to speculate it freely.
What do you think? Do you agree with my theory? What do you think about freedom in schools/classrooms?
I'd love to hear in the comment section!
I asked the class some leading questions and the one leading question was "Where do you feel the least free?" the class almost immediately responded with saying "school". I astounded my english teacher.
As a teacher I would think it would seem quite frightening to hear this. At first it does not seem like a big deal but in the terms of liberal education it becomes an enormous deal that students feel the least free in school.
Liberal education means questioning everything. Putting everything up for question and allowing freethinking to happen. If people do not feel free in a classroom, liberal education is not going to flow easily.
If there is a place for voicing your opinion and bouncing ideas off of other people, school should be this place. Especially high school. High school is when people are figuring out the world and who they are and who they will be in the world and if they are spending 8 hours a day in a building that doesn't have an atmosphere that encourages freedom of ideas or freedom in general we are just going to mass-produce chunks of people and not individuals.
Although, is this not what we are doing with the world? Creating stereotypes for people to fall into in order to better classify the earth, especially in the terms of consumerism and culture.
Anyways, I have a theory on why students feel the least amount of freedom in school.
1) Too many rules. High school is filled with a bunch of useless rules that intimidates students. For example: not wearing hats in the halls. This rule is so useless and I am pretty sure the only reason it is still around is because it gives authority figures a reason to assert their authority. This leads me to my 2nd point.
2) Too much authority. Obviously for safety reasons teachers and principals need to have a degree of authority over students but when a student walks into a classroom where they are instructed lessons and not encouraged to join in conversation equally with their teacher and classmates, they are not going to be successful in thinking freely. I had an amazing teacher once who was able to do both assert her authority over the class while also encouraging class participation. How? She didn't take bullshit and had a tough exterior but was also understanding and showed a great deal of compassion. She was also passionate about her subject she was teaching. She encouraged conversation by refusing to continue until people replied to her questions. She used group-work more than once a week to encourage classroom relationships. She wouldn't force you to work but would encourage it. It was the perfect amount of authority.
Anyways. This is just what I think. We need freedom in classrooms to be able to actually learn without bias. This is the gold nugget all teachers should strive to capture in each and all of their lessons, classes, days, and in their career. It is very important that students both get the factual material but also are given the chance to speculate it freely.
What do you think? Do you agree with my theory? What do you think about freedom in schools/classrooms?
I'd love to hear in the comment section!
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