Freedom! As Americans, we cling to it, almost to the point of idolatry (I could take the word almost out of that sentence, actually). We write about it. We sing about it. We claim it dramatically on social media. But do we understand it? A quick search of the definition results in answers about lack of restraint or the ability to act without anyone controlling you.
There's got to me more to it than this, right? I mean, I appreciate that no one has put me in restraints, but is that really something to sing about? That's a definition built around a negative - from FROM something. There's got to be a deeper meaning for freedom, doesn't there - something that indicates freedom FOR something?
Where do you go for meaning beyond the definition? A philosophy site, of course. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, freedom is about acting in a way that allows you to achieve a fundamental purpose.
Okay, now we are talking, I like this. It allows me to look toward something and act in a way that can get me to that purpose. But, I think there might be some friction with the dictionary definition. If there are no restraints AT ALL, can I really act in a way that will allow me to achieve a purpose? Might the road to that purpose need some guardrails? I think it does. Let me give a few non-school examples before I get to the classroom implications.
Let's go with that last one. Church is a place where I have a purpose and would like to achieve it without restraint, right? My purpose - worship the Creator. What church would want to restrain that? Well . . . Let's think about what it would be like if every member decided to sing whatever song was in their heart at that moment or even if we all sang the same song but felt unrestrained when it comes to speed and rhythm. The resulting cacophony would not result in ANY of us achieving our purpose of worshiping the Creator. We need the restraints imposed by the musical director to actually achieve freedom in the sense of achieving purpose.
Playgrounds - Have you ever been on a playground without fences? You probably haven't. Maybe if you were Generation X (we were a bit feral), but even then, there was probably some limit - a tree line or some hedges to indicate a boundary. What's the purpose we want kids to achieve on the playground? Obviously, it is playing, freely engaging with other kids in games and physical activities.
For years, I've heard about a sociological study of playgrounds. I tried pretty hard to find the source, but I couldn't. That may be because it is referenced in so many places that those hits rise to the top and overwhelm the actual study. Or it could be because it is apocryphal. Who knows. Feel free to take it with a grain of salt, but as we say in the church, "It'll preach," so I'm going to use it anyway.
According to the story, researchers wanted to compare how kids behave with and without boundaries. So, they put kids on a playground that had no fence or boundary indicating where the playground ended. The kids huddled in the center of the area. They didn't explore or run around. They then erected a fence and put the same kids on the playground. The kids roamed about the space, running from corner to corner and playing throughout the entire space, including right up against the fence. Their conclusion was that the boundaries indicated where safety was. Without them, the kids didn't know where they were safe. With them, they knew they could go right up to a certain line and be fine.
Roadways - Driving was once thought of as the ultimate freedom; it's why teenagers were so keen on getting their license. While that has changed a bit, it's still a rite of passage the first time your parents hand you the keys to the car and you go out on your own or with your friends. My GenX purpose would have been to get to the mall; yours might be different.
Now, imagine you take the car to a place where the road has no rules. No speed limits or lane markings, no stop signs and intersections, and no expectation that all drivers will drive on the right side of the road (or the left if you live in one of those places). Does this imagine scenario make you feel free? "Whoo Hoo! We an get to the mall any way we want at any speed! Why even have a road? We can just go in a straight line from here to there!" Just thinking about it gives me a little anxiety. Far from freely achieving our purpose, we would be in the ultimate traffic jam, all cars pointed in a different direction and getting in each other's way.
So, it seems, complete lack of restraint doesn't lead to the deeper freedom of achieving a purpose, especially in a group setting where everyone's lack of restraint would interfere with that of the others in the group.
And now, we arrive at the education part of this blog. Classrooms are groups of people who want to achieve a purpose.
Rules: Some of the more hippy-dippy types in education world would have you believe classroom rules stifle creativity and limit learning. But it's actually the opposite. Just like the playground fence, classroom rules show students the area within which they can explore, both physically and academically. The kid who throws things at a classmate isn't being creative and free. He's taking away the freedom of others to achieve the class' purpose. A kid yelling things out in the middle of class may feel unrestrained himself, but he is restraining others.
Procedures and Routines: When everyone is on the same page about how class starts, you can immediately start achieving your purposes for the day. Without standardized procedures, you have kids hanging out in the hall, gathering around one desk to look at that one guy's phone, and asking, "What are we doing today?" If they know the procedure, however, most of them get started. You have to redirect a few, of course, but it is easier than the cat herding experience of getting the all going.
Assignment Guidelines and Limited Choice: If you just say "Do a project" to students, you won't get creativity. You'll get an overwhelmed child who doesn't know what to do next. Given a choice between three options, they'll choose one and start thinking of ideas for how to execute it. Given a choice of 300 things, they'll spend an entire class period staring at the list. The complete lack of restraint prevents them from achieving purpose rather than enabling creativity.
Memorized content: I know how many people think having kids memorize things is a horrifying use of their brain, especially in the age of instant access to information, yada yada yada. And of course, there are ways to make memorization torturous. But the truth is that having basic content already embedded in your brain enables creativity because you are able to use the freed up space in your working memory to make new connections within the content.
This is not just true of academic content. There are examples in fine arts classes as well. Dance allows you to express creative movement, but if you move in ways that are against "the rules" of your body, it will also allow to injure yourself in creative ways. You need to have those body rules memorized so your brain can access them DURING the movement. In a play, everyone needs to have the script memorized. There can then be creativity within that script for vocalization, blocking, facial expressions and body movement, but if everyone is "doing their own script," the purpose of putting on the play will not be achieved. The visual arts are restrained, in part, by the rules of chemistry. Certain paints simply don't mix. Attempting to mix them isn't creative; it's disastrous for your project.
As the school year starts and you go over your classroom guidelines, don't be afraid to boldly assert your rules. They may not align with the dictionary definition of freedom, but they enable to the deeper, truer definition. They allow students to achieve their purpose. And isn't that what we are there for?
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