Are Schools Too Controlling?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses the criticism that schools are overly controlling and how structure actually helps students develop the self-control they need for the real world.
Key Takeaways
- Structure builds self-control - Students develop self-discipline through practice within structured environments, not by being left to figure it out alone
- The 'real world' argument is flawed - Loosening school rules doesn't prepare students for adulthood; learning to meet expectations does
- Schools face criticism from both directions - Critics say schools are too controlling while also expecting schools to solve behavioral problems
Transcript
Are schools too controlling?
I've heard this concern lately, especially from British parents who say that their schools are controlling too much about the student experience and not giving kids room to be kids and to, you know, express themselves.
And, you know, certainly that's a longstanding criticism of British schools and probably applies to some extent to American schools as well.
And I think there are very good reasons to be very, very strict about things like violence and disruption that kind of ruin school for everybody.
But there are lots of things that we could be strict about, that we could be controlling about, but don't necessarily have to.
And we have some kind of latitude on those issues.
And I wonder what you think.
more generally about this issue of strictness and the idea of control.
Because like, to me, I want students to leave school in control of themselves.
I want them to have learned how to regulate themselves, how to manage themselves, how to organize their time, you know, manage their time, use that well.
get their work done, get their work turned in.
To some extent, what we're doing in school is we're giving students the opportunity to demonstrate responsibility and independence.
Part of that opportunity for demonstration is just the natural consequences of not doing that.
If you are a very young child, your teacher will make sure that everybody in your class does their work, turns it in.
If work is missing, that's not really the child's fault.
As you get older though, you bear more responsibility for that.
If you're a senior, and you don't turn in your math homework or your math test or whatever, then that's kind of on you.
And if you get a zero for it, that's kind of on you.
You can check your grades online.
There are lots of ways that you take on that responsibility over time.
And I think that control, again, needs to not be adult micromanagement of things that our students need to be able to take control of for themselves in order to be adults, right?
We have to never forget The purpose of schooling is to produce adults who are ready to be adults, to be people who are capable of going out into the world.
If we're micromanaging every aspect of students' lives, in an age-inappropriate way, then they're not going to be ready to go out into the world.
So I think there's really something to this control argument.
But I also think we have to not take that argument too far and say, well, any adult expectations are just coercive and oppressive and carceral.
I'm like, well, okay, no, that's not the case.
Do I think kids should get to go to the bathroom when they need to?
Yes.
Do I think everybody in the school should just be able to roam the halls all day because they say they have to go to the bathroom and they feel like not being in class?
No, I think we have to be reasonable about these kind of things and, you know, and have, you know, adults responsible for safety and order and keeping kids where they're supposed to be.
You know, and when it comes down to things like, you know, the student leaving the room, we had a little bit of a debate about, you know, if my child wants to leave the room, the teacher better not try to stop them.
And, you know, there are different schools of thought on that, depending on the age of the student and the risk of that student, you know, running out into traffic and things like that.
And I think, again, we're responsible as adults.
We're responsible for kids when they're in our care, but we're also responsible for turning them into adults over time who are capable of taking care of themselves.
And I feel like a lot of the voices calling for schools to be less controlling don't really have an end point in mind.
They just want all control to go away.
And they're not really thinking, is this going to result in an education for my child that allows them to become a responsible adult?
they really just want this kind of like, I don't know, free play, Waldorf style, like you can do Waldorf kindergarten.
I'm not sure you can do that.
And there probably are Waldorf schools, but you know, they go all the way up.
But like at some point, part of being an adult is learning how to operate in structures that you don't control, right?
Like if you want to get credit for the AP physics exam, you don't get to just make up your own rules for how to do it.
You have to take the test in the way that you're supposed to.
If you wanna go to college and pass college classes, if you wanna get a job, like there are lots of things where you have to learn to navigate other people's systems.
And I think we need to not be ridiculous about that in K-12, but I also don't think we're doing students a disservice by giving them practice at doing that.
Let me know what you think and let me know what examples come to mind for you.