08/04/2025
Just imagine for a moment that you’re in an alternative universe.
In this world, children and young people are not compelled to stay at school. Imagine they could say, this isn’t for me, and there would be other places they could go with supportive adults who would help them do the things that mattered to them. This wouldn’t mean no education, but it would mean that they were enabled to learn in different ways.
We’d no longer be able to compel them to attend, and so we’d be forced to look at what is important to them and what they enjoyed. We’d be forced to ask, what do young people of this age value and how do they learn best? We could no longer say, all 6-year-olds must do this, because the 6-year-olds would have a say. They could vote with their feet. We could prioritise providing opportunities for many safe choices.
Oddly, there is a place in our education system where the children can get up and go as they please. They can go outside, or they can move onto a different activity. They aren’t made to stay in the sand pit if they would prefer to do a puzzle. It’s Early Years.
In good nurseries and reception classes, we enable our 3 and 4 year olds to make choices about how they spend their time. We provide activities based on their interests. We build relationships and help them feel safe.
And then, we spend the next 10 years prioritising compliance. With the result that by the time they are 14 even suggesting that they could go to the toilet when they want to results in scepticism that this could be workable. Surely they would abuse the privilege? We don’t allow our teenagers to choose what they wear, how they spend their time or what they want to learn. Their choices are often only compliance, rebellion or refusal. We don’t allow them to go outside when they want to. We say it would lead to mayhem.
What have we done to them in those years since they were those 3 and 4 year olds who could move around the space independently without disaster? What has happened, that they now must be kept in their desks unless permission is given to move?
Could it be that we have not given them the space to develop the skills they need to behave responsibly? Could it be that we have not spent the time nurturing their capacity to make decisions and now they don’t know what to do with any freedom to choose? We know that brain development is experience-dependent. Being controlled is not the same thing as self-control, and in order to learn to skills of self-control, you need opportunities to do exactly that. Lots and lots of them. And opportunities to make choices that matter to you, which make a difference to your life.
Whenever I mention this thought experiment, it quickly exposes the deep distrust of young people in our society. Adults say ‘Well they’ll never choose to do maths’, or ‘They’ll get into trouble’, or ‘They’ll choose to do nothing’. Fear of what they would do if we allowed them choices is used to justify control. The alternative is SO BAD, we’re told, that we just have to make them do what they’re told. It’s for their own good. The only other option is disaster.
Except we know from young people who have never gone to school that self-directed teenagers choose to do all sorts of things, set goals and work hard. They choose to learn physics, languages, musical instruments, coding, maths, handwriting, novel-writing, chemistry and art - and those are just in my direct experience. I’ve been told of many more things which teenagers choose to learn.
They choose to take exams too, and to go onto formal higher education. And before you say, well they are a privileged group, self-directed teenagers are a group with a very high level of SEND. Many of them have a history of difficulties in school.
Most of us have no idea what could really happen if we gave our teenagers the space to make decisions. But we can clearly see in front of us the consequences of not doing so.
Might it be time to try something different?
