"I'll tell you what the real problem is: These people are working under the assumption that they know better about what is good for kids, what kids need to learn to get ahead in this world"
About this Quote
The line cuts to the core of educational paternalism. It challenges the adult-as-expert narrative that organizes childhood around compliance, standardized curricula, and a narrow definition of success. The assumption that adults know best what children must learn to get ahead shrinks the purpose of education to credentialing and conformity. It treats students as objects of planning rather than subjects with agency, curiosity, and evolving interests.
Daniel Greenberg, cofounder of the Sudbury Valley School and a leading voice in democratic, self-directed education, argues that the future is too complex and unpredictable for any authority to prescribe a universal pathway. What counts as getting ahead is itself a moving target, shaped by culture, technology, and personal values. When adults impose a fixed map, they often produce obedient test-takers rather than self-directed learners who can ask good questions, take initiative, and adapt.
The deeper critique is epistemic and moral. Adults can share experience, offer resources, and protect safety, but they cannot inhabit a childs motivations or lived context. Treating experts assumptions as superior knowledge erodes trust and suppresses the signals children give about readiness, interest, and meaning. It also breeds a culture where external approval replaces intrinsic motivation, dulling curiosity and resilience.
A different stance requires humility. Instead of commanding outcomes, adults can cultivate environments rich in tools, mentors, play, mixed ages, and real responsibility. They can invite rather than compel, model rather than mandate, and treat children as citizens of the present, not apprentices to a deferred adulthood. Critics worry that freedom means drift, but Greenbergs model counters that genuine autonomy grows alongside accountability within a democratic community.
The real problem, then, is hubris masquerading as care. When authority loosens its grip, learning reverts to its natural form: self-propelled, social, and situated in life, not in a preset checklist of what it supposedly takes to get ahead.
Daniel Greenberg, cofounder of the Sudbury Valley School and a leading voice in democratic, self-directed education, argues that the future is too complex and unpredictable for any authority to prescribe a universal pathway. What counts as getting ahead is itself a moving target, shaped by culture, technology, and personal values. When adults impose a fixed map, they often produce obedient test-takers rather than self-directed learners who can ask good questions, take initiative, and adapt.
The deeper critique is epistemic and moral. Adults can share experience, offer resources, and protect safety, but they cannot inhabit a childs motivations or lived context. Treating experts assumptions as superior knowledge erodes trust and suppresses the signals children give about readiness, interest, and meaning. It also breeds a culture where external approval replaces intrinsic motivation, dulling curiosity and resilience.
A different stance requires humility. Instead of commanding outcomes, adults can cultivate environments rich in tools, mentors, play, mixed ages, and real responsibility. They can invite rather than compel, model rather than mandate, and treat children as citizens of the present, not apprentices to a deferred adulthood. Critics worry that freedom means drift, but Greenbergs model counters that genuine autonomy grows alongside accountability within a democratic community.
The real problem, then, is hubris masquerading as care. When authority loosens its grip, learning reverts to its natural form: self-propelled, social, and situated in life, not in a preset checklist of what it supposedly takes to get ahead.
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| Topic | Teaching |
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