Freedom in Education

“If human life had been left to reveal itself, there would be no need to consider the question of education.”

“Education, free from outer interference, would flow as normally through human life as the sun, moon and stars move on their way so fulfill their use and destiny.”

“If it is not creative it cannot educate.”

“Unhappy is the soul who has never felt the urge to create.”

“Unhappy is the soul that does not reproduce itself like a tree flower in the springtime.”

“When adults insist on blocking the individual’s path by trying to focus his attention on the thing or program that they have provided to further, as they think, his growth and development, he, in self-defense, must struggle, at all and any costs, to save himself.”

“I believe that, to be directed from without, to follow ways and means which are not simple and direct, obscures the individuals own impulse and results in bewilderment which, if long continued, must affect and color his whole after-life.”

“In the school the child soon finds or senses that his acts are caused by an outer influence or permitted by an outer authority.”

“His inner voice is stifled and though he may still feel the impulse to act independently, there are too many voices in that child center for him to distinguish his own.”

“When the school succeeds in deadening the sound of the inner voice, it becomes an enemy to human development and a hindrance to life.”

“They had followed a personal leader so long, that in a crisis they were helpless without a guide, a slogan, or some outer notice to push them into action.”

“There would be very little hope for humanity if all humans could be wheedled or forced into step and line.”

“He has a self-centered, self-conscious, self-determining and self-directing instinct which shuts out the useless and unnecessary things which would serve only to distract and confuse him.”

“Consequently we adults may free ourselves from the idea that the infant, child, and youth, deprived of our wise guidance or supervision would be ‘up a tree.’ In fact, he is very much up a tree now as the result of our interference.”

“It is agreed that man’s greatest attainment is to become self-conscious, to know himself; that every unhampered movement of man reveals the tendency toward that end and that he shares this in common with all life forms; then no one can take from nor add to man’s spiritual development.”

“When the human is left to free to objectify his inner life, he intuitively recognizes himself.”

“When, however, the individual is moved to action through an outer appeal, incentive or demand, he is unable to relate the achievement to an inner need.”



Reference: Freedom in Education by Elizabeth Byrne Ferm