Position Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau in relation to permissiveness expressed the following, rather tough position.
“Do you know what is the surest way to make your child unhappy? It is to teach him not to be refused in anything; since his desires will constantly increase due to the ease of satisfying them, sooner or later impossibility will force you, against your will, to resort to refusal, and these unusual refusals will bring him more torment than the very deprivation of what he desires. First he will want the stick you are holding, soon he will want your watch, then he will want the bird that flies before him, he will want the star he sees in the sky, he will want everything he sees; if you are not God, how will you satisfy him?
How can it be imagined that a child so overcome with anger and consumed by the most irritating passions could ever be happy? What happiness is here! He is at the same time a despot, and at the same time the lowest of slaves, the most pitiful of creatures. I have seen children brought up in this way; they wanted the house to be knocked over with their shoulders, to be given a rooster, which they saw on the belfry’s spitz, to stop the march of the regiment and let them listen to the drum beat longer, and if they were not in a hurry to obey them, they shouted the air, not wanting anyone listen. All strove in vain to please them; since, due to the ease of fulfillment, their desires intensified, they stubbornly insisted on impossible things and everywhere found only contradictions and obstacles, torment and sorrow. Always scolding, always self-willed, always angry, they spent whole days in screams and complaints. Could they be perfectly happy beings? The combination of weakness and dominance produces only madness and disaster. Of two spoiled children, one beats the table, the other makes the sea scourged: they will have to scourge and beat a lot before they live contentedly.
Alexander Neill, the founder of the Summerhill School, is no less definite, probably one of the most consistent, bright and successful leaders of the XNUMXth century engaged in the practice of free education. He’s writing:
With a free upbringing»
But life is different…
So, the classics of the ideology of free education have repeatedly and categorically stated that free education has nothing to do with permissiveness. In practice, in schools and families where free education is proclaimed, permissiveness is often practiced and allowed. There are two main reasons. The first is a lack of intelligence… The second is conscious radicalism.
Pedagogical experiments of radical supporters of free education are evaluated very ambiguously and rather negatively, see →
From the memoirs of a student of the school of free education: “At ten years old, we were practically illiterate, but we could conclude that Raymond “expresses himself” when, in the middle of what we considered an English lesson, he began to dance on the desk.” Outsiders watching the process of free education are convinced that permissiveness flourishes there. From the report: «In Summerhill, one student broke seventeen windows and did not even receive a verbal reprimand!»
Who is right? Radical supporters of free education, who are not understood by hardened inhabitants, or those who explain to these radicals that their experiments are too expensive, first of all for the children themselves? ..
It can be assumed that both sides are right and wrong. Outsiders often see permissiveness where in reality there is something else, namely, once a one-time experiment, and once only a tactical move by a teacher. On the other hand, the teachers of this wing themselves do not notice in their practice the actual permissiveness, when they too often follow the children on a whim and allow the children what is harmful to them, which later gives rise to too many conflicts between the child and the people around.
Parent practice
How free education differs from permissiveness: A.N. See →