Permissive Privilege

Hey

Today, more home truths… I hope I don’t come across as too judgy…

Big idea 🍉

Permissive schooling has a deeply intuitive appeal: it aligns with our cultural reverence for freedom and creativity. But when we overreach these values, we pay a hidden price…

When we let students do largely what they want, with minimal consequences: off-task behaviour rises, learning reduces, kids treat each other worse, and anxiety grows (because uncertainty is uncomfortable).

Permissive schooling (and parenting) is bad for all kids… but its effects hit some harder than others.

Freedom of choice tends to benefit those students with high levels of prior knowledge, self-regulation, and home support. These things enable them to make better academic decisions, resist distractions, and survive in an unstructured environment.

Strip out the structure, and these students will keep flourishing (mostly). But those with lower levels of prior knowledge, self-regulation, and home support won’t fare so well.

This is why inquiry approaches are a disaster for many students with special educational needs… their attentional bandwidth is more limited to start with, and inquiry overloads it fast. And why strategies like SLANT, despite being disliked on first contact by many educators, are not just good for all, but are also highly equitable.

Now, none of this means we should never give kids choice. We absolutely should. But autonomy is best handed over gradually, as students develop the capacity to use it wisely... which is very different to pursuing freedom without consequence from a young age.

In short, permissive schooling prioritises the privileged. If we want a system that works for all, we need to get comfortable with being the boss.

🎓 For more, check out this article on closing the disadvantage gap.

Summary

• Permissive schooling sounds appealing, but too much freedom can have negative effects.

• This effect is greatest for those with lowest self-regulation and prior knowledge.

• We need to be brave to be kind.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper on learning spellings → suggests that pre- and post-teaching improves performance.

• Replication experiment on buzzing distraction → finds they do not affect memory recall.

• Study of paired activities → shows that collaborative peers may boost turn-taking skills.

• Paper on multitasking → demonstrates a negative impact on comprehension.

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