In conversation recently with colleagues, I was reminded how often we defend our schools in the logic of standard education – the very logic we don’t buy into.

Spend time around self-directed democratic schools and you’ll hear certain claims again and again:

“Children learn through play.”
“Freedom builds judgment.”
“Boredom can be productive.”
“Responsibility grows when children are actually given some.”

All true. But not the heart of the story.

When we defend play because it produces learning, or freedom because it produces capable adults, or boredom because it produces initiative, we quietly accept the usual idea that childhood is justified by what it produces later.

But childhood is not primarily preparation for adulthood, and school need not be primarily a place for producing future outcomes.

Our deeper claim is this:

Children are entitled to a meaningful present life of agency in community – a life of intrinsic value, needing no further justification.

Learning and development arise from that life, but do not justify it.

In short, childhood is life, not rehearsal.

Jim Rietmulder

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