What a child wants, most of the time, is not what he needs. Adolescence is often seen as a turbulent period, a period of rebellion against authority. Children and adolescents have a distorted view of themselves or the world. It is not uncommon for them to have managed to create an island world where they can pretend to be completely separate and uninterested. They love vampire romance, goth paraphernalia, and other weird stuff. Is this really the normal state of things? What is going to force them into a moment of clarity? What they do need is order and routine, which could affect virtually every aspect of their lives. By order, I do not mean military discipline. What I mean is organization, which is best indicated indirectly by saying that order is the result of having a purpose. Personality has a lot to do with self-esteem.
During the 1950s and 1960s, there was a constant discipline between home and school life. Today, home life is unstructured and the school day is unstructured. Parents are too permissive with their children. Without structured educational environments, the younger generation cannot learn the direct connection between their actions and their abilities. Everything builds on everything else. However, critical pedagogy told us that we must educate our children for social justice. Following Rousseau and AS Neill, the new pedagogical ideal is progressive education from the beginning. Who knows what deep psychological wounds you might inflict? Children need freedom. They like to play in the classroom and play games. They no longer need textbooks. As a result, they are learning next to nothing. They do less and less homework. They are not prepared to work in a group. At the same time, the grades begin to drop and the children blame the teacher. Lack of effort is socially valued at school. In fact, children are being reinforced by the smallest things.
A few years ago, when I was teaching in an urban school, I met children who wanted to be praised for every little thing they did. The fact is that we should be praised only when we did something significant. Progressive pedagogues do not make education more flexible, they abandon it. They abandon the child to incoherence, boredom and abandonment. School should be a real world experience. Children will face a rude awakening later in life.
Only an organized environment allows young people to learn and develop their talents. In fact, no educator should tolerate brashness. I do not defend the Victorian attitude towards children. Certainly, a child needs love, and lots of it. But the excessive permissiveness of modern parents and the modern school is surely doing more harm than good. Psychologists and pedagogues have much to answer. I believe that tough love is the recipe for success.