Rita Braks’s Reviews > From Childhood to Adolescence: Including 'Erdkinder' and the Functions of the University > Status Update

To consider the school as the place where instruction is given is one point of view. But to consider the school as a preparation for life is another. In the latter case the school must satisfy all the needs of life.

When the child is placed in certain conditions that favour him, he manifests an extraordinary activity. His intelligence surprises us because all its powers work together, as is normal for man. We are no longer dealing with the problem of transforming the methods of education: it is properly a problem of life that is being posed.

The closed environment is felt as a constraint, and that is why he no longer wishes to go to school. He prefers to catch frogs or play in the street. These seemingly superficial factors prove that the child needs wider boundaries than heretofore.

And since it is understood that the child must do what adults tell him, even though his environment no longer suits his needs, if he does not comply we say that he is “naughty” and correct him. Most of the time we are unaware of the cause of his “naughtiness.” Yet the child, by his conduct, proves what we have just said.

The child needs, then, to establish social relationships in a larger society. The closed school, as it is conceived today, can no longer be sufficient for him. Something is lacking for the full development of his personality. We note a certain regression — manifestations ofhis character which we call anomalies; they are merely his reactions to an environment that has become inadequate. But we do not notice that.

From seven to twelve years, the child needs to enlarge his field of action. As we have seen (in The Secret of Childhood), a limited environment is suited to the small child. There, social relations are established with others. In the second period the child needs wider boundaries for his social experiences. Development cannot result by leaving him in his former environment.