We throw the word around like we all agree on what it means. Freedom from rules. Freedom from consequences. Freedom from anyone telling us what to do. The last definition of freedom is the one version students chase constantly and honestly, so do most adults.
But here is what being in and around schools for my entire career has taught me: the kids who were the most obsessed with freedom were usually the least free. They were hostages to whatever mood walked in with them that morning, whatever their friends thought, whatever got the most reaction. That’s not freedom. That’s just chaos with no one in charge. As a high school administrator, I know chaos.
Real freedom isn’t the absence of structure. It’s knowing who you are clearly enough that structure doesn’t threaten you.
Many students come to mind like the one I am about to describe: sharp, funny, but perpetually checked out. She did the minimum, deflected every attempt to engage her, and watched the clock like she was waiting for it to give her something. One day I stopped trying to redirect her behavior and just asked a different question: “What do you actually care about?” Not what she was good at. Not what was in the student handbook. Not when the next assignment was due. Rather, what she cared about.
She looked at me like I’d said something in a foreign language (although not an uncommon response from teenagers anytime their principal tries to talk to them…)
Nevertheless, those blank stares sometimes stick with me. She wasn’t free, she was just unattached. And those two things feel identical until you need to make a decision that actually matters.
Spirituality and freedom are pointing at the same thing from different angles. Both are asking the same question underneath all the noise: Who are you when nothing is required of you and nobody is watching? The spiritual tradition calls it living from the inside out. It means your values drive your choices rather than your circumstances, your crowd, or your mood on a given Tuesday. That’s not a religious concept exclusively but it is the difference between a person who knows what they stand for and one who’s still waiting to find out.
In John 8:36, Jesus says, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” That freedom He’s describing isn’t freedom from rules. It’s freedom from being defined by your worst moments, your worst choices, your worst days. It’s the kind of freedom that holds up under pressure because it comes from within, not from favorable conditions.
My job as an educator is never really to manage behavior. It is to create enough safety that students could start asking themselves harder questions about what they value, what they want, what kind of person they’re becoming. Rules create the vase. Freedom grows inside it.
Like many students, the student who stared at the clock eventually found her thing. I won’t pretend I was the reason but I do think someone asking “what do you care about?” planted something worth growing. Real freedom usually starts the moment someone takes you seriously enough to ask.
Poison said it plainly in Stand. Stand was a hit later in their career so it’s low-key a deep track, but it is a great song about planting your feet when the world is pushing you in every direction, about knowing who you are regardless of the noise around you. That’s not just a banger, that’s a philosophy. The students who struggle most in our classrooms aren’t usually the ones who lack ability; they’re the ones who haven’t found anything worth standing for yet. Our job isn’t to hand them the answer. It’s to create the kind of space where they feel safe enough to go looking. When they find it, you’ll know because the clock-watching stops, and something quieter and more determined takes its place. That’s freedom. And it was there the whole time.
#ucandewitt 