Look, I teach teenagers who think autonomy is doing whatever they want whenever they want, and I teach in a system that thinks autonomy is doing exactly what you're told when you're told it. Both are lies. Real autonomy is knowing your constraints — I have a bus schedule, I have a curriculum, I have thirty kids in a room and forty minutes — and inside those real limits, choosing what matters. A slave has no schedule they chose. A toddler has no schedule they understand. I have both, and that's where freedom lives. My students think they want no structure; what they actually want is structure that makes sense, that they had some hand in making. The problem is not being scheduled. The problem is schedules made for you, about you, without you — that's what kills autonomy. When I plan my lessons I am scheduled within an inch of my life, and I am more autonomous than most people I know, because I chose the shape of the cage.
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