The concepts of classroom discipline and student freedom in individual pedagogy

Abstract

The aim of this paper is the understanding of the concept of classroom discipline compared with the concept of freedom among the representatives of individual pedagogy (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ellen Key, Maria Montessori and Alexander S. Neill) in modern educational theory and practice. In their concepts of education, child freedom is interpreted and defined differently. However, for all of them freedom means showing respect for other people's rights, i.e. inviolability of other people's rights. The question of freedom is inextricably linked with the question of discipline, if discipline is to be understood as order and respect for the rules. This fact justifies the definition of classroom discipline as a process of influencing the behaviour of students with the aim of achieving undisturbed processes of teaching and learning in the classroom. In such a concept of classroom discipline, an individual is given full freedom within the limits of what is considered tolerable, preconcerted and well substantiated. The mechanisms of classroom discipline should be formed and implemented throughout the process of education, not independently of it, and with the presence of all participants of the educational process.