At the children’s school, one of the activities I observed was during the end of our visit, when the children were let to play in the playground. It was in this setting that I found children to have the most freedom to do whatever they want. In other words, they could guide themselves to complete their own activities. I observed several examples of autonomy, initiative and industry. Children were autonomous in finding activities to do – they didn’t rely on adults to give them something to do. They took initiative to be social with their peers and would make sure to use what they have in the proper way, sharing it with other children. Lastly, children when constructing something would feel like they have achieved something  to be proud of (industry); I saw some children excited to show me the structure they had constructed out of foam blocks.

The children in the classroom also displayed these three concepts but in a different way. While they were given activities with specific instructions to do, many of them would perform with their own twist on the activity. I observed children sticking pieces of paper on given guidelines. One child would stick only specific colored pieces in a pattern as that was more visually appealing to her. Another tore the pieces into more interesting shapes to create a  visually more exciting design.

In general, the children were given a guiding hand on how to do many of the classroom activities. More often than not, I observed that this guiding hand was no more than a pointer – the children were explicitly encouraged to try things out for themselves and forge their own path.