Freedom in education means

In progressive/child-centred educational philosophy, freedom for a learner is never unlimited licence. It is defined as the liberty to develop one's own personality and capacities through self-directed growth, bounded by an equal, reciprocal respect for every other individual's same right to grow — freedom without this reciprocal limit collapses into licence or indiscipline, not genuine educational freedom.

Measured against this definition: a statement of educational freedom needs both halves present together — one's own free growth AND the recognition that every other learner has an equal freedom to grow similarly.

Weighed the same way, by value:

• Opposing school rules regularly is indiscipline or rebellion — it carries no notion of growth and no reciprocity.

• Letting students do anything they want removes every limiting condition — the reciprocal-respect element is absent entirely.

• Teachers being free to teach as they think concerns a teacher's methodological autonomy — a different subject from a learner's freedom to grow.

Freedom in education, then, is one's own free growth together with the recognition of others' freedom to grow similarly.