Every day, a child walks into class with a spontaneous smile—and walks out with a piece of paper. The smile slowly fades, the paper grows, but no one asks: is his mind growing along with his grades?
We teach him how to answer… not how to ask.
We plant obedience… not courage.
We train him to reproduce the “model answer,” then wonder: why doesn’t he have an opinion of his own?
A 2022 study published in Childhood Education found that 64% of elementary students feel anxious during class, and 52% avoid asking questions—out of fear of being wrong, or being mocked.
The child excels in silence… not in expression.
He learns that “quiet = good manners” and “boldness = trouble.”
He becomes “ideal” only when he fits the mold… never when he dares to break it.
And at home? The same script repeats: “Don’t argue, don’t ask, don’t overthink!”
Then later, we tell him: “Be creative, be a leader, be a confident speaker!”
But a child is not a line on a test sheet. He is a small human being searching for space—to speak, to hesitate, to make mistakes—without being erased.
How many children leave school with straight backs… but broken minds?
So, to our institutions of education: we don’t want children who only repeat. We want children who think. Who ask, not just memorize. Who love school, not fear the question. For the danger is not in a low grade… but in the disappearance of a voice, the fading of an idea, the early training in pleasing others without expressing oneself.
In the classroom, the “perfect” child is the one who doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t debate, doesn’t slow down the lesson with questions. But in truth, he slows his own mind, interrupts his own idea, deletes himself from his own story. We treat children as if they are receivers—never transmitters.
The teacher explains. The child nods. He doesn’t understand why. He isn’t allowed to say: “I disagree.” Even the words “I didn’t understand” have become a crime threatening his reputation.
At home, the cycle continues: “Don’t argue.” “Don’t discuss.” “Just do it.”
And then we expect him to grow into an innovator, a leader, a persuader… How? When he was only ever trained in silence and compliance.
A 2021 UNICEF study revealed that children raised in environments that restrict questions and reward submissive behavior show early declines in critical thinking and imagination.
The problem is not the child’s weakness—but our pressure on him to please us. Our insistence that he become the “perfect model child” who never errs, never asks, never objects.
We force him into this shadow, and then wonder why he withers.
A child who is not granted the right to ask will later learn to stay silent about his opinions, his feelings, his dreams.
So to our curricula, our schools, our families: we don’t need obedient children. We need free minds—that love life, that make mistakes, that try.
Because the greatest danger is not the child who asks too many questions…
It is the child who stops asking altogether.
