Break the rules that break us

In classrooms built for quiet, success often means staying inside the lines, even as the world outside demands we redraw them. Today’s schools reward silent conformity over courageous inquiry, sending an implicit message to learners: don’t ask too much, don’t reach too far.

Obedience is not learning.

This compliance-first culture undermines our collective capacity to adapt, innovate, and think critically about the complexities facing our societies and planet. As the world around us grows increasingly unpredictable, a fundamental choice emerges: Will education continue to reinforce outdated structures, or will we empower students and educators to thoughtfully rewrite the rules?

Yet not all rules are oppressive, and not all disobedience is virtuous. Some rules protect safety, equity, and inclusion. So how do we distinguish meaningful resistance from chaos or self-interest?

Moving forward requires empowering learners and educators with the clarity to understand why rules exist and the courage to challenge them when they no longer serve the common good. This reflective disruption begins by openly questioning our assumptions: Why do we learn the way we do? Whose interests do current systems serve? What might education look like if we built it intentionally rather than obediently?

This balance of clarity and courage is emphasized in Manifesto 25:

Break the rules, but understand why clearly first. Our school systems are built on cultures of obedience, enforced compliance, and complacency. The creativity of students, staff, and our institutions is inherently stultified. It is easier to be told what to think than to think for ourselves. Openly asking questions and building a metacognitive awareness of what we have created and what we would like to do about it can best cure this institutionalized malaise. Only then can we engineer justified breaks from the system that challenge the status quo and have the potential to create real impact.

To educate effectively for the future, we must distinguish clearly between blind obedience and thoughtful engagement. Learners may then begin to critically and creatively rewrite the rules of education itself.

Cultures of compliance got us here

Today’s school structures, rooted in industrial-era values of efficiency and control, continue to prioritize standardization over individuality. Surveillance technologies track student behavior, teachers navigate strict curricula with limited autonomy, and the true complexity of learning is often reduced to simple metrics like test scores and grades. Consequently, curiosity is treated as a distraction, creative thinking becomes risky, and genuine questioning is perceived as defiance.

When learners and educators internalize the idea that compliance is the safest route to success, obedience becomes a survival strategy. Over time, this mindset erodes both creativity and critical thought, transforming education into a passive experience rather than an active exploration of knowledge and possibility.

The implications of such compliance-driven education are profound. Students become passive recipients rather than empowered creators of knowledge. Teachers act as gatekeepers rather than facilitators of inquiry. In emphasizing rule-following, many schools unintentionally suppress the one thing the future demands most: imaginative response to uncertainty.

To transform this reality, we must first recognize the outdated logic at its core. Our educational structures were never designed to foster creativity or genuine innovation. Clearly understanding this historical context is essential before we can thoughtfully and intentionally rework schools into spaces that reflect today’s social and civic realities.

Meaningful action requires critical thinking

Not all acts of disruption create meaningful change. For any intervention to have lasting impact, it must emerge from a place of thoughtful understanding. Breaking rules without first knowing why they exist can lead to confusion rather than transformation. To equip learners to effectively disrupt outdated systems, we must cultivate a critical skill: metacognition, or “thinking about thinking.”

Before disrupting systems, learners need tools to think critically and reflectively. Practices like student-led investigations, classroom dialogue, and participatory decision-making help develop the insight necessary for intentional action.

Classrooms can foster critical consciousness through collaborative questioning, reflective dialogue, and student-driven investigations. For example, when students trace how grading policies affect motivation, or how class schedules shape wellbeing, abstract systems become tangible and reform becomes actionable.

Similarly, embedding democratic decision-making in classrooms and schools gives students real opportunities to practice collective responsibility. When learners actively debate policies, propose reforms, and experience firsthand the complexities of consensus-building, they shift from abstract critique to practical, purposeful engagement. Together, metacognition and critical thinking build the bridge between awareness and action, offering learners the clarity to understand the rules, and the courage to imagine something better.

Purposive disobedience: Designing meaningful disruption

When students and educators develop a clear, critical understanding of their educational systems, they become ready to disrupt those systems purposefully. Purposive, purposive disobedience is intentional rule-breaking grounded in reflection, insight, and careful consideration. It differs sharply from defiance or chaos because it emerges from clarity about what needs changing and why.

Civil rights leader and U.S. Congressman John Lewis famously encouraged “good trouble,” carefully considered acts of resistance against unjust systems. Applying this concept to education reveals powerful instances where students and educators have thoughtfully challenged the status quo to create meaningful improvements.

Consider the students who have challenged biased curricula, successfully advocating for more inclusive syllabi that highlight diverse perspectives and previously marginalized voices. In the United States and elsewhere, high school students have petitioned districts to include literature representing a broader spectrum of experiences, significantly enriching educational conversations.

Educators, too, have practiced purposive disobedience. Some teachers have quietly shifted away from conventional grading to narrative feedback and portfolio assessments, focusing on genuine student growth rather than numerical scores. While initially met with resistance, these carefully considered changes have often fostered deeper engagement, intrinsic motivation, and trust within classrooms.

Schools themselves can embody purposive disobedience. Innovation-oriented institutions such as High Tech High (United States) and Lumiar (Brazil) actively question traditional structures, replacing standardized curricula with student co-designed projects and community-based learning experiences. These schools demonstrate that thoughtfully challenging educational conventions can lead to greater creativity, innovation, and student agency.

These examples succeed precisely because their disruptions are grounded in careful reflection, not reaction. Purposive disobedience is ultimately an act of care, responsibility, and civic engagement, designed to create better outcomes for learners and communities alike. It recognizes that some rules no longer serve their original purpose, and that challenging those rules is necessary for meaningful educational evolution.

Far from simply defying authority, purposive disobedience embraces collective responsibility, using thoughtful disruption to build educational systems that are more humane, equitable, and responsive.

From individual acts to systemic shifts

Individual acts of purposive disobedience can ignite meaningful change, but isolated efforts rarely transform entrenched systems. For lasting impact, intentional disruptions must connect, amplify each other, and embed themselves into broader educational cultures.

Schools committed to genuine transformation must intentionally cultivate environments where critique and thoughtful questioning are celebrated rather than suppressed. Open forums, student advisory councils, educator-led inquiry groups, and community dialogues create safe and structured spaces for meaningful conversation about what education should achieve and how existing rules support or hinder those goals.

Professional development must go beyond pedagogy and teach facilitation of disruption. Beyond instructional techniques, educators need training in facilitating change processes, supporting student-led initiatives, and fostering metacognitive reflection. By becoming comfortable with uncertainty and skilled at guiding thoughtful disruption, teachers evolve into change leaders who inspire and sustain innovation.

Recognizing and rewarding innovation, even when it challenges established norms, is crucial. Public acknowledgment, inclusion of innovative practices in official school policies, and dedicated resources for experimentation signal that thoughtful questioning is valued. This cultural shift reinforces the idea that purposive disobedience is an exercise of responsible leadership toward improved outcomes.

Finally, educational change must align with broader social movements advocating democratic participation, social justice, and sustainability. Schools are mirrors of their communities; thus, purposive disobedience within education can significantly contribute to societal progress. When educational reform connects to wider movements for equity and sustainability, it gains deeper purpose and wider impact. This includes broadening the rebellion to teacher unions, student alliances, and policy influencers, each able to act in their capacities to bring about systemic shifts.

By fostering thoughtful, purposeful acts of disobedience, schools prepare learners to thoughtfully and actively shape a more equitable and just society.

Now that we know why, go ahead and break the rules

Lasting transformation begins not with rebellion, but with reflection. Change-makers must know the rules well enough to rewrite them with clarity and purpose.

This process demands continuous dialogue: questioning whose interests current rules serve, exploring who benefits or suffers from compliance, and imagining more equitable, humane possibilities. Learners and educators must be provided agency to ask these critical questions and also to act decisively on their answers.

If we truly seek to educate for the future, we must nurture and embrace reflective disruptors who understand rules clearly enough to challenge and rewrite them purposefully. Thoughtful rebellion is an act of courage and imagination. It is an invitation to move beyond obedience and toward collective creativity.

Break the rules ...but only after learning how they were built, and who they were built for. Then, build something braver. Something wilder. Something more just.

Read and sign Manifesto 25 at https://manifesto25.org

References

Biesta, G. (2013). The beautiful risk of education. Routledge.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.

Kahne, J., & Westheimer, J. (2003). Teaching democracy: What schools need to do. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(9), 34–40. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/003172170308500109

Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 1997(74), 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401

Senge, P. M., Cambron-McCabe, N., Lucas, T., Smith, B., & Dutton, J. (2012). Schools that learn: A fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education (Rev. ed.). Crown.

Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237–269. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312041002237