Assignment 2 a: Coming to Terms with Flynn. Agency

Assignment 2 a: Coming to Terms with Flynn
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Assignment 2 a: Coming to Terms with Flynn
Part I: Summary
Richard Flynn’s article “What are we talking about when we talk about Agency?” criticizes those that limit children’s abilities and capabilities. The main argument by Flynn is that children have the right to exercise their abilities without restrictions or opposition from adults. The role of adults is not to reason or think for children. Adults have the responsibilities of promoting competencies and abilities of children. In Flynn’s point of view, agency is the ability for one to act without restriction from another person. He, however, explains that agency is not synonymous to autonomy. There are circumstances where children cannot be allowed to act independent of adults. The problem is that adults have taken over the freedom of children, diminishing children’s abilities of imagining and being creative. An example is where most literature about children is written by adults, in spite of the fact that there are children with abilities to write and imagine. Flynn states that “…The very idea of writing for children is an opposition between an adult and a child” (2016, p. 255). The mind of a child is not the same to that of an adult. Flynn’s view is that children are forced to consume what they do not want to consume.
Even though Flynn is an ardent supporter of children agency, he is also argues that adults can help children shape their agency by creating an environment where children are free to share their experiences and abilities (Flynn, 2016, p. 258). The fact that adults are always ahead of children when it comes to u...