The Permission We Keep Waiting For

I was driving recently when I found myself thinking about Sim Wong Hoo’s idea of the “No U-Turn Syndrome”.

It started with something very ordinary. I was approaching a junction and, almost instinctively, I found myself looking for a sign to tell me whether I could make a U-turn. That was when the idea came back to me.

Sim Wong Hoo used the “No U-Turn Syndrome” as a metaphor for how Singaporeans can become so used to rules and instructions that we sometimes wait for a sign telling us that something is allowed. In another mindset, the assumption may be the reverse. If there is no sign explicitly saying that a U-turn is prohibited, then perhaps you simply turn.

I kept thinking about how such a small act could reveal something much bigger about the way we make decisions. One way of thinking begins with, “Am I allowed to do this?” We look for approval, precedent or some reassurance that what we are doing is accepted. The other begins by asking whether something is irresponsible, harmful or clearly prohibited. If it is not, perhaps it is worth trying.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this is not really about traffic rules. It is about permission-seeking.

And I can see this quite clearly in education. For much of our schooling, we are taught to operate within structures. We learn to read instructions carefully, follow formats, understand marking schemes and work towards clearly defined outcomes. We ask what the question wants, what the teacher expects, what is in the syllabus and what is likely to appear in the examination.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Structure is important, especially when we are learning. Students need guidance, boundaries and clear expectations while they develop knowledge and skills. But what happens when we become too good at functioning within these structures?

We may leave school knowing how to succeed when the rules are clear, but feel much less certain when there is no rubric, no model answer and no one telling us what the next step should be.

Many of the important decisions in adult life do not come with instructions.

There is no marking scheme for deciding whether to leave a secure job. There is no syllabus for building something from scratch. There is no model answer for deciding whether an idea is worth pursuing. Often, there is not even anyone who can tell you whether you are ready.

I think this is where the distinction between competence and agency becomes important.

Education can make us competent. We learn how to do things well. We learn how to meet expectations and improve our performance.

Agency is slightly different.

Agency is what happens when nobody tells you what to do next. It is the ability to look at an uncertain situation, make a judgement and take responsibility for what follows.

Looking back, I can see this tension in my own journey too.

When I started That Geography Teacher, I did not have some grand plan for what it would become. I was simply experimenting with ways to explain Geography more clearly and make learning more useful for students. A lot of it was trial and error. Some ideas resonated. Others did not. Some things I thought would be useful turned out to be less useful than I expected. I learnt by putting things out, listening, adjusting and trying again.

Over time, that experimentation grew into more resources and projects. But what I find more interesting, looking back, is not the fact that I created them. It is how uncomfortable I felt doing something without knowing whether it was the “right” thing to do.

There was no clear pathway to follow. I often questioned whether I was qualified enough, whether the work was good enough, or whether I should wait until I knew more before sharing something.

In many ways, I still think those doubts were useful. They made me more careful and reminded me not to confuse enthusiasm with expertise. But I can also see how easily caution can become permission-seeking.

Why? Because there is always another person you can ask. Another article you can read. Another framework you can consult. Another reason to wait until you feel more certain. At some point, the search for certainty can become a way of avoiding action.

The pivot into Edtech

This has become even more obvious to me since moving from teaching into educational technology.

Teaching contains a great deal of uncertainty, but it also has strong structures around it. There is a curriculum, a timetable, assessment requirements and an established rhythm to the school year.

Building something new is different.

Sometimes the answer does not already exist. You may not even fully understand the problem at the beginning. You have to test something, observe how people respond, realise that some of your assumptions were wrong and then improve it.

Working with AI makes this even more apparent because the technology is developing faster than many of the practices around it. It is tempting to keep asking what the established best practice is. Sometimes there is one. Sometimes there simply is not.

In those situations, I am learning that a more useful question may be: what is the smallest responsible thing we can try that will help us understand the problem better?

That question feels very different from asking for permission. It does not mean ignoring expertise or doing whatever you want. Agency should not be confused with recklessness. Rules, ethics, evidence and professional judgement still matter. Sometimes the right decision is to stop and seek advice.

But there is also a point where seeking another layer of approval does not necessarily make a decision better. It simply delays the moment when you have to take responsibility for it yourself.

What makes agency difficult

When someone else tells us what to do, part of the responsibility sits with them. When we make the decision ourselves, we have to accept that we may be wrong. I think this is something worth thinking about in education too.

We often say that we want students to become independent learners, critical thinkers and problem-solvers. But these qualities cannot develop only through highly structured tasks where the teacher already knows the answer.

Students also need opportunities to make decisions. They need space to encounter uncertainty, choose between imperfect options, try something that may not work, and change their minds when new information appears.

If we constantly tell young people exactly what to do, we should not be surprised when they later struggle in situations where nobody does.

Perhaps education should gradually help students move from asking, “What am I supposed to do?” towards asking, “What do I think is the right thing to do, and why?”

I am still learning this myself.

There are parts of my life where I am comfortable moving without a clear map. There are other parts where I still find myself waiting for some invisible authority to tell me that I am ready, that the idea is sensible, or that I have thought about it enough. Most of the time, that sign never appears.

And maybe that is the point.

The more I think about the “No U-Turn Syndrome”, the less I think it is really about whether we follow rules too much. It is about the assumptions we carry into situations where the rules are unclear.

Do we assume we need permission before we begin? Or do we learn to exercise judgement, take responsibility and move carefully forward when there is no good reason not to?

I think there is value in learning how to do more of the latter.

Not because rules do not matter, but because there will eventually be parts of life where nobody is going to put up the sign for us.