This paper aims to discuss the concept of authority in Hannah Arendt, also in Dufour and Agamben, related to so-called "crisis in education". We analyzed statements of children between eight and eleven years old, from a public school, in order to problematizing their perceptions on the difficulty of educating in our times. The study indicates that students qualify actual education as "getting worse". In addition, our research indicates that children have a particular perception about significant differences about ways of exercising authority today, in comparison to previous generations. The analysis suggests the urgency for studies that articulate practices of authority with the exercise of listening and the "circulation of word" among children, young people and the adults.
authority; crisis in education; childhood