The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail- Act 1

Henry: Our own school, John. No buildings. Break out of the classroom prison. All we need is the sky!

The way I interpret this is Thoreau's way of expressing his feelings about being a naturalist, and his thoughts on learning about the world, and everything around us that was not human made. That is the part about them having to learn in the "classroom prison." Him calling it a prison and proposing to "break put of" it makes me think that he would much rather not be inside a building to do his teaching and learning. He would like to be outside.
This quote also expresses independence, when Thoreau expresses how he wants their own school. He seems to want a place that other humans have not destroyed or created, where he can teach about nature, and show his students how to explore by themselves, and uncover knowledge that they had not discovered or learned before. This brings us into Transcendental thought.

Thoreau believed strongly in this way of thought, because as the quote above shows, he enjoyed learning and discovering things by his own free will. He wanted others to learn how to do that, too, so he taught self-reliance in his class. The classmates all left the class eventually, because their parents all decided that they did not like Transcendentalism, and they did not want their children learning that.
The last student left, because his father did not like that he spoke up at the table, and believed that the parents only had the right to do that. He pulled him out of the school.
Thoreau expressed civil disobedience, when he refused to pay taxes, and forced Staples to arrest him. He was very defiant, and I can begin to understand why some people disliked this way of thinking. He got very mad at Staples, and refused to pay multiple times. He went so far as to talk to the crowd about what he was doing, and why he was doing the right thing.
I really like the Transcendental way of thinking for the most part, but some of the defiance does not seem like it is the right thing to do when facing the government. They have the power to do a lot of things.