Synopses & Reviews
Our children spend their days being passively instructed, and made to sit still and take testsoften against their will. We call this imprisonment schooling, yet wonder why kids become bored and misbehave. Even outside of school children today seldom play and explore without adult supervision, and are afforded few opportunities to control their own lives. The result: anxious, unfocused children who see schoolingand lifeas a series of hoops to struggle through.
In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know, but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.
To foster children who will thrive in todays constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development. Drawing on evidence from anthropology, psychology, and history, Gray demonstrates that free play is the primary means by which children learn to control their lives, solve problems, get along with peers, and become emotionally resilient. This capacity to learn through play evolved long ago, in hunter-gatherer bands where children acquired the skills of the culture through their own initiatives. And these instincts still operate remarkably well today, as studies at alternative, democratically administered schools show. When children are in charge of their own education, they learn betterand at lower cost than the traditional model of coercive schooling.
A brave, counterintuitive proposal for freeing our children from the shackles of the curiosity-killing institution we call school, Free to Learn suggests that its time to stop asking whats wrong with our children, and start asking whats wrong with the system. It shows how we can actboth as parents and as members of societyto improve childrens lives and promote their happiness and learning.
Review
Kirkus ReviewsIntriguing.”
Review
Laurette Lynn, Unplugged Mom.com "[A] well written, well organized and beautifully stated piece of work.... I emphatically recommend this book for any parent as well as any educator or anyone interested in improving education for our society."
Mothering.com
"[Free to Learn is] a powerful agent of transformation. I'd like to put a copy in the hands of every parent, teacher, and policy maker."
Publishers Weekly
[E]nergetic...Gray powerfully argues that schools inhibit learning.... [Grays] vivid illustrations of the power of play to shape an individual are bound to provoke a renewed conversation about turning the tide in an educational system that fosters conformity and inhibits creative thinking.”
Frank Forencich, author of Exuberant Animal and Change Your Body, Change the World
Free to Learn is a courageous and profoundly important book. Peter Gray joins the likes of Richard Louv and Alfie Kohn in speaking out for a more humane, compassionate and effective approach to education.”
Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works
Peter Gray is one of the worlds experts on the evolution of childhood play, and applies his encyclopedic knowledge of psychology, and his humane voice, to the pressing issue of educational reform. Though I am not sure I agree with all of his recommendations, he forces us all to rethink our convictions on how schools should be designed to accommodate the ways that children learn.”
Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids
All kids love learning. Most dont love school. Thats a disconnect we've avoided discussing until this lightning bolt of a book. If you've ever wondered why your curious kid is turning into a sullen slug at school, Peter Grays Free to Learn has the answer. He also has the antidote.”
David Sloan Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology, Binghamton University, and author of Evolution for Everyone
The modern educational system is like a wish made in a folk tale gone horribly wrong. Peter Gray's Free to Learn leads us out of the maze of unforeseen consequences to a more natural way of letting children educate themselves. Gray's message might seem too good to be true, but it rests upon a strong scientific foundation. Free to Learn can have an immediate impact on the children in your life.”
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, author of Einstein Never Used Flash Cards and A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool
A compelling and most enjoyable read. Gray illustrates how removing play from childhood, in combination with increasing the pressures of modern-day schooling, paradoxically reduces the very skills we want our children to learn. The decline of play is serious business.”
Stuart Brown, M.D., Founder and President, The National Institute for Play, and author of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
Peter Grays Free to Learn is profoundly necessary as a fundamental illumination of the continuing tragedy and entrapment of both kids and their teachers in a generally failing and failed educational system. Gray demonstrates through science and evolutionary biology that the human species is designed to play, is built through play, and that for kids, play equals learning. Free to Learn is timely, paradigm shifting, and essential for our long term survival as adaptive humans.”
Synopsis
Children come into this world burning to learn, but the enduring lesson of school is that learning is work, to be avoided however possible. In
Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray shows that we can reverse the harmful effects of modern schooling by liberating our children to pursue their own interests through self-directed play. Gray, who has devoted his research career to understanding the biological foundations of education, argues that to promote learning, we must engage the core aspects of human naturecuriosity, playfulness, and sociabilityinstead of inhibiting them. A brave, counterintuitive proposal for freeing our children from the shackles of the curiosity-killing institution we call school,
Free to Learn shows that its time to stop asking whats wrong with our children and start asking whats wrong with the system.
Synopsis
In
Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in todays constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development. Drawing on evidence from anthropology, psychology, and history, he demonstrates that free play is the primary means by which children learn to control their lives, solve problems, get along with peers, and become emotionally resilient. A brave, counterintuitive proposal for freeing our children from the shackles of the curiosity-killing institution we call school,
Free to Learn suggests that its time to stop asking whats wrong with our children, and start asking whats wrong with the system. It shows how we can actboth as parents and as members of societyto improve childrens lives and to promote their happiness and learning.
About the Author
Peter Gray has devoted his research career to understanding the biological foundations of education. He is a research professor in the department of psychology at Boston College and writes a popular blog called Freedom to Learn for Psychology Today. He is also the author of a leading psychology textbook, Psychology, currently in its 6th edition. Gray has appeared as a guest expert on child development on various radio and television outlets, including NPR, The Today Show, CNN International, and has been quoted in magazines and newspapers, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Mens Health, and the Boston Globe.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. What Have We Done to Childhood?
Chapter 2. The Play-Filled Lives of Hunter-Gatherer Children
Chapter 3. Why Schools Are What They Are: A Brief History of Education
Chapter 4 .Seven Sins of Our System of Forced Education
Chapter 5. Lessons from Sudbury Valley: Mother Nature Can Prevail in Modern Times
Chapter 6. The Human Education Instincts
Chapter 7. The Playful State of Mind
Chapter 8. The Role of Play in Social and Emotional Development
Chapter 9. Free Age Mixing: A Key Ingredient for Childrens Capacity for Self-Education
Chapter 10. Trusting Parenting in Our Modern World