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Free to Learn Paperback – February 10, 2015

by Peter Gray (Author)

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A leading expert in childhood development makes the case for why self-directed learning -- "unschooling" -- is the best way to get kids to learn.

In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in today's 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 it's time to stop asking what's wrong with our children, and start asking what's wrong with the system. It shows how we can act—both as parents and as members of society—to improve children's lives and to promote their happiness and learning.

Print length

289 pages
Language

English
Publication date

February 10, 2015
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.73 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

0465084990
ISBN-13

978-0465084999
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Editorial Reviews

Review

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.”

Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works
Peter Gray is one of the world's 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 don't love school. That's a disconnect we've avoided discussinguntil this lightning bolt of a book. If you've ever wondered why your curious kid is turning into a sullen slug at school, Peter Gray's Free to Learn has the answer. He also has the antidote.”

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]nergeticGray powerfully argues that schools inhibit learning. [Gray's] 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.”

About the Author

Peter Gray is a research professor in the Department of Psychology at Boston College. The author of Psychology, a highly regarded college textbook, he writes a popular blog called Freedom to Learn for Psychology Today. He lives in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; 1st edition (February 10, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 289 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465084990
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465084999
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.73 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #27,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #18 in Educational Psychology (Books)
- #56 in Parenting & Family Reference
- #68 in Homeschooling (Books)

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Peter Gray

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Peter Gray has conducted and published research in neuroendocrinology, developmental psychology, anthropology, and education. He is author of an internationally acclaimed introductory psychology textbook (Psychology, Worth Publishers, now in its 8th edition, with David Bjorklund as co-author), which views all of psychology from an evolutionary perspective. His recent research focuses on the role of play in human evolution and how children educate themselves, through play and exploration, when they are free to do so. He has expanded on these ideas in his book, "Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life" (Basic Books, 2013). He also authors a regular blog, called "Freedom to Learn," for Psychology Today magazine. He is a founding member of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education and of the nonprofit Let Grow.

Peter Gray grew up primarily in various small towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but his family moved to Vermont when he was 16, and he has been east ever since. He studied psychology and biology at Columbia College in New York City and then earned a doctorate in biological sciences at the Rockefeller University. Ever since then, the location of his work has been in the psychology department at Boston College, where he served for 30 years as a professor and now, though retired from teaching and administrative duties, retains the title of Research Professor.

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4.7 out of 5

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Oliver DeMille, TJEd

Impeccable research, critical conclusions

Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2013

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Peter Gray's book Free to Learn is an excellent addition to the genre of books on restoring freedom in education. Gray clearly states:

"Children are biologically predisposed to take charge of their own education. When they are provided with the freedom and means to pursue their own interests, in safe settings, they bloom and develop along diverse and unpredictable paths, and they acquire the skills and confidence required to meet life's challenges. In such an environment, children ask for any help they may need from adults. There is no need for forced lessons, lectures, assignments, tests, grades, segregation by age into classrooms, or any of the other trappings of our standard, compulsory system of schooling. All of these, in fact, interfere with the children's natural way of learning."

So why did we create schools that so directly "interfere with the children's natural way of learning"? Gray shows that in tribal cultures the focus of childhood was playing and learning knowledge, skills, and how to live self-sufficiently and honorably. When the agrarian revolution increased the need for child labor on farms, the values of school turned to toil, competition and status. While Gray's view of this is perhaps a bit idyllic, the reality is that modern schools are less concerned with student knowledge, skills, honor or abilities than with the universal goal of job training.

Certainly job training has an important place in advanced society, but Gray is focused on the education of children, and in fact the toll on children in our modern job-obsessed schools is very high. They are way more stressed than earlier generations of children and youth.

Why are we raising a generation of children and youth who are stressed, not secure? Gray's answer, based on a great deal of research which he outlines in the book, is that we have turned learning into a chore, a task, a labor, rather than the natural result of curiosity, interest, passion to learn, and self-driven seeking of knowledge and skills. In short, we've taken too much play out of childhood and too much freedom out of learning.

The results are a major decline of American education in the last four decades. The solution is to put freedom back into education.

Interestingly, Gray suggests that in many of the educational studies of classrooms, schools, homes and teachers that have found a way to successfully overcome these problems and achieve much better educational results, one of the key ingredients is "free age-mixing." Where students are allowed to freely mix with other students of various ages, without grade levels, the capacity of individuals to effectively self-educate is much higher. As for the impact on college and career success, students from free educational models excel.

This is a good book, and a must read for those who really care about education. I don't agree with everything the author teaches, but I learned something important on almost every page. Whether or not you read Free to Learn, all of us who have children or work in education need to do more to promote the importance of increased freedom in education. Gray is a particular fan of "unschooling," a type of homeschooling and private schooling where parents and teachers set an example of great education, create an environment of excellent learning, and let the kids become self-learners. While this may not be the ideal learning style for every student, it is the best model for a lot of them--and for nearly every young person under age 12.

If you disagree with this conclusion, you simply must read the book. The research is impeccable. If you do agree, the book can help you get to work setting a better example for any students in your life.

19 people found this helpful

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B. Dixon

Compelling…though I don’t fully agree

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2014

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If I had to summarize the first part of Peter Gray’s book in a few words, it would be something like the following: “Traditional schools are too authoritarian. Traditional education stifles children’s curiosity and desire to learn by telling them what to study and by teaching them to do as they are told.” This part of the book, where he presents his understanding of the historical and psychological causes and human impact of traditional schooling (whether public or private), is extraordinarily compelling, and has forever changed my perspective on traditional education. Having read Dr Gray’s book, I will no longer take for granted that the use of a standard curriculum for everyone is a good idea, and I am thoroughly convinced that extinguishing a person’s natural desire to learn is at the root of many if not every unmotivated student. Whatever else we do, we must keep our children – and ourselves – wanting to learn, which is easy, Dr Gray argues, if we allow everyone to learn what about what interests them.

Although equally well-argued, I was less convinced by the second part of his book, his proposal for a solution. Although I am now thoroughly convinced that the student needs to be significantly involved in setting the direction of his learning (I would add, to the extent possible from his age and level of maturity), the specific implementation of this practice I believe needs some further refinement. Essentially, Dr Gray argues for the widespread introduction of “unschooling” environments and specifically schools like the Sudbury Valley schools that encourage each student from a very early age to choose on their own what to study, and how. I had been unaware of the unschooling movement and the Sudbury Valley schools prior to reading this book, and so began my own investigation on these topics. Among other things, I learned that we live near one of these schools, and so I went to check it out. After observing the school and after further reading and reflection, I came to the conclusion that there are at least two issues with Dr’s Gray’s “unschooling” approach as a solution for some of the problems with traditional schooling.

The first problem is that this type of schools (deliberately?) appears to lack sufficient resources, both human and otherwise. If children are in an environment that includes a kitchen and a shop but not a PhD in mathematics, it seems highly unlikely that they will discover a natural bent for quantum physics and calculus. I remember seeing an extraordinary video clip years ago where Jesse Jackson led a tour of two cross town public high schools, one white and one black, showing the dramatic differences in facilities available. (The white high school included computers, sophisticated science equipment, a beautiful track and an Olympic size pool, while the black high school had outdated textbooks, less rigorous academics and a dramatically lower graduation rate.) Perhaps the local Sudbury Valley-type school I saw was unique, but I think that unless we are simultaneously offering them the best possible resources, our children will never rise to their full potential via unschooling.

The second issue I have with unschooling as advocated by Dr Gray is his excessive adulation for learning from one’s childhood peers. It is certainly true that kids can and do learn things from their peers, but many of those things (the pressure to conform, bullying, and drug use, to name a few) are challenges that I believe are better handled with the support of caring adults. It would be interesting to put Dr Gray in the same room with Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate, the authors of another excellent book, Hold On to Your Kids. This book is an excellent complement to the many positive/attachment parenting books now available (Peaceful Parents Happy Kids, Playful Parenting, and Two Thousand Kisses a Day are among my favorites). Neufeld and Mate’s book, also well worth the time, focuses on the external pressure from peers that have been affecting the last few generations of children, and not in a good way. Although both books have their share of unsubstantiated assertions, I found myself agreeing much more often with Drs Neufeld and Mate than with Dr Gray regarding peer relationships. Interestingly, both books are highly critical of our current traditional method of schooling, but they come to very different conclusions about what to do about it. It would certainly be interesting to read these two books together.

Since presumably many readers of this review will not be visiting a Sudbury Valley type school in person, I thought it might be worth closing with some further reflections on my visits there. I was able to visit the local Sudbury Valley type school three times, and twice was able to spend a few hours interacting with students of various ages and reviewing the artifacts of various processes including the judicial committee. The children I spoke with seemed generally satisfied with attending this school and many were reasonably articulate as to its value to them, but to me many of them appeared as if they were drifting. Few seemed to have identified areas of learning about which they were passionate, or even especially interested in. The minutes from the judicial committee also made it clear that although the authority of the school may rest with the student-faculty committee, rules and constraints on behavior are as prevalent as in a traditional school. In looking at educational options for my son, I have now visited a fairly large number of schools. For whatever it is worth, my most important litmus test for a school has become to see whether the students and staff are going about their day with enthusiasm and joy. Sadly, it is not something I typically see, and it was not apparent at this school either.

Back to Dr Gray’s book. In spite of my disagreement with some of Dr Gray’s conclusions, I have decided I must give it a 5-star rating because of his cogent presentation of his ideas and because those ideas have forever altered my views on traditional schooling. (As I learned, many of those ideas were initially presented in his Psychology Today column, but I did find that the book presentation of those ideas really strengthened and solidified his views in a way that reading the columns alone did not.) I am glad that he wrote it, and would recommend it to anyone trying to understand how we learn best.

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Frank Calberg

Free to learn

Reviewed in Germany on March 10, 2023

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Top takeaways from reading the book:
- Page 5: Free play is the means by which children learn to make friends, overcome their fears, solve their problems, and generally take control of their lives.
- Page 68: When Thomas Edison, founder of GE, was 8 years old, he was judged by a teacher as being unfit for school, as he was suffering from ADHD.
- Page 73: Testing, grading and ranking make students, who perform less well than their class mates, feel shame. Earlier, school masters ridiculed misbehaving students in front of class mates.
- Page 154: A child, who is playing, is not seeking approval from adults and can therefore dedicate all time to develop skills feeling joy and not feeling fear.

One person found this helpful

Miss P

Incredibly readable and relatable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 2, 2021

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A well written and well referenced piece. It details a strong argument for why children should be allowed to harness their natural instincts to learn. But also noting that modern schooling quells these instincts and our children are the worse for it.

One person found this helpful

thierry7497

Livre

Reviewed in France on August 13, 2023

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Apprendre et apprendre

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Corné

Phenomenal

Reviewed in the Netherlands on November 29, 2017

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Amazing book. Although I had already heard some good arguments for the value of play and self directed learning, this book really solidified all of that with its very convincing argumentation and an impressive body of research behind it.

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Ally Alias

Life Changing!

Reviewed in Canada on February 6, 2017

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I afforded the gift of self-education to my kids after their early Waldorf years. I was truly amazed at the projects they self-initiated as we flipped the traditional education model upside down and I became simply their resource person. What I would have done to have this book on my shelf for back-up or to refer to all those skeptics in my midst who constantly criticized this approach to free-learning. Thank you for producing this wonderful, visionary piece that supports unequivocally the boundless joy and curiosity innate to us all! It deserves to be unfolded naturally, self-initiated and away from the prying eyes of patriarchy.

8 people found this helpful

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