The pandemic is revolutionizing how families think about education. A Gallop Poll published August 25 (2020) revealed that 10% of American families with children of school age are intending to homeschool their children this year. That’s a huge increase, up from 5% just one year ago. The poll was very clear not to […]
Shutterstock Languages like Japanese, Korean, Turkish and the indigenous languages of the Amazon, East Africa, and New Guinea build sentences in a way that lets them grow to enormous length. Our research shows learning one of these languages may help children create complex sentences that express multiple ideas at a younger age. […]
Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Two large surveys, a month apart, revealed family benefits of school closures. Two weeks ago, I published an article summarizing the results of a survey of 800 parents and 800 children (ages 8 through 13) that was conducted in April of 2020, approximately a month after […]
It’s important for successful adult-ing, experts say. Friendships can be made stronger through play-acting and problem solving. Robert Collins/Unsplash Archaeological records— and the modern-day antics of our primate relatives—make it clear that monkeying around goes way back. Less certain, however, are the developmental and evolutionary advantages that underlie our instinct […]
This artist’s concept shows the hypothetical super-Earth known as Planet Nine or Planet X, which some researchers think lurks far beyond Pluto in the outer reaches of the solar system. (Credit: R. Hurt/IPAC/Caltech) A fun and easy ways to help teach science to your kids at home. Or maybe your […]
Without school, children exhibited increased independence and responsibility.By By Peter Gray, Ph.D., a research professor at Boston College, author of Free to Learn When COVID-19 resulted in closures of schools and after-school activities for children, beginning generally in early March of this year, there were some dire predictions about the effects this […]
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what unschooling is, how it works, what people mean when they use the term… So I wanted to do a post on the topic addressing some of the biggest misunderstandings that seem to crop up repeatedly. Misconception #1: unschooling is […]
Do parents care about their children’s happiness? I think it’s an easy answer to say overwhelming they do, very much so. And yet, they don’t necessarily prioritize it in the daily lives of their children. I feel like a lot of parents erroneously believe that academic success will lead to […]
By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn This is Part I of a series on the functions and malfunctions of shame. This seems like a ripe time in history to think about the emotion of shame. We are living in a period of renewed reckoning with the shame of the racist […]
Shutterstock Is time travel possible for humans? Jasmine, age 8, Canberra, ACT. Hi Jasmine. I wish! In books and movies, our favourite characters can use “time-turners” and treehouses to travel through time. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy for people in real life. Let’s look at why. First, there are two types of […]