By Peter Gray Ph.D. / Freedom to Learn Ruby Lou and I were children when children were free. We reunited recently. I opened Chapter 1 of my book Free to Learn with the following paragraph: I’ve learned from hundreds of great teachers over the course of my life, but if I had to […]
Dads tend to engage in more active, physical play activities with their young children. Shutterstock/pyrozhenka Play is an important way for children to learn about the world around them. Through play, they learn cultural norms, socialisation guidelines and experiment with different ways to interact with their environment. But play between a father and […]
I’ve seen some interesting discussion from fellow leftists in and around the unschooling world in regards to social justice and the importance of children–all children–knowing certain things. The issue raised is this: if we can agree that there are important issues of power and oppression that all children should understand, […]
Play counters the tendency to dominate, in humans and in other mammals. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Anthropologists who have trekked to isolated regions of the world to observe hunter-gatherer societies—whether in Africa, Asia, South America or elsewhere—have consistently been impressed by the egalitarian nature of those societies […]
Can free-range parenting laws and city proclamations help restore kids’ freedom? By Peter Gray Ph.D. ‘Freedom to Learn’ Can laws and official public proclamations help to restore children’s rights to be children and parents’ rights to be parents? There is some evidence that they can. This is the third article in […]
Your happiness and self care is more important than anything else right now. Nina Maile Gordon/The Conversation, CC BY-NC-ND On behalf of student here from Hong Kong I am so worried to tell my parents that the work is too much. They want me to study hard and continue at an […]
Hockey contributes a lot to activity levels compared to other sports. from shutterstock.com Teenagers who play organised sport only get seven minutes more physical activity per day, on average, than teenagers who don’t play any sport. Our research, published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, found organised sport […]
Children quickly took to the robot and developed a relationship with it. Screenshot Youtube A cute human-like robot taught students in a small, rural school how to code while also helping them learn their local Aboriginal language. The Maitland Lutheran School is an independent, co-educational primary and middle school in the farming […]
Guidelines advise children under two shouldn’t have any screen time, but most do anyway. Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash Most (80%) Australian parents worry children spend too much time with screens. But what children are doing on and off screen matters more than how much time they’re exposed to screen media. […]
Teachers still sometimes punish a whole class for the behaviour of one student. from shutterstock.com Classroom management is consistently seen as a source of stress for beginning teachers. It’s also one of the main reasons cited for teachers leaving the profession. So, it’s no surprise teachers try to use classroom management strategies that appear […]