Playing in nature improves children’s learning, social and emotional skills. MI PHAM/unsplash You may have heard of play. It’s that thing children do – the diverse range of unstructured, spontaneous activities and behaviours. Children play in many ways, including by exploring movements, constructing with equipment, creating games, using imagination and chasing others […]
Most anti-bullying programs available to schools haven’t been evaluated for effectiveness. from shutterstock.com School bullying can have serious consequences for victims including depression, psychosis, self-harm and suicide. With increasing evidence of harm, a groundswell of school anti-bullying programs and campaigns in Australia and internationally have vowed to stamp out bullying. The schools’ intentions are good, but often these programs […]
I’m asking for your ideas about how to make real play possible for kids again. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Children are designed, by nature, to play with other children independently of adults. Generally, the best place for them to play is outdoors, partly for the fresh air, vigorous […]
For most people human rights have increased, but for children they have shrunk. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn We’ve made progress in many realms of civil rights over the past decades in the U.S. The rights of African Americans, women, gays and lesbians, and handicapped people have expanded, thanks […]
Endurance just before it sank: Crushed at the stern, it went down bow first RGS Antarctic scientists seeking to locate the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s lost ship, the Endurance, have arrived at the search site. The team broke through thick pack-ice on Sunday to reach the vessel’s last known […]
Endurance just before it sank: Crushed at the stern, it went down bow first RGS Shackleton’s extraordinary escape from this loss, saving his crew, means there is considerable interest in finding the wreck. Endurance should be resting on the ocean floor, some 3,000m down. The Weddell Sea Expedition 2019 team wants […]
By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Monitoring, structuring, and protecting reduce children’s activity and health. Most of my writing about children’s free play has been about the mental health benefits (e.g. here), but in this essay I’m concerned with the physical health benefits. Children are designed, by nature, to play often in physically vigorous ways. That […]
TIM SMITS FOR SPECTRUM Originally published on Spectrum The Research on Autism and Development (RAD) Laboratory is located in a Tetris-like maze of brown wooden buildings, not far from the main campus of the University of California, San Diego. The lab itself is a nondescript warren of small beige rooms. But everything […]
Students’ sense of belonging at school is linked to how well they do at school. Shutterstock A report released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), the managers of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Australia, explores Australian students’ sense of belonging. This has been shown to play a big part in […]
By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Psychiatric emergencies and youth suicides rise sharply with the school year. I am not in the mood today – bored teenager boy sitting by the wall We get very upset by school shootings, as well we should. Every such instance is a national tragedy. We […]