Thread by @PhilipMott1

Finally cracking this one open today. It is time.

I’ll likely share quotes from this book as I get through it. I wonder if it would be better to share in a single thread or would they better stand on their own?

It's worth looking at a few reviews for context. I want to document a few scathing reviews first.

goodreads.com/book/show/1584…

"I felt that there was an unschooling agenda and that the book wasn't up-front enough about it." reviewer

"the final straw was the argument that video games are a valid substitute for child-led, unstructured outdoor play. At that point, two thirds of the way through, I gave up any hope of a return to the helpful insights of the first chapter." reviewer

"the author makes many sweeping characterizations that I'm skeptical of. For example, he makes it sound like primitive people's lives were utopian. These kinds of characterizations made me skeptical to the entire book." Reviewer

"All in all, the parts that were actually the author's personal observations were intriguing. But two chapters does not a book make. I might as well have been reading a blog." Reviewer

Maybe these weren't scathing reviews but I do think it's helpful to read a few thoughts of passionate detractors, whether their detraction is reasonably justified.

The first thing I’ve done in the last several books I’ve read is ask myself, “what qualifies this author as any sort of authority on this matter? Why should I take their study seriously?”

The work Peter Gray has done around psychology is compelling, so that stands for something

“Free play is the means by which children learn to make friends, overcome their fears, solve their problems, and generally take control of their own lives.”

Peter Gray

“The things that children learn through their own initiatives, in free play, cannot be taught in other ways.”

I hope this is the main thesis Gray is trying to show here.

Or maybe those things can be taught but a great deal is lost due to inefficiency.

“Unstructured play” should only be considered unstructured in the sense that an adult is not guiding the play. Play has structure but it is created by the players themselves.

Adults Foster an attitude in society that children learn and progress primarily by doing tasks that are directed and evaluated by adults, and the children zone activities are wasted time.

Peter Gray

“In the eyes of many parents and educators today, childhood is not so much a time for learning as a time for resume building.”

Peter Gray

I’ll also add that this child, when he does get the time to do his own play, will often be criticized or laughed for wanting “silly” things or wasting time on non-learning activities.

His choices confirm the bias of adults; he is unfit to direct his learning.

Data shows an increase in an external locus of control in children from 1960-2002

“Research has also shown that those with an external locus of control are less likely to take responsibility for their own health, their own futures, and their communities then are those with an internal locus.”

Peter Gray

How do we develop an inner locus of control?

We can start by the way we develop most things...opportunities for practice.

“In play, away from adults, children really do have control and can practice asserting it.” p17

“In free play, children learn to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, create and abide by rules, and get along with others as equals rather than as obedient or rebellious subordinates.”

Peter Gray

A key assumption in Free to Learn: Children want to grow up to be effective adults in the culture they live in.

The way many talk about parenting and education it seems like we believe kids need to be compelled to desire effectiveness in the culture.

“Education is the set of processes by which each new generation of human beings, in any social group, acquires and builds upon the skills, knowledge, lore, and values of the previous generation in that group.”

Peter Gray

Gray seems to be illustrating that to Hunter-gatherer tribes, free-time produced the exact skill sets adults would need through play and interactions with peers.

In our culture, free time is treated as the enemy to developing needed skill sets.

Children’s drive to play leave them to ignore discomfort and suppress impulses so they can continue abiding by the rules of the game, and such abilities gradually transfer to their lives outside of play.

Peter Gray

I’ve certainly seen this in my own young children again again.

I can really appreciate the heading here. As I’ve continued to work on the book I’m writing I’m seeing a need to clarify to other adults, our goals precede our actions.

What we want and expect for ourselves as parents will be used to justify the way we treat kids.

Speaking of primitive agriculture communities, “The adults devalue childhood play and even punish children for it, because they considered it to be shameful, shameful because (play) was natural and therefore appropriate to animals, not to humans.”

Agriculture is an exercise in controlling nature, taming and controlling plants and animals...humans began to extend this idea of control to raising children.

Adapted from Free to Learn by Peter Gray

Even our language hints at a connection. “We speak of raising children, just as we speak of raising chickens for tomatoes. We speak of training children, just as we speak of training horses. Our manner of talking about parenting suggests we own our children.”

Peter Gray

Referenced in Free to Learn:

“As we have no play days, so neither do we allow any time for play on any day; for he that plays as a child will play as a man.”

John Wesley

I guess Wesley would hate “play-based” learning then?

Referring to how schooling became an institution to serve the state, Peter Gray writes:

“The primary concern of leaders in government and industry was not to make people literate, but to gain control over what people read, what they thought, and how they behaved.”

Gray continues, “If the state controlled the schools, and if children were required by law to attend those schools, then the state could shape each new generation of citizens into ideal patriots and workers.”

Would anyone care to argue to the contrary?

Can critics of self-directed learning admit that Gray’s claim below is accurate?

“We have become a society that assumes that children are, merely because of their age, irresponsible and incompetent.”
Peter Gray

“Children are naturally curious, naturally playful, and the explore and play in ways to teach them about the social and physical world to which they must adapt.”

If what Gray says is true, why would we bother to spend so much time instructing?

We could validate Gray’s claim. 👇

If children were curious they would likely

Ask a lot of questions
Challenge everyone’s opinions
Want to touch anything that was interesting
Want to go anywhere that’s interesting
Act confused when something doesn’t make sense

Among many other things!

Below reminds me of Ken Robinson’s talk, Do schools kill creativity?

“Nature does not turn off a child’s enormous desire and capacity to learn when she turns five or six. We turn it off with our system of schooling.”

If Gray is right, what schooling practice would you abandon?

Teachers, if you've written off Peter Gray's work, please absorb what he says for a moment.

"It may even be fair to say that teachers in our school system are no freer to teach as they wish than are students to learn as they wish."

Teachers are victims in the system as well.

“A major purpose of schooling in a democracy should be to help people prepare for the opportunities and responsibilities of democratic citizenship; and you don’t do that effectively by depriving students of those opportunities and responsibilities as they are growing up.”

"If all public schools in the United States followed the Sudbury model, hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money would be saved each year." Peter Gray

I appreciate this claim, but I'm no accountant. I'd be very interested to see someone model these numbers.

One conclusion I draw from reading Gray’s work while also reading Sapiens by Yuval Harari: There is a big difference between a hunter-gatherer band and a primitive agricultural community.

The key fork in the road is ownership.

It is difficult for us to fathom not owning things, but it seems to be one of the main roots, of not the trunk, of our current culture.

To desire equality is not to return to a root, it may be to abandon the tree.

I remember Gray coming to a school to give a talk and talked about this very concept, which was fascinating to me:

“ to a considerable degree, you can predict what an animal will play at by knowing what skills it must develop to survive and reproduce.”

It makes me wonder if we could imagine not knowing children at all and only had the ability to observe adults...what sort of play would we assume the children would engage in based on how adults live their lives?

Was not familiar with this one.

Young children have not been known to solve basic logic problems. However, the researchers posed the problems in a serious tone.

When new researchers posed questions in a playful tone, even 4 yo children could solve them.

Gray turns his attention to defining play:

“From an evolutionary perspective, play is natures way of ensuring that children and other young mammals will learn what they must survive and do well. From another perspective, play is God’s gift that makes life on earth worthwhile.”

He asserts that two people could be doing the same activity and only one of them playing, meaning that play is in the intent, not the activity itself.

How might this impact the way we use the term “play-based learning?”

The difference explains how some could be invigorated by accounting while others would rather physically harm themselves.

I summarized Gray’s characteristics of play:

Finished today. This work introduced me to several new voices and questions to reflect on. Can’t wait to reread in a year or so to further deepen my understanding.

@threadreaderapp unroll please!