Freedom to Learn

The roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning

By Peter Gray

Play Makes Us Human V: Why Hunter-Gatherers’ Work Is Play

By Peter Gray on July 2, 2009 - 6:00am in Freedom to Learn

My reading about life in many different hunter-gatherer cultures has led me to conclude that their work is play for four main reasons: (1) It is varied and requires much skill and intelligence. (2) There is not too much of it. (3) It is done in a social context, with friends. And (4) (most significantly) it is, for any given person at any given time, optional. Let me expand on these, point by point. Each point is relevant to our lives, today. Read More

Play Makes Us Human IV: When Work Is Play

By Peter Gray on June 25, 2009 - 2:40pm in Freedom to Learn

One of the first and most often reinforced lessons that children learn in school is that work and play are opposites. Work is what one has to do; play is what one wants to do. Work is burdensome; play is fun. Work is essential; play is trivial. But when we leave school and go on to the "real world," at least some of us, the lucky ones, discover that work is not the opposite of play. In fact, work can be play, or at least it can be imbued with a high degree of playfulness. . . . When work is play, it is humanizing. Read More

Play Makes Us Human III: Play Is the Foundation for Religion

By Peter Gray on June 18, 2009 - 3:03pm in Freedom to Learn

Some people would take offense at the idea that religion is play. Religion, they would say, is sacred, and play is trivial. How can the one be lumped with the other? But regular readers of this blog know that I regard play as the highest form of human activity, so I am not demeaning religion when I describe it as play. ... I have two main points to make in this essay. The first is that all of religion has its roots in play. ... The second point is that religion functions best when it does not stray too far from its playful origins. Religion that has lost its playfulness can be dangerous. Read More

Play Makes Us Human II: Defeating Dominance and Achieving Equality

By Peter Gray on June 11, 2009 - 2:46pm in Freedom to Learn

We human beings have two fundamentally different ways of governing ourselves in social groups. One is the method of hierarchy, or dominance, or force. The other is the method of play. In this essay I explain how hunter-gatherers employed play and humor to keep order and maintain their highly egalitarian, highly cooperative mode of existence. We have much to learn from them. Read More

Play Makes Us Human I: Outline of a Ludic Theory of Human Nature

By Peter Gray on June 4, 2009 - 7:44am in Freedom to Learn

I've been working lately on a ludic theory of human nature. In case you haven't studied Latin in a while, I hereby inform you that ludic means playful. I'm calling my theory a ludic theory because if I called it a playful theory you wouldn't take it seriously. ... My theory--which I outline here--is that play is the germ we inherited from our animal ancestors that grew in us to make us, in the best sense, human. It provides, among other things, the foundation for art, music, literature, theoretical science, and religion. It also is a means by which we resist our drives to hurt and dominate one another. Read More

The Headman Was a Woman: Introduction to a Series on Play as a Foundation for Freedom and Equality

By Peter Gray on May 26, 2009 - 6:55am in Freedom to Learn

Tanyogn was the kind of person who would be an asset to any community. She was intelligent, energetic, hardworking, a skilled debater, and most of all extraordinarily caring of all people around her. Among the hunting and gathering Batek of the upper Lebir River valley of Penninsular Malaysia she was known by the Malay word for headman, even though the Batek do not have official headmen. What are the social conditions in which a person like Tanyogn--a person who is not competitive, not interested in status, not in any way threatening, but simply helpful--can be recognized as the true leader of her people? Read More

Social Play and the Genesis of Democracy

By Peter Gray on March 4, 2009 - 1:49pm in Freedom to Learn

We value democracy. As citizens, we want our children to grow up holding and abiding by democratic values. We know that democracy is not easy. Democracy implies freedom, but it also implies responsibility. The balance between the two is delicate and takes wisdom that can only be gained through practice. . . . How do children acquire such values and learn to live by them? I argue here that they do so through unsupervised play with other children. Read More

Rousseau’s Errors: They Persist Today in Educational Theory

By Peter Gray on February 12, 2009 - 6:28am in Freedom to Learn

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is known as the "back-to-nature" theorist in education. He is referred to frequently in education texts as the originator of child-centered, natural means of education. Those of you who have been regular readers of my blog know that I have been writing about children's natural means of education; so you might assume that I would be inspired by Rousseau. Well, I am inspired--inspired to point out how very wrong he was. Read More

Minimally Invasive Education: Lessons from India

By Peter Gray on January 28, 2009 - 8:22am in Freedom to Learn

Ten years ago, on January 29, 1999, Sugata Mitra, in India, initiated a remarkable set of observations of children's self-directed learning. On that day, he turned on a computer that he had installed in an outside wall of the building where he worked, a wall that faced one of the poorest slums in New Delhi, a community where most children do not go to school, are illiterate, and had never previously seen a computer. He simply turned the computer on, left it there, told the crowd of children that they could play with it, and used a video camera to monitor activity around it. The results were astounding, at least astounding to people in the educational world who are oblivious to the remarkable powers of children for self-education. Read More

How to Ruin Children’s Play: Supervise, Praise, Intervene

By Peter Gray on January 14, 2009 - 4:05am in Freedom to Learn

My soul has been stirred by many of nature's wonders... But, of all of nature's scenes that I have enjoyed and pondered, none have enthralled me more than those of children playing--playing on their own, without adults guiding or interrupting them. My words are poor substitutes for the actual scenes, but let me try to convey two examples that have moved me more than any poetry.... I report on them here partly in an attempt to convey their beauty, but also to point out how adults might well have ruined them by supervising, praising, or in other ways intervening, as happens all too often today. Read More