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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
another winner. the issue
another winner.
the issue most parents would bring up is how do i ensure that my kid will want to learn what i think is important for them to learn as opposed to just learning what they want to learn?
Control
Good point, dyhppy. Control is the big issue. Adults worry that if we don't control children's learning, they will learn the wrong things. This is something I need to write a future installment about. There are really two issue here: Why do we have this strong drive to control? And, how can we know what children "should" or "should not" learn?
-Peter
For dyhppy, who wants to know
For dyhppy, who wants to know how to ensure that children learn what parents think is important for them to learn as opposed to just learning what they want to learn: Why do you think you know what they need to learn? Do you know how they learn? Do you know what they are motivated to learn right now? Do you know what the future holds for them? Do you know how their brains are developing and what concepts will be most readily comprehended today, right now? Is what you learned in school at their age really what they need to learn at the same age? It's hard for parents to give up control. Try an experiment in which you just watch, observe, what your child does and learns, and be amazed! Trust them. They are little learning machines.
Transition
Having seen this post and also some of the other posts on play I have a couple of questions
1. If all this play and self learning is natural to children why do schools do what they do?
2. How do children make the transition from a environment where they are allowed to do all the good stuff into the convential schooling system
For the first question I found some answers in your earlier posts on 'Why schools are what they are' and I also see some schools evolving even in my part of the world that address these needs. But the issue that I can't comprehend is if schools are being driven by their own end objectives why are parents not getting to play a bigger role in asking for change?
The second question is a more personla concern for me because we are hoping to get our daughter into one of these 'Alternate' or 'progressive' schools - unfortunately these seem to stop just short of high school and the children have to make a transition. What can we do to enable the transition (if we can't avoid this migration across systems)
I am also including a link from todays newspaper which talks of this issue
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Delhi/This_transition_is_not_easy_Khy...
Why parents accept this, and transitions
Dear Vish,
These are important questions.
Concerning the first question, I think that schooling has become something like a religion. People "believe" in it, on faith. It almost seems like heresy to many people to question the necessity of school (as we usually know it) and of children's working hard in school. Most people also lack many models of people who have not done traditional school and then have gone on to successful lives. For the most part, those who don't go to school are people from impoverished families. They don't do well because of poverty, but we attribute it to lack of school.
I also think that dyhppy, above, hit on a part of the answer to your question. Western influence has long led to belief in CONTROL. We believe it is our duty as parents and teachers to control children's development. We think of them as products and we think of ourselves as the producers of those products. This view runs through the culture. To not try to control children's learning and development feels like an abandonment of responsibility. I do plan to write an essay on this soon.
Concerning the issue of transition, I can say that most students who have left Sudbury Valley to go to more traditional schools don't seem to have had any special problem. My study of the graduates included many who had gone on to colleges. They said that they understood what they were going on to and that they had made an informed decision to attend college, so they did not resent doing the required work or following the rules.
I realize that transitioning to high school might be different from transitioning to college. Some students do leave Sudbury Valley before high school age, or at high school age, to go to public schools. Sometimes they do this because they move, or because they want to play on an interscholastic sports team, or because their parents have decided that they want them to go to a regular high school. The reports I have heard suggest that they generally make the transition well, especially if it is their own choice.
I think what I would do in your situation is to level with my child on this right from the beginning. The child should know what all the alternatives are and should know that if he (or she) goes to a progressive school there will be a point of transitioning to a very different public school. It would not be a bad idea for the child to visit a public school for awhile, maybe even attend one for awhile, so that she will know fully what to expect. If the transition is anticipated and understood well in advance it will not be a shock.
Best wishes,
Peter
Transition
Vish,
Your concern about the transition is really valid, but I find that there are quite a few blogs by unschooling (interest led-learning) families who have made the transition successfully to public/regular schools and colleges by choice. For ex. here is a link
http://www.yarnsoftheheart.com/
In this site, Jena, a mom of three unschooled children writes about her children's successful transition. Her son, the oldest, never went to school until he went away to college in University of Chicago last fall. One of her daughters has gone to public high school by choice after years of homeschooling.
There are also other unschooling books and resources that may help in normalizing this transition! For ex. The Unprocessed Child: Living without school by Valerie Fitzenreiter, Parenting a Free Child by Rue Kream. You may want to check the website http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/.
I am assuming that you live in India. Did you know that there is an active group of alternate educating/home educating families? Their yahoo group id is alt-ed-india.com. I remember a thread about transition/beyond school in this group discussion. There are a few experienced parents whose kids took the private O levels etc. You may find it useful to connect with this group.
All the best
Latha
Great post!!
Hi Peter,
It's so interesting because I can remember in school there being a poster that said "knowledge is power". While I know that now to be true, they made school so horrible (fear and punishment-based) that we all hated learning.
I only started liking school when I finally was given some choice in the classes (the last two years of high school). Unfortunately, I didn't listen to myself and instead listened to my family and proceeded to get a degree in a field that is SO wrong for me and have spent the past several years just feeling like a hamster in a wheel.
It's amazing how now for the first time in my life I'm passionate about learning, and it's only because of what you describe in this post. I'm studying what I want to study. I should probably enter an actual program at some point, though, because I don't think I can get a degree from PT-online ;)
I wish so much for an education reform. Kids spend way too many years of their lives in a classroom to be miserable. There is no reason for such torture. They should be teaching kids to think and feel for themselves first. Unfortunately not enough of that goes on within the home either. It's no wonder society is the way it is..
Thanks for all the great work you do.
:)
YG
Thanks
YG, thank you for this contribution. I have heard similar comments from many adults. Almost every time I give a talk on my views about education someone in the audience tells me a story similar to yours.
Best,
Peter
Video of the hole in the wall presentation
Here is the direct URL for Sugata Mitra's presentation at the Lift conference:
http://liftconference.com/videos/sugata-mitra
On parents and play
I am a "relaxed homeschooler" and have children ages 6 and 4. I've been dedicated to this path for a while now but am always encouraged by your posts, Dr. Gray.
In allowing my children to experience play and not impose curriculum on them, I've found my own capacity for play increasing. When I approach something new and think of it as "play" I'm much less likely to get upset about mistakes and can focus more easily on how I might want to change or improve next time. Life gets more fun like that!
I've also thought that a logical extension of these ideas, within a family unit, is that each member of the family's interests are valued, not just the children's. That means anyone - child or parent - may suggest an avenue of exploration for the family. If my children's curiosity takes us in a direction we look up information, read books, play games, do field trips, etc.... Also if my husband or I feel something is important or are curious, then we can likewise propose it to the family. In this way I satisfy my desire to bring up a topic my children have not expressed interest in yet without exerting too much control.
My children are allowed to play most of the day, every day, with friends and, also importantly, with their parents. Through play they are learning their address and fire safety (my initiation), adding double digits and how things rot (my son's initiation), baby care and how the world looks upside down (my daughter's initiation), guitar and multiplication by 0, 1, and -1 (my husband's initiation), reading and writing (all of us!), and much more! Nobody has to play if they don't want to but our kids are sometimes just as interested in what interests us as they are in the ideas they have.
Playful parenting
KarenW, what a nice contribution. I remember well when I made the transition from being a parent who felt a need to monitor and direct my child's learning to one who could sit back and enjoy my child's learning without feeling responsible for it. What a relief, both for him and for me. And I really like your notion that we adults can turn our work into play by taking a new attitude about it. It helps if we recognize that, in the long run, very little of what we do is as crucially important as we think it is at the time. Most of what we do is optional, and if we keep that in mind we can keep it in the realm of play. To approach life as play is to approach it with joy.
Best,
peter
On parents and play
Thanks! It all came about when I first read of "child-directed" learning, a term I, along with some other homeschoolers, dislike. As I thought of the child choosing his or her avenue of exploration and the homeschool mother tagging along behind, my reaction was, "Hey! That's not fair! I want to play too! I'm curious too!" Since then I've used the term "interest-led learning," because the interests of everyone are valid.
Adding the play element expands and enriches our options. If our interest leads us to doing a worksheet on handwriting, play allows us to not follow the worksheets rules but to make up our own. If we get side tracked by a discussion, we haven't failed; we've only followed where our play led us which is it's own success. Mostly, the kids get plenty of time, on their own, to direct themselves with all the benefits of that you and others have mentioned.
So far, without much obvious effort, they are learning reading, writing, science, geography, sociology, psychology, physiology, and more just fine. The biggest changes have been in me.
The sad conclusion of this story
The sad conclusion of this story, is that Sugata Mitra was co-opted by the forces for industrialized state education, and has lost sight of the implications of his own work!
Since becoming a "professor of educational technology" at Newcastle University in 2006, he has been touring the world giving lectures about how schools should *increase* their spending to pay for more, newer, and faster computers! Gone is the call to let the child's natural genius free.
Of course, any reasoned person looking at his results will come to the same conclusion that Peter does; that the opportunity to play uninterrupted and unsupervised is the key to learning.
SVS as special ed?
I was intrigued by your suggestion in an early academic paper that Sudbury Valley might be viewed by some as a program for special needs, the population being those that don't do well under strict control. I realize that you weren't necessarily subscribing to this view, but it does correspond to the widely expressed view that "SVS isn't for everyone", that some kids do well in the traditional system, etc. In fact, an ideal system, in my view, would include programs that offer more structure than SVS, but are voluntary to get into.
I'd also love to see a debate or dialogue between advocates of democratic education and those who support the traditional model (by all accounts the vast majority).
Thanks again for doing this blog. It is rare to see something that incorporates academic research but is clearly and engagingly written.
I too would like to see the debate
Thanks, Lou.
I too would like to see the debate you suggest. I would take the side that the kind of freedom offered by SVS does work for the whole normal range of personalities. People who like structure can create the structure they desire--for example by asking for or creating a course.
The most common argument I've heard, concerning who would not do well at SVS is that people who are not "self starters," or "self-motivated learners," or who "lack initiative" would not do well there. But have you ever seen a four-year-old who falls into that category? I think these terms refer to something that happens to people after a while in a conventional school. Those who have been in a conventional school before going to SVS may take a while to rediscover their initiative; but that rediscovery is so important to the rest of life that it's worth the effort.
-Peter
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