Freedom to Learn

Dear Peter,
not a story of my own (kids), but someone I'm inspired by:
The hole-in-the-wall project of Sugata Mitra
http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_the...
you might or might not be familiair already with their work, I expect it to be interesting for your blog-readers.

Thanks for your posts!

Actually, I've already posted an essay on Mitra's "hole-in-the-wall" project. See my post of January 28, 2009 entitled Minimally Invasive Education: Lessons from India. I'm a bit disappointed, however, in the direction that Mitra has moved since this initial exciting work. -Peter

Hi Peter,

I've been reading, and enjoying your column since you started it. I will gladly send in a submission or two in the next week.

I also posted your request for stories on my unschooling blog.
An Unschooling Life

Thanks,
Joanne

Hi Mr. Gray

I don't have any particularly interesting personal
stories, but I would recommend a book that I think
you would find quite interesting:

"The Power of Reading, Second Edition: Insights from the Research"

Here is a quote from the book:

"When children read for pleasure, when they get ”hooked
on books," they acquire, involuntarily and without conscious
effort, nearly all of the so-called "language skills" many
people are so concerned about: They will become adequate
readers, acquire a large vocabulary, develop the ability
to understand and use complex grammatical constructions,
develop a good writing style, and become good (but not
necessarily perfect) spellers. Although free voluntary
reading alone will not ensure attainment of the highest
levels of literacy, it will at least ensure an acceptable
level. Without it, I suspect that children simply do not
have a chance."

To me "free voluntary reading" or "reading for pleasure"
is a form a play. A form of play that takes the reader
from merely be able to read, to becoming a highly skilled
reader.

Anyway this book makes a very good case for the importance
of "reading for pleasure".

I definitely feel that "reading for pleasure" qualifies
as an important form of self-education.

Historical figures who have self-educated through reading:

- Abraham Lincoln (less than 2 years of formal education)
a voracious reader from a young age

- Frederick Douglas (no formal education)
not allowed to read, but managed to read in secret

- Malcolm X (dropped out after the 7th grade)
read extensively in an experimental prison that had
a good library.

See also:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/2494637.stm

P.S. Here is an inspirational story about Frank Zappa's son.
School for Ahmet Zappa was a disaster, it was only
through comic books that he was finally able to become
a reader and overcome his dyslexia.

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/from-dyslexi...

I actually just wrote a piece on my blog a few days ago about my son reading on his own.

Dear Peter Gray--

I just read a couple of your articles about school being too prison-like and unschooling and WOW. I think you are probably right, BUT I don't think I can be the one to make my kids into guinea pigs to see IF they can actually been successful in a professional career when they grow up if they haven't been "trained" to do well in a conventional school.

I would LOVE to do this with my kids, but, and you did point this out some, how will they get jobs when they grow up? I know that there are things you can do without a college education (but, my husband is a college professor and I have a master's degree in Zoology, and I really WANT them to get that, or be able to), but realistically, today, nearly EVERYONE has to get a college education to do ANYTHING that pays a decent wage. Or attend SOME sort of training, wherein they will be expected to do academic work in a "standard" way.

Has the Sudbury school been around long enough to have "graduates"? What did they do for college and careers?

My husband attended the Alternative Community School in Ithaca, NY and they didn't have grades and were allowed a lot of leeway in what classes they took, but I think they were still being instructed in basically the same manner as traditional schools, so he was able to get into a fairly-progressive liberal arts school, but many would not allow him to be admitted without a "transcript" at all.

I am interested in following this thread...

Sincerely,

Grace
Huntington, WV

Dear Grace,

Sudbury Valley is now in its 42nd year of existence. It has hundreds of graduates, most of whom have gone on to higher education. My first study of the school (many years ago, when there were only about 100 graduates) was guided by exactly the question you are asking here. For a reference to that study (published in the American Journal of Education), look back at my post of August 13, 2008. Since that time, the school itself has conducted systematic followup studies, which have been published as books. You can find them on the Sudbury Valley School website.

The school provides no transcript, yet graduates have gone on to even the most prestigious of colleges and universities. Especially at the elite schools, applicants with all A transcripts are a dime a dozen; but students with NO transcript but an interesting story to tell, and maybe a portfolio to show, are rare and interesting. I actually think that, other things being equal, SVS graduates are at an advantage for college admissions. They are more likely to be given personal attention.

I think the big leap that parents must take to make the SVS decision is to trust their children. Although most graduates go on to higher education, a good number of them--including many of the most intellectually capable--do not. Those who don't choose higher education are those who see no need for it. They go on to successful careers--in music, arts, business, skilled crafts, etc--where a college degree is not required.

-Peter

I for one, make a great living doing something I am passionate about and for which there is no degree. I think colleges are going to slowly become more and more irrelevant for many. As a makeup artist I get to practice my art almost daily, meet interesting people and constantly challenge myself with new adventures (the latest being body painting).

I don't believe life's mission is a march towards the American version of "success": go to school, get a diploma, go to college, get a degree, work the rest of your life until retirement so you can finally do the things you really LOVE. Life is a journey and unschoolers are simply extending the freedom of choosing the journey to their children.

College has been a huge success for many unschoolers, others choose to pursue their own business or alternative ways to support themselves so they can travel or ??____fill-in-the-blank___. A diploma is much less helpful than most believe.

The entire goal of unschooling is 180 degrees from the average parent though. Rather than wanting any specific outcome for our children, we want them to be empowered. Empowered to know that they can learn anything, anytime. Empowered to do what makes them happy at any given moment. Empowered to live the life of their choosing. My only "goal" (if you can call it that) as a parent is to raise children who enjoy their own life adventure and know they can do whatever they choose. That's it. Happy people is the goal...not "successful" people. Though my definition of success is happy, healthy, empowered people. :)

My oldest is 20 and I can say without a doubt that unschooling is the best way to ensure that the learner stays in charge of their own education, their own life choices and maintain that innate ability to trust one's inner voice.

One has to shift their goals, their thinking, their idea of what they want for any other human (because that should be up to the individual) in order to truly understand natural learning. It's a huge shift away from the mainstream paradigm. One that has potential for amazing connections!

@Peter; I am going to send some blog links shortly. Also, it looks like we're both speaking at the NE Unschooling conference this year. I look forward to meeting you in person!

Oh, and I think parents trusting the school system are making their kids be the guinea pigs! It's a relatively new system, historically speaking and has proven to be really good at creating a mass of human prepared for industrial jobs. That's not what the 21st century needs.

Our unschooling blog is helping to share the call too:
Psychology Today Wants Unschooled Learning Stories

I am sending you a success story of my son's bagpipe learning and a challenge story of my daughter's math learning. So happy to participate!

JJ Ross, Ed.D.
Unschooling two since late last century :)

For example, is it more risky for a gifted inner-city child on food stamps to toe the line in a dysfunctional public school system that's stifling him in order to have the best chance at getting the lifelines that are there in the form of scholarships (which still have a significant degree of chance in the obtaining of them) or to be true to himself like Ramanujan and hope to find a Hardy in the world?

Peter Gray says, “I want your stories of self-directed learning.”

My father was a physician fresh out of medical school in 1938. He worked his way through college during the depression and finally graduated at 32 years old. He tried to open a practice in Detroit, failed, and moved to rural Michigan to a town of about 200 people. His office was the living room of the old clapboard house he had purchased, and he made house calls in the evening.

I went with him often. I don’t remember ever taking toys or teddy bears or other distractions. It was just me, my father, and whatever life dealt us. I was never allowed in the patient’s house, but I heard his comments as we drove home or to another house. I got a generalized impression of all the ways people lived.

Often the farmer put a couple of live chickens or a bushel of sweet corn in the trunk as payment for services rendered. That car trunk never smelled all that good the whole time he owned the car. My father had a neighbor who would slaughter the chicken and shuck the corn for my mother.

All the roads were gravel from what I can remember, and he drove like a maniac, telling me he had to go fast enough to smooth out the corduroy ridges in the road surface or the old Chevy would rattle apart. He’d get stuck and there we sat. He was dressed in a suit and tie and he was a slight man – 130 pounds after over-eating. He promptly fell asleep, he always seemed to be in need of sleep, and it was my job to wake him when I saw the farmer chugging his tractor toward us to pull us out.

I sat there in a tilted car with the front end in the ditch, sometimes the snow-filled wind howling, feeling the car move. I was sure the car would roll the rest of the way over, and I’d be the one on the bottom in the water-filled ditch with my father flopped upon me asleep. I was late three-early four years old and felt very scared and alone. Yet, I always wanted to go with him.

I remember learning fear; I remember learning to get that feeling of terror under control while my father slept; I remember learning how to tell if the car was actually moving or my fear just made it seem so. I remember how unafraid my father always seemed to be, and how he seemed to know the farmer would come by soon enough to get us on our way to his house.

My sister and I had neighbor friends and we played in the mud or ran around and through the outbuilding, which looked to us like a huge building, but it was probably just a garage with a loft. We had free range to “town”, which was on the other side of the railroad tracks three blocks away – not that the town had surveyed off blocks.
I got in the habit of sitting on the railroad tracks to wait for the train. It usually came through everyday about the same time. I loved the feel of my rump vibrating as the train approached. It amazed me the whole earth shook by that monster coming at me. The first time some town person got me off the track in time. But after than my sister would rat on me that I was waiting for the train sitting on the rails and mother would come after me.

She finally put me in a harness and tied me to a long wire for a time in the afternoon until the train passed. But tethered to the same wire as was the dog curried me of rail sitting. He didn’t like sharing his territory with me any more than I did.

Then for some reason my left eye turned in. I was in glasses by early three years. Safety glass had yet to be invented, so I had plain glass in front of my eyes. I remember my mother shaking from worry about me getting hurt, but I cannot remember her stopping me from doing things. I played with the kids, I ran pell-mell, threw balls and tried to catch them. But with only one eye pointing in the correct direction, I had no sense of where things were in space – sometimes, I would see two images of the ball. I would over reach, get hit on the head by a ball because I thought it was over there when it was really over here. I rounded corners turning left, my blind side, and ran into something or tripped, or banged my head on something. I got hurt a lot, and once in a while I’d knock myself into a daze and there would be my mother helping me up looking my lumpy head over. But she never stopped me from playing. She could not keep her fears to herself, but she would not let them distort her decisions.

As time went on in school I was teased and tormented because I could not see good enough to catch a softball. Boys would swing at me from the left side and I would not see it coming. They would try to get me mad and fight them, and if I did, it was only once or twice. I kept my cool. I learned to try to confuse them with questions that took some thinking on their part. I guess I would try to intellectualize the fight; ask them what they would do if they could not see anything coming from one side, would they fight then? Lots of times it worked, but when it did not I was chased to the local corner grocery store where I had got to know the owner, and he would run the kids off. Oftentimes, I’d stay there till he closed at six because I was afraid the bullies were waiting for me somewhere on my path home.

But he never offered to take me home. He had things to do I guess, and generally people felt more like each of us was responsible for ourselves. Nor did I ever ask to be taken home. I’d help him in the store, dust off product, sweep the floor, etc. To me it was my way to pay him back for helping me.

I slowly withdrew from kids. Lots of times I would walk home and climb a tall tree. I loved tree climbing. I would go high enough to feel the branch I was on sway in the wind. I remember I had a plan; if the branch I hung onto broke I would hang on with all my strength, even if I ended up up-side-down. I never had to work my plan, but I had one.

I could relate a lot of stories like this. The idea of self-directed play seems foreign to me. I thought I was basically other-directed. I learned about life or got hurt, or kids would treat me in a way that made me fearful, and I would respond by avoidance if I could. I’ll have to admit when I got in my very early teens I went through a spell where I would treat the neighbor kids who were younger and weaker than I as I was treated when I was their age. I was mean. I could not make friends that way. My mother corrected me on that score.

I guess everything turned out alright. I’m 70, retired, have enough money between my wife and I to live on, own two houses that are probably not much better than the clapboard house my father started medical practice in, but I’ve never been a big lover of what I call toys, trends, and trinkets. I love to read just about anything, I can still fell a tree with a chain saw and cut it into wood stove pieces. I cut the pieces smaller than I used to because I can’t carry as much weight as I once could; that’s the only change. I’ve written poetry and four novels for only family consumption. I send them to my sister who has an English major from Wisconsin, and she says they are good. Even if she is being diplomatic, which I do not think the woman will ever be, I appreciate her input to my books. I remodel an old house once in a while. It takes me forever, but I love to work on them.

There is nothing square, nothing level, nothing vertical, in an old house. Each house is a big 3-D geometry puzzle I get to play with. When I was in my 30s, an old man once said to me -- if all I could do each day was put two boards together and nail them, I would one day have a house I built.

Kahn Acadamy.org is a math site with a structured set of lessons for self-teaching math from simple arithmetic to integral calculus. I’m almost done, and I’ll probably know basic college math then. I enjoy doing the math, so I do it.

Same with Peter Gray’s blog on play. I find it fascinating and fun to know. I read in the National Geographic (Dec09 issue) about the Hadza band of hunter-gathers, then, lo and behold, I ran across Peter’s blog.

Same with economics. When I realized a severe economic contraction was coming I started learning Austrian economics, not Keynesian, so I could understand what the world had got itself into and how I might be affected.

I will never use all this information. But it is fun knowing it. I can’t talk to others about all this, except with my wife, who has a mild interest and has learned to patiently listen to my latest self-schooling escapades. If I bring up this kind of knowledge with others I get this feeling of distancing myself from them. They step back, put a wall up between us. Sometimes, I keep talking a short while longer in hopes that they will change their attitudes, but I know I should not. They have as much right to use their mind as they deem correct as I do.
___________
(This response is yours, Peter Gray. Use it as you see fit. No reference to me is needed. Modify it, if you want, to suit yourself. Or delete it. It is yours.)

Dear Mr. Gray,
Please let me know if you have already explored the amazing reality we face everyday. I do apologize for wasting your time if so.
Hyperlexia - the innate ability to decode; on the opposite end of the bell curve from dyslexia; decoding in no way indicating comprehension; interesting facts for most hyperlexic folk: 1. Anaphora challenging; 2. Seek jumping (may also twirl, and/or seek deep pressure); 3. Approximately 1/2 of folk with ASD are hyperlexic and approximately 1/2 are dyslexic; 4. Literal interpreters within their own experiential reference; 5. Gestalt is very challenged; 6. Wh questions initially very threatening, and how questions developed with clarification of stating steps; 7. Extremely compliant with meltdowns occuring when do not understand request, or inappropriate response, usually due to literal interpretation
Thank you, Mr. Gray

There are a few very successful bloggers out there who taught themselves second languages to near-native fluency entirely through play such as watching television, reading comic books, etc. If this sounds up your alley, I'd check out:

www.alljapaneseallthetime.com (the author created a Japanese immersion environment in his house, simulating a life in Japan; 18 months after he started, he moved to Japan, interviewed in Japanese, and was hired at a Japanese software company)

www.spanishonly.com (the author more or less watched several thousand hours of Spanish television and films, listened to massive amounts of Spanish music, and read for pleasure)

http://language-tetsu.blogspot.com/ (fluent in five languages- his parents simply moved him throughout his childhood from an English-only school in Taiwan to Japan to Quebec in order to "throw him into the deep end" so to speak, resulting in fluency after many years in each situation, and the ability to self teach new languages such as Spanish)

I have always loved reading to and with my kids since they were babies. I pause and listen when they have a question and answer as if they matter, because they do. My daughter was reading before she had "formal" schooling and is reading well above her public grade school level in second grade. Her teachers asked me how she learned to read and I almost told her that surprisingly there are many other ways to learn without being tied to a desk all day. I have several friends that are public school teachers and they really believe sitting at a desk looking at the teacher is the only way people can and should learn.

Shockingly, sitting around all day isn't for everyone: I unschool my two boys. Things they weren't learning in school come easily now. My eldest son resisted learning to read in school but his reading took off one day after I put captions on our tv. We were watching a show that translated the Native American language in the captions. He asked what they were saying and I paused to enable him to read it. He was ready and it happened. They were trying to force him to read before he was ready. My middle son asked a question related to the states of matter one day as we were walking over a bridge. I showed him and he still remembers over four years later. Homeschooling has the advantage of teaching the child in the numerous teaching moments in everyday. We only have to teach to the child, not the masses.

Some of my own experiences, video below. I do this kind of thing is state schools. Most state schools in the uk have a good self directed learning, and Drama Teachers probably have the greatest degree of creativity.

When I make this claim, I found that not many people here believe self directed learning to exist in schools. When I posted a brief lesson outline of the kind of stuff I do, a poster asked me to film some of my classes, as proof, if you will, that students' ownership of work and input is as high as I claim it to be.

I couldn't make a film then, because of protection issues involved in filming in school. However, since then I have set up a group outside of school, where parents have signed permission slips for work to be filmed, and for that filmed work to be posted on the net.

A video of the work we are producing can be found here:

http://vimeo.com/channels/act2cam

It is a combination of Students' work, developed through the Techniques of Augusto Boal. I play the role of "Joker", (like a facilitator).

Do let me know what you think,

Steve

Some of my own experiences, video below. I do this kind of thing is state schools. Most state schools in the uk have a good self directed learning, and Drama Teachers probably have the greatest degree of creativity.

When I make this claim, I found that not many people here believe self directed learning to exist in schools. When I posted a brief lesson outline of the kind of stuff I do, a poster asked me to film some of my classes, as proof, if you will, that students' ownership of work and input is as high as I claim it to be.

I couldn't make a film then, because of protection issues involved in filming in school. However, since then I have set up a group outside of school, where parents have signed permission slips for work to be filmed, and for that filmed work to be posted on the net.

A video of the work we are producing can be found here:

http://vimeo.com/channels/act2cam

It is a combination of Students' work, developed through the Techniques of Augusto Boal. I play the role of "Joker", (like a facilitator).

Do let me know what you think,

Steve

Why is it that no matter what the discovery about learning, the concept of "school" is always a given? It is a separation from productive living and entirely contrived. "How can schools provide fill-in-the-blank?" always seems to be the question. I see no evidence that this model has been successful, but the answer always is MORE - money, resources, lockdown. To see some photos of signs posted in our local middle school, http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1019038&l=3c30de5941&id=1448220641. An environment unfit.

Following your request for documentary evidence of "fantasy play", here are some more videos of "little actors and directors".

http://vimeo.com/channels/act2cam

I hasten to add, I am able to facilitate this kind of work because I am a specially trained and very experienced teacher, who loves working with children (just like most other teachers in the school environment.

The content of the work is entirely decided by the young people, who also act and work behind the camera, under the expert guidance of two teachers.

I hope these videos serve to open your eyes to some of the emormous amount of positive, child-centric work that goes on in schools

Steve

I've just sent you a bunch of stories about language learning - both my native language as an infant, and other languages later on. I so much agree about 'unschooling'. I suppose I was fortunate to have as much 'unschooling' as I did, but it still wasn't nearly enough. What gets me is that in many places 'unschooling' would be practically illegal, because of the necessity of passing equivalency tests every year.

At some other point I might write you the story of me and my violin. It is a longer story than the others and will require some thought. But maybe it is necessary for me And useful for you as well?

Hello Peter:
i am an unschooling mother of a 16 yr old young man.
i have loads of stories to share later on and i am glad that you have a quest list. i started "the Resource Center of self-directed Learning" (1999-) and had been enjoying my life's journey under such direction since my son was born (1993).

we now live in taiwan when not traveling overseas, however we do travel for an extensive period of time every year. We are passionate kite fliers and will be in RI for this summer. If you are at all interested in meeting us, i think it would be fun for both sides.

my magazines were mostly in Chinese but i often write in English and the writing scattered on the internet. i will take time to write again along your list and we can share the joy with more readers.

Later.
blessed be.
Litsong Lu

During the past decade, I have been engaged in a lot of reading about the things I was interested in, outside of school time. I frankly learnt little during those years. My interest in science was driven much more by the participation on internet forums and in reading a variety of books.