How does play help children?→

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How does play help children?

 

People tend to think of play as a break for the brain. We think we are relaxing, zoning out, allowing our brain some time off. In reality, however, several important things happen in the brain as we play! Play affects the brain in lots of ways that have crucial outcomes later in life.

Why is play so important? A newborn baby has over 2 billion brain cells, but connections between these brain cells have not yet been developed and will constitute the majority of the 75 percent of the brain left to grow after birth (Sunderland, 2006). The vast majority of brain growth occurs in the first five years of life. Play builds needed neuronal connections that will influence memory, learning, emotional regulation, and social intelligence for years to come. Let’s examine a couple of types of play. 

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Back to Basics→

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Back to Basics

Why go to school?  For people who like to think through the important questions in life for themselves, Sudbury Valley stands as a challenge to the accepted answers.

Intellectual basics: The first phrase that pops into everyone's mind is: "We go to school to learn." That's the intellectual goal. It comes before all the others. So much so, that "getting an education" has come to mean "learning" -- a bit narrow, to be sure, but it gets the priorities clear.

Then why don't people learn more in schools today? Why all the complaints? Why the seemingly limitless expenditures just to tread water, let alone to progress?

The answer is embarrassingly simple. Schools today are institutions in which "learning" is taken to mean "being taught." You want people to learn? Teach them! You want them to learn more? Teach them more! And more! Work them harder. Drill them longer.

But learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to you! That is true of everyone. It's basic.

What makes people learn? Funny anyone should ask. Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle started his most important book with the universally accepted answer: "Human beings are naturally curious." Descartes put it slightly differently, also at the beginning of his major work: "I think, therefore I am." Learning, thinking, actively using your mind þ it's the essence of being human. It's natural.

Continue reading here.

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Kids with less structured play are better able to meet their own goals→

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Kids with less structured play are better able to meet their own goals

Children who spend more time in less structured activities—from playing outside to reading books to visiting the zoo—are better able to set their own goals and take actions to meet those goals without prodding from adults, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The study, published online in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, also found that children who participate in more structured activities—including soccer practice, piano lessons and homework—had poorer “self-directed executive function,” a measure of the ability to set and reach goals independently. 

“Executive function is extremely important for children,” said CU-Boulder psychology and neuroscience Professor Yuko Munakata, senior author of the new study. “It helps them in all kinds of ways throughout their daily lives, from flexibly switching between different activities rather than getting stuck on one thing, to stopping themselves from yelling when angry, to delaying gratification. Executive function during childhood also predicts important outcomes, like academic performance, health, wealth and criminality, years and even decades later.”

Full article here

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Children today are suffering from a deficit of play→

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Children today are suffering from a deficit of play

Children today are cossetted and pressured in equal measure. Without the freedom to play they will never grow up

When I was a child in the 1950s, my friends and I had two educations. We had school (which was not the big deal it is today), and we also had what I call a hunter-gather education. We played in mixed-age neighbourhood groups almost every day after school, often until dark. We played all weekend and all summer long. We had time to explore in all sorts of ways, and also time to become bored and figure out how to overcome boredom, time to get into trouble and find our way out of it, time to daydream, time to immerse ourselves in hobbies, and time to read comics and whatever else we wanted to read rather than the books assigned to us. What I learnt in my hunter-gatherer education has been far more valuable to my adult life than what I learnt in school, and I think others in my age group would say the same if they took time to think about it.

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Philly Free School→

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Philly Free School

At the Philly Free School, students ages 4-19 explore freely, think critically, and work collaboratively, across ages, to govern themselves and their school. Through self-initiated activities, students learn the delicate balance between individual freedom and community responsibility. Along the way, they develop the internal resources to navigate, assess, and utilize the information and tools needed to thrive in modern society.

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Jersey Shore Free School→

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Jersey Shore Free School

Jersey Shore Free School is a free, democratic Sudbury school where children and teens are free to explore life and learning in their own way and at their own pace. When an environment supports this kind of freedom in learning, young people flourish: they learn with relative ease; they learn in a shorter period of time; they enjoy every day; they exude happiness and self confidence; they come to know and respect their special giftedness and that of others; they stay connected to themselves, listening within for their direction; they pursue the development of mind, body and spirit; they value democracy because they live it; they desire to contribute to community; they become fully responsible for themselves and for choosing their life path; and they learn everything they need to achieve their dreams.

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Alternatives to School→

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Alternatives to School

...ideas that make enormous sense, are much supported by research, and are influencing the educational thought and practice of an ever-growing number of families throughout the world. I am Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College. This website includes some of my own research findings, as well as conclusions from many other sources, about how children best learn and about alternatives to conventional schooling that have proven successful for many thousands of young people. I, and the whole team that created this site, welcome you and hope you will explore the site to discover more about home-based, self-directed learning, community resource centers, and democratic schools.

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