Turning Kids Back on to Schooling
I never liked school right from grade 1 through to grade 12. I don’t think I was unique, but I think my dislike of school was of greater magnitude than most students. So after I graduated from high school, I declared to my mother, “I’ll never go to school again.” Dead-end, unfulfilling work post-school led me to violate my declaration with the approval of my parents. University was a different world. There were few overbearing professors harping at me to attend classes and do my homework. Much of my study was self-directed, and my learning and grades were more-or-less up to me.
Psychology professor Peter Gray, who writes a radicalblog on learning, has pondered what it is about schooling that turns off learners. In his book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life(Basic Books, 2013) Gray identifies what turns off the natural curiosity of so many children.Gray points to the “anti-play attitude” and an excessive emphasis on testing and grading, which he argues is antithetical to learning, something known by many people who read the
