Peter Gray has spent much of his career demonstrating how children learn through play. His book “Free to Learn” helped fuel the unschooling movement - but will the educational mainstream ever shift in response?

This episode explores Peter’s hopes that we will reach a tipping point - beyond which self-directed learning becomes the norm - and his fears about what may prevent it.

Timings:

01:30 Free to Learn

17:40 The Tipping Point theory of social change

36:14 Peter’s education journey

53:02 A personal update from Stan

Links:

Peter Gray is the author of Free to Learn: https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/peter-gray/free-to-learn/9780465084999/

What happens to graduates of Sudbury Valley School? https://www.self-directed.org/resource/gray-and-chanoff-1986/

Fact check: long-term trends suggests the US home-school rate is around 5%, but a Covid-era survey suggested 10% of parents intended to home-school: https://news.gallup.com/poll/317852/parents-satisfaction-child-education-slips.aspx