Peter Gray - Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life

In Free to Learn, a passionate paean to the kind of free play and free learningexemplified by Smiths example, Peter Gray, an evolutionary psychologistat Boston College, makes a largely compelling case that children learnbest when unencumbered by adult-imposed activities and institutions.American Journal of Play

Wonderful new book.Natural Life

[A] well written, well organized and beautifully stated piece of work....I emphatically recommend this book for any parent as well as any educatoror anyone interested in improving education for our society.Laurette Lynn, host of Unplugged Mom Radio, author of Dont Do DrugsStay Out of School and Home Education Advocate

Anyone who cares about learning should read Free to Learn. Grays bookis a compelling and easy read; if everyone would read it with an open mind,a wholesale revolution in education (right through to university) wouldbe the inevitable outcome.Dissident Voice

This is an extraordinary and relevant book for unschooling parents, andthose who care about the well-being of the children in their lives...Whether you buy this book, borrow it or check it out of the library, thisbook is as important as any of John Holts early books.Home Education Magazine

Free to Learn stimulates a parents thinking about what kind of learningenvironment helps their child learn and adjust best, and then how to simulatethat environment at home or out of school if it doesnt exist amongtheir school options... Gray has caused me to re-focus my grandparentingactivities in ways that will encourage freedom of learning and play. Wemay not be able to change the world, but we can help our children adaptbetter to it.PsychCentral

A great one... this important book makes a strong case for life learning.Life Learning Magazine

Free to Learn is a courageous and profoundly important book. Peter Grayjoins the likes of Richard Louv and Alfie Kohn in speaking out for a morehumane, compassionate and effective approach to education.Frank Forencich, author of Exuberant Animal and Change Your Body,Change the World

Free to Learn is a welcome and penetrating examination of how muchfarther weve gone off track with our child-rearing practices since [Jean]Liedloff s book came out in 1975 and what we can do to get back ontrack.... Today, as school extends its compulsory attendance age to captureeven younger and older children in its buildings, Peter Gray provides uswith historical, scientific, and educational evidence that other models workbetter, cost less, and harm children and families less, than compulsory education.This is a great book that presents the scientific foundation andthe emotional support for letting children learn in their own ways thatshould be considered by everyone who cares about children.PatFarenga.com

[A]n interesting and engaging look at how children naturally learn.Forced Government Schooling (blog)

[A] cogent advocacy for the central role of play in childrens emotional,social, and intellectual development.... Free to Learn makes a good casefor the importance of play as a renewable resource for school reform andtransformation.Spirituality & Practice

Free to Learn provides us with deep, carefully researched insights into theconnections between freedom, learning and play.... [I]f you are involvedwith children, education, unschooling, free ranging, or anything havingto do with play, Free to Learn is something youll want to read, own, share,and give to everyone you know who cares about the lives of our childrenand the future of our world.DeepFun.com

Intriguing.Kirkus Reviews

Blending the traditions of J. Gary Bernhards Primates in the Classroomand A. S. Neills Summerhill, Peter Grays Free to Learn combines evolutionaryand cross-cultural insights with an account of the best in alternative educationtoday. The result is a strong challenge to our prevailing modes ofschooling, from the perspective of what is most natural for children: play.Melvin Konner, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology,Emory University, and author of The Evolution of Childhood

The modern educational system is like a wish made in a folk tale gonehorribly wrong. Peter Grays Free to Learn leads us out of the maze of unforeseenconsequences to a more natural way of letting children educatethemselves. Grays message might seem too good to be true, but it restsupon a strong scientific foundation. Free to Learn can have an immediateimpact on the children in your life.David Sloan Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology andAnthropology, Binghamton University, and author of Evolution for Everyone

Peter Grays Free to Learn is profoundly necessary as a fundamental illuminationof the continuing tragedy and entrapment of both kids and theirteachers in a generally failing and failed educational system. Gray demonstratesthrough science and evolutionary biology that the human speciesis designed to play, is built through play, and that for kids, play equals learning.Free to Learn is timely, paradigm shifting, and essential for our longterm survival as adaptive humans.Stuart Brown, M.D., Founder and President, The National Institute forPlay, and author of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination,and Invigorates the Soul

A compelling and most enjoyable read, Gray illustrates how removingplay from childhood, in combination with increasing the pressures ofmodern-day schooling, paradoxically reduces the very skills we want ourchildren to learn. The decline of play is serious business.Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, author of Einstein Never Used Flash Cardsand A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool

Free to
LEARN

Free to
LEARN

Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will
Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant,
and Better Students for Life

Peter Gray

BASIC BOOKS

New York

Copyright 2013 by Peter Gray

Published by Basic Books,

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

First paperback edition published in 2015 by Basic Books

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107-1307.

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Typeset in 11.5 point Minion Pro Std by the Perseus Books Group

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gray, Peter.

Free to learn : why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life / Peter Gray.

p. cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-465-03791-9 (ebk.)

1. PlayPsychological aspects. 2. Developmental psychology. I. Title.

BF717.G73 2013

155.4'18dc23

2012040660