“Three core aspects of human nature – curiosity, playfulness and sociability – can combine beautifully to serve the purpose of education.”
I don’t know about you but when I first read these three words: curiosity, playfulness and sociability, all my childhood memories came back. When I was little, while living in Ecuador, my parents trusted me fully and where we lived so I had all the freedom to go out in our condominium. As a 4-year-old I would explore the neighbourhood with my friends. During these young years of freedom I played and explored around and learned some of the most basic skills by myself. I learned to ride a bike with my sister, to plant flowers, responsibility (to meet my curfew hours), to create games with materials found in the garden, and many more. Thanks to those years of play I was able to learn how to be independent, innovative, resourceful, and responsible, these skills came in very handy as I grew up, especially when I moved to Peru. Play is a word that most of us think of as a waste of time, but actually it carries much more importance and meaning for education. Before reading the book I would think of play no different than many parents do today: time for entertainment and games. However, today I’ve completely have a different definition for this word, I’m able to see the power and impact play has at any age. Today I see play as freedom, a tool for self-control and motivation for exploring therefore acquiring new knowledge and social skills. Thus, play is vital for education. In today’s world schools have restricted freedom, play, and any motivation of exploring. This has impacted students and their passion for learning. Instead of providing the necessary skills and giving some time for play, self-exploration, we have created a stressful environment. Personally, this has created a challenging journey for me in school because I still haven’t found my passion for learning, or have found something that I truly love doing. “Curiosity is the spark behind the spark of every great idea. The future belongs to the curios.” Even those we underestimate it curiosity is one of the most important skills we should reinforce in children. Curiosity, just like mentioned in the quote, is the start of every great idea. A curious learner is a motivated learner, and if we make the education system very lined out, we are not giving space for curiosity. We humans are naturally curious, and instead of making students follow too many directions, we should allow them to be critical thinkers. The more curious a child is the more he will want to self explore and be an independent learner. A big part of a great learner is motivation and curiosity, but along with that the skill to share knowledge, collaborate, and exchange ideas is also important. Today students today are more selfish learners, we aren’t constantly sharing with each other our findings, or either exchanging ideas that will enrich our own. In today’s education getting the top grades is what matters. However, as Peter Gray discusses in his book “Free to learn”, we should be more sociable learners where we communicate our knowledge and help each other. After finishing Gray’s fascinating and relatable book I have been able to reflect and look back to all these school years I have gone through and the kind of learner I am and want to become. Peter Gray was able to open my eyes to this huge misconception about education and the way learning is done today. The biggest lesson he transmit is that we are naturally born with eager to play and explore, we are curious about the world, and we are sociable, and these basic skills that are in our DNA should be reinforced in school because combined they make a motivated, driven learner. I hope that this year I’m able to experience what Peter Gray calls “free to learn” and I can boost these skills that have been put aside for some time.
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I struggle. For the past ten years this thought has been wandering in my head. Yes, I one of those ADD kids, therefore, reading long texts, being forced to sit in a class for more than an hour makes me struggle. Our current educational system doesn’t allow me to function in my own special way of learning, therefore, school seems like a prison. Peter Gray, in the book “Free to Learn”, mentions how “he has abundant evidence that children learn beautifully, on their on motivation and in their own ways, if they would just be given the freedom and opportunities to do so, without correction”. School should be moldable, for each student and their needs, instead it feels like we are all trying to fit in the same size shoe, when we should be provided with many sizes. Naturally humans crave freedom and school doesn’t give us enough of the one thing we are hungry for. If we were given freedom to explore our interests, who we really are and how we learn best, we would be intrinsically motivated humans eager to learn. Personally, I believe that the IA resembles many of the things Peter Gray explains in his book, and being part of it will enrich my education and passion for learning. We live under a huge misconception. We believe that the more challenging school is, the more stressful our days, the longer our homework, and the harder our classes, the better our educational system is. Everything is a competition today, but instead we should follow the “hunter-gatherers” method of free learning and playing. The best way to acquire knowledge is through experience. I remember when I was 6 years old and I got a bicycle for my birthday, my sister and I went outside to try it out. I had no previous knowledge on how to ride a bike with no extra helper wheels, so I experimented with Andrea. As I was riding down hill, towards my neighbor’s car, I had no idea of how to stop. My sister came to the rescue and pushed me to the grass on the other side. This experience taught me how to work a bike and what things I shouldn’t do. After that day I never forgot how to use the breaks. “The most important lessons are not learned during school, but are learned from life itself.” Something that I’m extremely excited about in the IA is autonomy. As Peter Gray mentions, the hunter-gatherer groups allows children to live their childhood as nature designed it, where you do what you want, no one tells you what to do and you are not tested. The test shouldn’t grade how smart you are, but how well you know yourself and how you deal with failure. As the years go by we have ruined the real experience of childhood. We are killing children’s natural sense of exploring, independent learning, and freedom by placing them in a system that completely restricts their minds. We are killing the passion for learning and we are creating a contradiction. We need to promote freedom and allow children to find their own ways of learning, eliminating negative competition, and giving them the basic tools they need to find their passion. As the IA gets closer, I’m eager to explore myself and a new learning environment.
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