Resources
 

Democratic schools are part of the self-directed education movement. To better understand democratic schools, we recommend first understanding self-directed education.  

Peter Gray

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Peter Gray is a retired professor of psychology at Boston College, Massachusetts. He is one of the most prominent contemporary scientific voices explaining and promoting self-directed education. Below is a selection of some of his works.

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What is Self-Directed Education? [a 4-minute YouTube video]

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Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. [a book]

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Published in 2013. Makes a scientific (but also personal) case for free play as the foundation of happiness and meaningful learning.

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Self Directed Education. What Is It, How Does It Work [a keynote address]

A recording of a keynote address Peter Gray delivered at the 2016 Alternative Education Resource Organisation conference in Portland, Oregon (4th – 7th August 2016). It summarizes many themes of his 2013 Free To Learn book.  

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Freedom to Learn. The roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning [a blog]

There are many topics Peter Gray touches on his blog (run on Psychology Today website), but the importance of free play, and the (democratic) future of education are the main themes. Here’s a couple of entries that may interest you:

• Education’s future: what will replace K12 and college 

• Biological foundations of self-directed education

• Children teach themselves to read 

• Children educate themselves IV: lessons from Sudbury Valley [a succinct introduction to the Sudbury model of democratic education. Mentions Peter Gray’s research on the lives of Sudbury Valley graduates).

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The Peter Gray Psychology Today Collection [four very short books]

These are some of the entries from Peter Gray’s blog, published in four slim volumes:

• Mother Nature’s Pedagogy.

• How Children Acquire “Academic Skills” without formal instruction 

• Evidence that Self-Directed Education Works 

• The Harm of Coercive Schooling

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The books can be purchased on the publisher’s website (see the hyperlink above). 

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Peter Gray’s website.

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There you will find links to several resources besides those mentioned above, e.g. Peter Gray’s  scientific publications and his Substack series (the latter by subscription only).

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Alison Gopnik

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Alison Gopnik is a professor at University of California, Berkeley, is one of the most eminent contemporary developmental psychologists (for more information on her work, see here) 

The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children. [a book]

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Published in 2016. It focusses mostly on parent-child relationship, resonates with many themes discussed by Peter Gray (who praised Gopnik’s book on his blog).

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“… Love doesn’t have goal or blueprints, but it does have a purpose.  The purpose of love is not to change the people we love, but to give them what they need to thrive.  Love’s purpose is not to shape our beloved’s destiny, but to help them shape their own.  It isn’t to show them the way, but to help them find a path for themselves, even if the path they take isn’t one we would choose for ourselves, or even one we would choose for them.  … Loving children doesn’t give them a destination; it gives them sustenance for the journey” (page 10). 

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“Drawing on the study of human evolution and on her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is immensely important, the goal shouldn’t be to shape them so they turn out a certain way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and very different both from their parents and from one another. The variability and flexibility of childhood allow them to innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. “Parenting” won’t make children learn – rather, caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment” [from the book’s dust jacket]

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John Holt

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A teacher who tried to make mainstream schools better, became disillusioned with that project, and started advocating for radical alternatives (inventing the term unschooling along the way). For more information on his life and work, see here. 

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How Children Fail [a book]

First published in 1964 (here we reference the 1995 edition) it provides insights into how children enquire about the world and why the traditional school methods of learning, testing and grading may not support that. 

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How Children Learn [a book]

First published in 1967 (here we refence the 2017 50th anniversary edition) it makes the case for natural, child-led learning. 

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Carl Rogers

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Well known as the founder client-centered psychotherapy approach, Carl Rogers also had a long-standing interest in education.  

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Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become. [a book]

First published in 1969 (2nd edition 1986) the book outlines Roger’s theory of experiential learning

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