If, precisely to the extent that the field of education has championed lofty principles, a decline in education has set in, the question arises: Where did this come from? Psychologist Peter Gray, for whom the question of learning has become his life’s work (and who, for many years, wrote his widely read Freedom to Learn column in Psychology Today), recalls his school days in the 1950s, especially the great deal of freedom he had. No homework in Elementary School, no lugging materials back and forth between home and classroom—once you were outside, you were outside and free to play. And in our conversation, this seemingly trivial detail becomes the litmus test, revealing a fundamental shift: School is no longer a confined space but a totalizing system permeating every aspect of children’s lives.

Guided by his own son’s school experience, Peter Gray has spent decades researching how children learn when they are allowed to—in Hunter-Gatherer societies, where teaching is taboo, and at the Sudbury Valley School, where there are no curricula or grades, only radical autonomy. His thesis: Conventional schools have degenerated into disciplinary institutions that hit the most successful students the hardest. The rates of anxiety and depression do not merely reflect the parental pressure weighing on students; even more serious is how misguided ideals of perfection go hand in hand with the loss of free play—and thus the very sphere where creativity and critical thinking are fostered.

Peter Gray worked for many years as a research professor at Boston College. While his research initially focused on the brains and hormonal balance of mice, the issue of Education and Learning became a cause close to his heart. Author of a widely used introductory text on Psychology (now in its 8th edition), he’s also written numerous texts on how children learn. His Psychology Today column made him an influential voice for the Alliance of Self-Directed Education.

Peter Gray has published (selection)

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