“Children are biologically predisposed to take charge of their own education.” This phrase really took me back to one word: empiric. This word means to learn something in the process of doing, with no prior knowledge of it, by taking risks, and by a trial and error basis. This is what kids do when they free play, they learn their way around the world they live in. They explore, go on adventures, fall down, get hurt, help others, and collaborate with their friends, and with no adult supervision, which I think is crucial for childhood education. However, I also think, regardless of the freedom they get, these kids should also be learning from adults, maybe not for initial education, but starting at five or six years of age, children should be taught for short periods of time how to read and write, and do basic math; skills which they most likely wouldn't learn well during free play, especially at that age. My grandmother was removed from school just before finishing primary, and had a lot of free time to wander around and experience the world that surrounded her. Now, she is a very cultural person, who is very creative, resourceful, and open-minded (and claims she wasn't as much before 'finishing' school), speaks four languages, and is very interested about the world that surrounds her. These skills were cultivated from the time of free play she had because of not going to school. However, this is not an entirely fulfilling way to be educated, as she could never study a career, and also claims that she is somewhat insecure because, at home, she was never taken out of her comfort zone, while at school she would've been taking tests all the time, having to talk to an audience, and cultivating social skills due to her interactions with others there.
Peter Gray is always saying how children our age should be educated 'the hunter-gatherer way' in order for them to have a much more fulfilling and effective learning period. I don't feel this is entirely true, as hunter-gatherer children didn't need academic knowledge like children nowadays do. For a living, hunter-gatherers, well, hunted and gathered food, because at that time there were not much 'careers' while nowadays, common jobs include: lawyer, engineer, and economist, jobs that require academic knowledge in subjects like mathematics, language, physics, chemistry, history and social studies. I don't think someone could learn one of these skills the 'hunter-gatherer way' as well as they would in a proper school year or more taking the course. This doesn't mean that Peter Gray's argument is wrong, but I do think that if today's schools adapt that way of education for it to fit to the modern requirements, it would surely work. “Hunter-gatherers had it right, and their understanding that children need freedom to educate themselves is as valid for children in our social world today is it was in theirs.” This is the reason why some schools around the world are starting to re-adapt their curriculum (or part of it) to slowly start getting back to the way hunter-gatherers educated their children. Soon, many schools will start to imitate the schools that have already started taking steps into free playing education’s direction.
“The schools we see around us are not products of science and logic, they are products of history.” Schools today aren’t thought out to be the perfect fit for students, meaning their curriculums aren’t ideal for student growth, regardless of what many would think. Nowadays, most schools are a product of the combination of different educational systems that succeeded in the past, as a way to try and create a new type of schooling based on getting key aspects from successful educational systems all over history. However, many schools around the world, including FDR, are starting to modernize their curriculums for students’ education to be done with much more freedom than before. A very clear example of this is the Innovation Academy. Teachers in FDR created the Innovation Academy based on different books (similar to this one) that talked about how students should be given more freedom to learn. This is an example of schools starting to modernize their curriculums (or at least part of it) to provide a more free and modern education. This is not the only example of this occurring. There are conferences that promote innovation, and which the FDR Innovation Academy was part of last year, which reflect how society is starting to want to improve and revolutionize modern education by looking at the past; but this time, way earlier than the type of education protestants sought for inspiration.
It is clear how schools slowly are starting to change their curriculums for them to begin approaching the 'free play' education model for students to have a learning experience that is, like I said before, more fulfilling and effective. Even though it may sound too exaggerated, I am not the only one who thinks this, even though we are referring to similar ways of education, but identical, Peter Gray shares my opinion: "I predict that 50 from now, if not sooner, the Sudbury Valley model [free play education] will be featured in every standard textbook of education and will be accepted, with variation, by many if not all public school systems. In fifty years, educators will see today's approach at schooling as a barbaric relic of the past." Even though I don't agree with the term "barbaric", I do agree that today's schooling will be negatively looked at. After showing examples of institutions that are staring to collaborate, and having Peter Gray's 'approval', I think it could be concluded that, for our benefit, schools around the world, like painters and writers in the 14 century, are starting to build towards the rebirth of education.