How Our Schools Thwart Passions | Peter Gray | TEDxAsburyPark
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ค. 2018
- Peter Gray: Research Professor of Psychology, Boston College
Professor Gray is a research professor at Boston College whose work focuses on the role of play in human evolution and development. His current research and writing focus primarily on children's natural ways of learning and the life-long value of play. His own play includes long-distance bicycling, kayaking, backwoods skiing, and vegetable gardening.
Learn more at tedxasburypark.com/
Professor Gray is a research professor at Boston College (www.bc.edu) whose work focuses on the role of play in human evolution and development. He is the author of the book Free to Learn and writes a regular blog for Psychology Today, and is the president of the nonprofit Alliance for Self-Directed Education www.self-directed.org). He has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology. His current research and writing focus primarily on children's natural ways of learning and the life-long value of play. His own play includes not only his research and writing, but also long-distance bicycling, kayaking, backwoods skiing, and vegetable gardening. “How Our Schools Thwart Passions” Professor Peter Gray is a research professor at Boston College (www.bc.edu) whose work focuses on the role of play in human evolution and development. He is author of the book Free to Learn and authors a regular blog for Psychology Today, and is the president of the nonprofit Alliance for Self-Directed Education (www.self-directed.org). He has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology. His current research and writing focus primarily on children's natural ways of learning and the life-long value of play. His own play includes not only his research and writing, but also long-distance bicycling, kayaking, backwoods skiing, and vegetable gardening. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx
As a teacher for the last 9 years I can confirm every word of this talk from my own experience. I constantly struggle with the sense that I am totally wasting my student's time because I am required to conform to the expectations he listed. I MUST report their progress according to a numbered scale. I must have them all doing the same activity at the same time. And when it's "play time" they explode out of the door ready to grab the precious tiny bit of time in between what I am required to force them to do and what they actually need to be doing in the business of living. I had hoped to do things differently from my own horrific schooling experience, but the system itself is fundamentally flawed. It doesn't matter how good your intentions are as a teacher, you are doomed to waste your students' time.
Fantastic and honest commentary, thank you for sharing 👍🏽
I’m pulling mine out this week
I have been teaching all sciences for grades 6-12 now for 17 yrs. I am never going back to the public education system. And it precisely bcs of what you just shared. You actually are wasting their time. You are their prison warden. And that is why you have to be their disciplinarian instead of the mentor.
I am quitting. And it is going to come at a great financial cost to myself.
But I will no longer be enabling the mental torture of young people.
The system is irrepairable and needs to be starved of good people like us.
I quit teaching public school after two years because I couldnt continue to hurt my students. Later my own kids were unschooled and I eventually sent them to The Sudbury Valley School, that Peter mentions here.
@@TheBadger40 You are a lovely person of conviction. It's not your fault. What you up to these days?
The things I really like are the things I didn’t study in school. School put me off things rather than inspiring and motivating me.
I just heard him on a podcast ("Hidden Brain"). Wow, I love the way this man thinks! We need a cultural re-evaluation (revolution) about "What is school for?" We need ways to encourage children to explore different interests and have small apprenticeships and develop their passions so they are ready to be adults when the time comes.
I'm 38, and I regret that my parents didn't know this. I won't let the same mistake happens to my child.
Did you have passions when you left school? If not, have you developed some recently? If you have, sharing this would help others see that playing is not inherent to children only, it is inherent to all people of many different ages. Even if you "missed childhood", this does not mean that developing just as strong passions is impossible!
I totally agree!
School is not education and too many kids are literally harmed by the way schools are run- and it is getting worse rather than better as the pressures mount
Such a great example of the power of Self-Directed Education!
It's amazing to me here in the United States, that most of the possessors of high school diplomas known to me have no clue about history, cannot spell, cannot write coherently or with even the most basic understanding of punctuation or capitalisation, cannot do the most basic mathematics, read only poorly and seldom read more than Facebook (ie, rarely if ever a book, either for pleasure or information), etc, etc. People with degrees that I know are often not much better. And they all have jobs they dread, and dream of leaving.
I'm glad you got a chance to talk on TED! I wrote a nomination for you.
What an inspiring talk. Self-directed education led by passion is the missing link we need to find for learners today. Good food for thought.
Frank Zappa: if you want to get laid, go to college; if you want an education, go to the library
I had to go through schooling, and I just recently got out. I want to be an Author and an Architect. I currently have a book on the way, but...architecture is more difficult since everyone wants me to go to school for it. I am hoping to find an apprenticeship. I learn from experience, not from a textbook and lectures.
Three years later--did you find a way into architecture? I'm a retired architect and have to say, the college I went to (in the USA) didn't really teach much of anything in the design classes. Such a waste of opportunity and time. And you need a license to practice architecture since the architectural lobbyists (as in many professions) want to screen who can do this work.
Love this guy, many thanks Mr Gray.
I didn't grow up playing with friends. I have anxiety and not good at solving conflicts... Also emotionally neglected by my parents most of the time, and stuff like that. School was very stressful.
My daughter only gets twenty minutes of recess at school and I hate it.
B Lam, let me know if you're considering unschooling and I can help you get started. I've been teaching for 9 years and I'm fed up because no matter how good a teacher one is, the system forces us to do things a certain way and that way is utterly broken and does not meet the needs of children. I'm looking to support parents who want to do things differently. Unschooling is way easier than you'd think.
I hope u have the courage to take the other road! Inbox if u have any questions
10:00 He's referring to Hal Sadofsky (University of Oregon)
5:00 on his brother.
11:38 Akilah Richards’ daughter Marley is a voiceover actress. Taught herself japanese.
Billy ellish was homeschooling/unschooled well you know what her music interests got her
Great talk.
Instead of spending lot of time in trying to indoctrinate children let's spend that time in letting them play, learn real things, learn how to do things....
true
I havev 5 children. The first two went to public school in a safe morals taught to 80% to the kids society. My last three had issues in 2001, my 12 yr. old, 100% on all the California achievement test except 97% in math, running with the break the rules buddies, my 8 yr. old suffering dyslexic problems and my youngest suffering Asperger's after his kindergarten immunization shots... I started with helping team teach students, at a private school, to do trade pay. I loved their curriculum because the students could pick the subject of interest to do a research paper and oral reports on. And they loved researching their interests. I took that reading research to home school my last two. My first two got burned out with learning math and curriculum they weren't interested in and forever now hate researching. My last two still enjoy and love the adventure of researching❣️
Thanks professor, for your talk. My father wanted me to go to Julliard Conservatory, but I knew that my not having the control of my own learning process in such a highly controlled environment would "kill" me. He didn't ever accept this, but I became the happy flutist I am today despite/because of/independent of my not going to this conservatory. I've finished reading your >Free to Learn< book in which you present many, readily accessible and acceptable ideas. Often I feel that the presented research and the expression of data is not as comprehensive as I might like (I'd like to hear more about the 20 or so "hunter-gatherer societies", for example). You nevertheless, make a strong case for rejecting coercive schooling and -school forms. I'm in the happy position of retiring this year as a "teacher" - what do you suggest as a course of action for teachers who know that schooling is (at best) outdated and repugnant? As we both know, people who enjoy teaching (in my case with children of all ages in many different situations - mostly musical) in the rule don't enjoy the necessary support to do this and are often, in fact, stopped, prohibited and chastised for exercising this passionate involvement.
One of the greatest feelings of joy/fun occurs while falling/failing. At the university I make sure to offer situations where things can go wrong - also with me - without penalty. This at the very beginning of the course. Before I learned to ski - which I never did very often - I learned how wonderful it is to just fall in the snow! Skiing fast means LESS time in/on the snow with everybody else! How is this desirable?
At the university I feel myself to be under enormous pressure to aid the students in recovering their passions and curiosity to discover things for themselves. I catch myself recommending such silly things like NOT practising more than 20 minutes/day, but to instead to spend more time doing nothing! sleeping more, eating better, going out with friends. The pressure comes from my feelings of immanency - they've all gone through this destructive system of school-learning and, as you point out, have lost their connection to their passion. Without this connection I feel they are wasting their time. They are with me for 8 semesters after which they are to absolve a concert program on their instrument, judged by the faculty. I feel that we need them to reconnect themselves with their passions - we need their passions - the future pupils they will be teaching need their passions.
In schools, I feel that what I do is undermined in so many ways, first and foremost by the school-bell. Three of the schools in which I teach have a 95 db bell sounding for an entire 7 seconds after which scream I can barely even remember my own name. Established behavior such as "school toilet-politics", --I've lost my desire to write further.
Thank you for your talk.
Oh yeah, I wanted to express thanks for hearing your new ideas (from 2018). So thanks for that, too.
Mainstream education has a lot to learn
Cancel homeworks PLEASE! I'm a parent and also a teacher and education masters
There are no words to describe this terrible failure. Makes me seriously think of becoming a teacher for my kids.