Free to Learn Entry #1:
The other day I went up to my mom and asked her "What do you think about school?". She replied something along the lines of "I think school is a centre of education and instruction that serves for generating the ties between kids. It allows kids to interact amongst themselves. It's a place of reference for education and is the first place to generate responsibility for students regarding others. It shows them their role in society and their rights and allows them to learn how to tolerate and negotiate with each other." Then I asked her what she thought about education. She said, "Education is something that goes beyond the school. It's the human process of learning and growing as human beings and people. It's the learning of culture and where we acquire the skills and the possibility to know how to make important choices and how we can contribute to society." I must say that if I hadn't read "Free to Learn" by Peter Grey I wouldn't have even questioned her replies, yet now I was only partially satisfied with her answers. The knowledge and amount of questioning that this book portrays is absolutely spectacular. It changes the way you think about not only school but education itself. This is why I think my mother's answers didn't seem completely accurate to me anymore. Peter Grey had made me aware about issues that our modern education system has of which I had thought of as the norm. What my mother had previously described as school, didn't seem accurate to the actual place most students find themselves going to every day. The modern school system has several flaws which make it not an advantage for some learners, but more like a disadvantage. The system is competitive, and it makes children who are good even better and students who struggle even worse. It creates anxiety, fosters shame which may lead to cheating, it promotes bullying and eradicates cooperation amongst students. It also is shown to cut off critical thinking in students because they are taught to do what the teacher wants and not question it in order to obtain the highest grade. These are some of the several flaws that have been built into today's way of educating children. Of course, schools are beneficial for some students who do well in the system and end up going into great colleges and doing well, yet for the other half, school is like going through a nightmare. I can't argue with Peter Grey's analysis of the school system, for I can witness his points in my day to day life at school. I'm not a bad student or struggle continuously as others might, yet I can connect to most of the ideas he mentions in his text. School should be a place where there is freedom to explore things that interest you. It should be a non-competitive environment where children and young teens feel empowered and motivated to learn with their peers and where they are challenged to think critically and branch out into different learning paths that aren't written down on a certain yearly curriculum. In "Free to Learn" Grey refers to the hunter-gatherer way of life as a model of what education looks like when a school is not in between. He talks about the importance of play in the process of learning and children-led education. These communities allowed children to play without restrictions and explore the world on their own. It was fascinating to read about how these children could successfully learn all the skills necessary in order to be successful adults in their cultures and how they took responsibility of their own learning. The lack of competitiveness in the hunter-gatherer bands was also something that I would describe as admirable. It made me realize how one doesn't have to be competitive in order to give their 100% effort towards something and obtain it. Of course it's much harder for parents who raise their kids in certain cultures nowadays to give their children the same amount of freedom than the hunter-gatherer bands did depending on the place in which they live and the dangers they could be exposed to. Yet what cuts into the time kids have for play the most is school. School hours have been extending themselves more and more throughout the years and the amount of homework has been rising too. School principals, staff and the government don't seem to realize the importance of play in children's development and this is what is harming education the most. If children aren't given the freedom to play and interact with other children, how are they going to learn such important life lessons? Peter Grey stated "The things that children learn through their own initiatives, in free play, cannot be taught in other ways." Schools can never replace the experience of playing, therefore students should be provided with play time in school since if they can't obtain it outside school hours due to homework or parent's insecurities about their safety.
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