Whatever They Want

The one thing that has really taken my relationship with my children to a more peaceful and prosperous level, is the commitment I’ve made to giving them what is theirs by virtue of their humanity, the right to do whatever they want, albeit with a few caveats. Let me explain.…

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Encouragement as Bad as Discouragement

There is an absolutely horrible idea that is extremely popular in raising, teaching and generally working with children … encouragement. I know it sounds kind of shocking, but roll with me for a minute. Kids are exploring who they are, what they are good at, what interests them, and a…

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School is Bad for Children

Almost every child, on the first day he sets foot in a school building, is smarter, more curious, less afraid of what he doesn’t know, better at finding and figuring things out, and more confident, resourceful, persistent and independent than he will ever be again in his schooling – or,…

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An Open Letter to My Baby

Dear Baby Collins, Having just entered life and found myself as your father, you’re probably thinking, “Great, who’s this schlub?” I know, I know, I’m not all that impressive on first glance, but before you decide to pack your things and leave – which is entirely your right – allow…

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The Right to Control One’s Learning

Young people should have the right to control and direct their own learning; that is, to decide what they want to learn, and when, where, how, how much, how fast, and with what help they want to learn it. To be still more specific, I want them to have the…

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Unschooled Kids Will Be Different

A concern I’ve heard regarding unschooled kids is that “they’ll be different”. What is meant by this is that they won’t have the same education, the same experiences, the same memories, the same cultural influences, yadda, yadda, yadda, as their “peers”. In my opinion, that’s just dandy. Yes, they will…

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Biological Foundations for Self-Directed Education

Originally published on PsychologyToday.com at my blog, “Freedom to Learn“. In many previous posts I have contended that children come into the world biologically designed to educate themselves. The evidence comes from observing the amazing learning capacities of children before they start school (here), the ways that children and adolescents in…

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The Culture of Childhood: We’ve Almost Destroyed It

Originally published on PsychologyToday.com at my blog, “Freedom to Learn“. I don’t want to trivialize the roles of adults in children’s lives, but, truth be told, we adults greatly exaggerate our roles in our theories and beliefs about how children develop.  We have this adult-centric view that we raise, socialize, and educate children. Certainly…

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The Wisdom of Hunter-Gatherers

Originally published on PsychologyToday.com at my blog, “Freedom to Learn“. For hundreds of thousands of years, up until the time when agriculture was invented (a mere 10,000 years ago), we were all hunter-gatherers. Our human instincts, including all of the instinctive means by which we learn, came about in the…

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