Free to Learn

10 great books on self-directed learning

“We have forgotten that children are designed by nature to learn through self-directed play and exploration, and so, more and more, we deprive them of freedom to learn, subjecting them instead to the tedious and painfully slow learning methods” - Peter O. Gray

Can kids teach themselves? Or do they need guidance from an experienced teacher? Or is it a balance of both?

The radical philosophy of unschooling embraces children’s rights, insists that learning happens as naturally as breathing and that when children are left to their own devices, there’s no limit to how far their learning can go.

In celebration of independence day, we’re highlighting ten groundbreaking books that radically challenge the assumption that learning should be compulsory with data from neurologists, child development specialists, anthropologists, educators, historians and business innovators.

1. Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. By Peter Gray (Developmental Psychologist)

2. De-schooling society: A critical discourse of education as practiced in modern economics
   ““The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring.”
   By Ivan Illich (philosopher, priest, theologian and social critic)
   

3. Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom

   By Kerry McDonald (Forbes Scholar)
   

4. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
   By John Taylor Gatto (NYC and NYS Teacher of the Year)
   

5. How Children Learn: Learning as Natural as Breathing
   “Holt looks at how we learn to talk, to read, to count, and to reason, and how we can nurture and encourage these natural abilities in our children.”
   By Jon Holt (Educator and Pioneer of the Unschooling Movement)
   

6. Free Range Learning
   “Free Range Learning describes an important individual and cultural shift in education that’s already well underway. It advocates for the child’s right to learn naturally and demonstrates how to enfold this approach into daily life.”
   By Laura Grace Wheldon (Poet and mother of 4)
   

7. Call of the Wild + Free: Reclaiming the Wonder in Your Child’s Education
   By Ainsley Arment (Founder of the Wild + Free Movement)
   

8. Brave Learner: Finding Everyday Magic in Learning and Life

   By Julie Bogart (Author and educator)
   

9. Teach Your Own: classic and indispensable work on teaching children at home
   By Jon Holt and Pat Farenga
   

10. The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

    By Sir Ken Robinson, scholar delivered the most watched Ted Talk of all time, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”