6. Self-Directed Education
Quick summary: Children are born with innate curiosity and an exceptional ability to teach themselves. Modular learning gives kids the needed space and time to follow their interests and teach themselves. By giving kids lots of time for self-directed learning, creating a safe, healthy environment for learning, and letting children experience the natural consequences of their actions, we can raise independent, confident children with a lifelong passion for learning.
Benefits of self-directed learning
Traditional school vs. Homeschooling for self-directed learning
Nine ways to encourage self-directed learning
Common pitfalls in self-directed learning and how to overcome them
How to find the right balance of self-directed learning and structure
Top 10 books on self-directed learning
The best software and tools to support self-directed learning
Giving kids the time and space they need to teach themselves
Self-directed learning is at once the most logical and radical idea shaping education today. It makes sense that self-directed learning works. Kids teach themselves how to walk. They teach themselves how to talk, jump, and make jokes. They intuitively know that these skills are important for functioning well in society. Some children even teach themselves how to read.
“Children come into the world…genetically programmed with extraordinary capacities for learning. They are little learning machines. Within their first four years or so they absorb an unfathomable amount of information and skills without any instruction. They learn to walk, run, jump, and climb. They learn to understand and speak the language of the culture into which they are born, and with that they learn to assert their will, argue, amuse, annoy, befriend, and ask questions. They acquire an incredible amount of knowledge about the physical and social world around them. All of this is driven by their inborn instincts and drives, their innate playfulness and curiosity. Nature does not turn off this enormous desire and capacity to learn when children turn five or six.” -Peter Gray, Free to Learn
The Department of Education recognizes the vital importance of self-directed education:
“considerable research supports the… principle wherein students become self-directed learners capable of monitoring their own thought processes, setting goals, and working to achieve them “
As kids get older, we sometimes become less confident in their abilities to teach themselves the necessary skills to function well in society. We often force them to learn information we deem important without giving them a clear explanation of why they need those skills - or how they’ll apply them later in life. We start to take more and more control over what (and how) they learn.
In a similar vein, we are afraid of their boredom. We make efforts to ensure they’re constantly entertained. In this way, we deprive them of the gift of boredom, the frustration that drives children to discover what interests and engages them. Instead, they renounce responsibility for their fulfillment and learn to depend on others to engage them.
While it’s natural for adults to teach themselves new skills for work or pleasure (drawing on MOOCs and online classes), we assume kids need teachers in order to learn. We assume they don’t know what they need, so they need to be constrained to a specific set of knowledge society deems important.
The irony is that the capacity of a child’s brain to learn new information is much more powerful than an adult’s brain:
“…if we compare our ability as adults to that of the child, it would require us sixty years of hard work to achieve what a child has achieved in these first three years.” - Maria Montessori, “The Absorbent Mind”
At Modulo, we think one of the biggest and prevailing myths in education is that children learn because they have a teacher. In reality, children are learning all the time. Their brains process information at light speed. Even the slightest interaction has a profound impact. Parents and teachers can help guide that process, but ultimately children are the ones learning.
Examples of self-directed learning:
Self-directed education is happening all the time, whether families realize it or not. Here are some examples families might resonate with.
Learning how to walk did not require careful teacher-guided progress.
Learning a foreign language happens best through immersion. It’s amazing to watch kids move to a foreign country and become fluent in a foreign language.
Young paleontologists: How many eight-year-olds do you know that can recite the name of every dinosaur, including ones who weren’t even discovered when you were a kid? Chances are they learned this information and even found resources to support their learning, not through a formal dinosaur class.
Why? Why? Why? Parents get asked this question so much it’s exhausting. This “why” is an expression of a child’s natural, burning desire to learn everything about the world around them and how it works. Parents should know that they are under no obligation to be “the Siri” to their child’s why. If the why starts to annoy you, it’s always great to encourage children to guess the answer or direct them to resources that can help them uncover the answers to the world’s mysteries they so desperately seek. Even better, you can learn together.
Benefits of Self-Directed Learning
Cognitive benefits
We know how important play is to brain development. And self-directed education is also vital to helping children develop autonomy, understand their own learning process, explore interests, take responsibility, embrace failure and build confidence.
Self-directed learning can have similar benefits to Mastery Learning with a one-on-one tutor. Students are able to learn at their own pace, deepening their understanding and filling in gaps in their knowledge to ensure mastery.
Children learn best when they have a high motivation to do so. Either they’re excited about the topic, or they need the information or skill in order to complete a project that’s important to them. In contrast, children are taught many skills at school without being told why they have to learn them. Sometimes the teachers aren’t even really sure. It’s no wonder we forget almost all of what we learn from grades K-12th (try helping your child with 2nd-grade math if you don’t believe us).
Mental health benefits
Self-directed education helps children develop self-confidence, self-efficacy, and grit. They learn to push past obstacles to learn and achieve outcomes. They discover their interests and passions. They form an ability to embrace failure, become lifelong learners, and solve any problem that comes their way, whether it’s intellectual, interpersonal, or work-related.
Benefits to the family unit
When children are autonomous and can direct their own learning, families have more time to work and focus on their own tasks. Children who engage in a good amount of self-directed learning become increasingly independent as they grow, making it easier for parents to take care of themselves while teens tend to their own needs.
Career benefits: Prepare for 21st-century careers
In the 21st century, your child may change careers many times. Within any career, they’ll need to educate themselves on new technology and seek professional development to succeed and get promotions. Learning how to teach themselves at a young age will help them develop the executive functioning skills they need for a lifetime of learning.
Benefits to society: The World Needs All Kinds of Learners
Compulsory schooling prepares children for a specific subset of careers. It tends to focus on making children more well-rounded than highly specialized. While children typically need to learn basic skills like reading, writing, and math to function as adults, a knowledge of history, and exposure to different cultures and viewpoints, there’s no reason that every child needs to focus on the same skills. The next noble-prize-winning chemist doesn’t necessarily have to understand literary motifs in Jane Eyre. Tomorrow’s opera singer doesn’t need to have an advanced understanding of geometry.
The #1 benefit: Kids love learning
Every child starts out loving learning. Not every kid loves school. Some dislike it so much they lose interest in learning altogether. Giving kids time to follow their burning curiosity helps encourage them to continue to have a positive association with education.
Often, learning new things is highly gratifying, especially if we were raised in an environment that encouraged us to love learning. However, as adults, we also need to learn many skills that aren’t very exciting. We do it anyway because those skills help us achieve an objective that’s important to us. Our ability to push through these challenges when learning isn’t always fun is called grit. Our levels of grit are a key determinant in our success at work and as entrepreneurs.
A burning desire to know something - either out of necessity or out of curiosity - is the best driver in learning, encouraging children to overcome obstacles through an insatiable appetite for learning.
Traditional School vs. Homeschool for Self-Directed Learning
At school, between a 9-3 schedule, snacks, homework, dinner, and bed, children have very little time to explore their own interests. Modular learners have lots of time to direct their own education since power homeschooling only necessitates 1-2 hours of guided learning per day. While schools may incorporate self-directed learning by letting children choose a research topic, this is very different than giving kids hours of time for uninhibited exploration.
9 ways to encourage self-directed learning in children
Children are born into this world as self-directed learners. But external factors, such as parenting approach and environment, can have a big influence on keeping this innate drive to learn alive and well. Here are some ways families can encourage self-directed education:
Set up an environment conducive to self-directed learning: Set up a clean space with tools and resources to help kids learn, such as books and art supplies. Learn more about how to spark independent learning with strewing in a blog by CPO of KQED and unschooling mom Lesley Grossblatt.
Expose children to a variety of people and environments: Get out in the world and meet different people. Travel, volunteer, take kids to work and make friends.
Create structures that allow your individual child to thrive: As adults, we understand how structure can be a vessel for greater freedom. Kids can benefit from a clear schedule with blocks of time for self-directed education.
Allow children to experience natural consequences: Children learn through trial and error and develop creative problem-solving skills as they go. As a parent, you need to keep kids safe, but not prevent them from experiencing the disappointment of failure. Or else, they won’t find real ways to direct their own learning. You’ll have deprived them of the gift of failure.
Set healthy boundaries that address your own needs: If what children want to learn interferes with your own needs, it’s good to set a boundary. For example, if they want to practice drumming while you’re doing a conference call, don’t support that in the name of self-directed learning. Part of learning is how to relate to others in society, not just do what you feel like all the time.
Ensure that a child’s basic needs are met: According to Abraham’s Hierarchy of Needs, to encourage higher needs are met (education, spiritual), the fundamental needs (nutrition, housing) must be met first. This is one reason it’s so critical to expand access to social services in order to allow more families to homeschool effectively.
Praise engagement in learning, not achievement: When you celebrate the learning process, not the results, you reinforce the idea that the goal is quality learning and experimentation (as opposed to trophies and bells). Engaging in learning is a process children have control over. This doesn’t mean you’re cultivating laziness: far from it. Through engaging in learning, questioning assumptions, and changing process, children will naturally have more success at whatever task they set about in life.
Model self-directed learning: As we discussed in the previous section on parent involvement in education, one of the best teaching strategies is to model the behavior you want to cultivate in your child. By modeling a passion for learning, grit, and a growth mindset, your child will be inspired to become a self-directed learner too!
Trust your kids: At a certain point, you’re going to have to opt into the belief that your child can teach themselves. The more you demonstrate your trust in your child’s ability to do it themselves, the more likely they are to succeed. When you help your child, you may even be sending them a subtle message that you don't believe they can figure it out on their own.
Pitfalls to Self-Directed Learning
When families learn about self-directed education, it might feel like discovering a new religion. However, in modular learning, families are looking for a balance, not a one-size-fits-all solution. Here are some common pitfalls parents should be aware of as they start to integrate more self-directed learning into their child’s schedule.
Helicopter parenting
On the opposite side of neglect is parents who give kids whatever they want and help them with whatever they need without paying attention to Parents who don’t let children experience the natural consequences of their actions or fail to set boundaries to take care of their own needs are in danger of raising children who are extremely entitled and have little autonomy or sense of personal responsibility. This can lead to severe depression and low self-confidence.
Self-directed learning can be more challenging for older kids transitioning from homeschool to school. These kids may benefit from a period of de-schooling.
Neglect
Unschooling can border on neglect (in both wealthy and low-income families). There is a hierarchy of needs. If children are not eating healthy food in a safe and clean space and interacting with parents who love and care for them, it’s harder to learn. Leaving children alone for long periods is not conducive to cognitive and social development. Children need lots of time to form healthy bonds with family.
Modular learning can be a wonderful choice for kids whose parents who care deeply about their learning and well-being.
Talking about how to implement decentralized education on a global scale is beyond the scope of this guide. Still, accountability, teachers, mentors, and social services are clearly critical pieces to ensure that all children receive the care and support they need to thrive.
Giving up too early
We’ve seen families give up too early on self-directed learning when it doesn’t immediately work the way they expected. Parents are more judged than almost any members of society, which can make it scarier to try new things.
Embracing boredom and having a clear framework for experimentation can help families push past the hard times.
It’s possible that kids (especially older ones) may experience boredom in the beginning of their self-directed learning. If families can be patient and let them be bored- within a few minutes, hours, or maybe months, this will bloom into something extraordinary: a child who knows what interests them and can engage themselves in meaningful activity. It might happen quickly, but it can take time, especially if kids are transferring from school at a later age and are used to being told what to do.
There are so many hopes and fears wrapped around a child’s education. Even if a family abhors standardized tests and wants to establish different milestones to measure their child’s learning, they may panic if a child underperforms on standardized exams - or doesn’t know the same skills at the same time as a peer in school.
Having a clear framework for experimentation with a timeframe, goals, and key performance indicators will help give families a realistic view of how their child is doing and know when to get change strategy or get expert support. In our section on accountability and support, we make it easy for any family to set goals and measure progress relative to their child’s own potential.
Providing no curriculum or structure.
There’s no need to take a purist approach when it comes to self-directed learning. In some cases, learning can be 100% self-directed, and if you have a kid whose passionate about learning, there’s no need to reign this. There are many stunning examples of auto-didacts throughout history.
Research suggests that homeschoolers do better with some structure. Most modular learners have 1-2 hours of power schooling and large quantities of time for self-directed learning and play. Children with special needs may need a more structured schedule to give them a sense of safety and focus. Autistic children tend to need more predictability and structure in their day. Other learning diagnoses might benefit from more unstructured time. It’s your job to find the right balance of structure and self-directed learning that works for your child. While some kids teach themselves to read, some children will still not know how to read at age 10 or 12 if no one teaches them. They’ll need more guidance, encouragement, and the right tools. Every homeschooler should give themselves some space and time to figure out what works.
Different children need different levels of freedom and structure: how to find the right balance
What’s great about modular learning is that families can customize education to suit their child’s needs. Some children thrive on structure, while others need clear milestones and a schedule to follow. We encourage parents to give kids a little more space and freedom than they think they need, then start to build a structure that supports their child and home life. This is especially the case for certain children with diagnosed learning differences.
100% Self-Directed Education?
Throughout history, there are notable examples of auto-didacts, people who taught themselves. Technology has opened many pathways for self-directed learners. One of the most remarkable and earliest examples of an innovator who used technology to expand access to learning was Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the Wall Project. Mitra put a PC in a wall in an impoverished neighborhood in India. The kids taught themselves how to use the PC, taught others, taught themselves how to read and write in English and solve complex science problems.
Recently, MIT profiled Ahaan Rungta, a 15-year-old Freshman who completely directed his own learning with OpenCourseWare and MITx. His mother supported him by finding resources and materials to support his learning.
“‘When I was five years old my mom told me ‘there’s this thing called OCW,” says Rungta, who was homeschooled.” I just couldn’t believe how much material was available. From that moment on I spent the next few years taking OCW courses.” When most kids are entering kindergarten, Rungta was studying physics and chemistry through OpenCourseWare.”
It’s perfectly all right for kids to spend large amounts of time doing nothing, but eventually, this will hopefully evolve into more creative, productive activity. If a child starts having a lot of conflict with families, throwing temper tantrums, or interrupting work frequently, this may signal that they’re craving more structure. Children know themselves well. They may request more structured time, or families will know intuitively that they can benefit from this kind of structure.
Even though Rungta was highly self-motivated in learning, his parents were still actively involved in finding resources to support his self-directed learning.
Top 10 books on Self-Directed Education
Self-directed learning is an endlessly fascinating topic that might inspire you to rethink your entire worldview. For those looking to explore this topic in more detail, here are our favorite books on this topic
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)
De-schooling society: A critical discourse of education as practiced in modern economics By Ivan Illich (philosopher, priest, theologian, and social critic)
Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom
By Kerry McDonald (Harvard Scholar)Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
By John Taylor Gatto (NYC and NYS Teacher of the Year)Free at Last: The Sudbury Valley School: a groundbreaking story that gives a glimpse into the Sudbury Valley School, one of the first free schools in the world. By Daniel Greenberg (co-founder of Sudbury Valley School)
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)Call of the Wild + Free: Reclaiming the Wonder in Your Child’s Education
By Ainsley Arment (Founder of the Wild + Free Movement)Brave Learner: Finding Everyday Magic in Learning and Life
By Julie Bogart (Author and educator)Teach Your Own: classic and indispensable work on teaching children at home. By Jon Holt and Pat Farenga
The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
By Sir Ken Robinson, a British scholar and internationally best-selling author, delivered the most watched Ted Talk of all time, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”
Families interested in delving deeper may want to take a look at the Alliance for Self-Directed Education which has a wealth of resources, research, and tools to support self-directed learning.
Software & Tools for Self-Directed Education
With google, youtube, MOOCs, and other online resources, the opportunity to self-direct learning is almost limitless. It’s really extraordinary to see how far kids can go with adaptive learning apps and other resources to explore the world.
Here are some of our favorite resources for kids to explore:
Youtube: Youtube is one of our favorite places to learn new things. In the film Class Dismissed, one of our favorite moments is when the mother learns her daughter has taught herself Sign Language on Youtube. Like any screen-based tool, it’s safer and better for development to engage with your child. Consider making an educational playlist. We’re always adding great new educational Youtube channels to our Modulo playlist. Here’s the complete list of our favorite YouTube channels for kids.
Audible Kids: If you have an auditory learner, Audible and Audible Kids offer families the opportunity to download millions of children’s books and keep learning going at home or on the road.
Kindle Kids: Amazon’s e-reader offers access to thousands of books and audiobooks for kids to explore. Families can rest easy knowing the content has been curated for kids.
Curiosity Stream: Documentary schooling is a marvelous way to learn independently or together as a family. A favorite choice for modular learners, Curiosity Stream, offers thousands of documentaries on fascinating topics.
Let’s google it: When kids ask our teachers a question, we often say, “let’s google it.” Searching for information with your child helps them teach themselves and can provide an excellent framework for helping kids learn to process information, identity reliable sources, and separate true news from fake news at an early age.
Toca Boca: The Toca Boca apps are created by Swedish developers with a mission to encourage independent play and creativity in children. They’re unique in that they inspire critical thinking and problem-solving through open-ended play and exploration.
The Public Library: Nothing like a good old-fashioned trip to the public library where kids are free to browse and check out the books that interest them. Some public libraries have free tutoring, classes, and even makerspaces.
Educational apps: Families who feel comfortable with screen time can get started by downloading some great educational apps onto their kids' iPads and using this dashboard as a starting point for self-directed learning. Here are our 50 favorite educational apps, vetted by the Modulo team to help families get started.
At Modulo, we’re blown away by all the brilliant and diverse thinkers we meet every day between the ages of 2-84. Unfortunately, the traditional school system does not necessarily embrace different kinds of minds. Families with neurodivergent kids (gifted, on the spectrum, 2E, dyslexic) are commonly the first to see that the traditional system simply isn’t working for their child’s unique mind. In the next section on Cognitive Diversity, Jade Rivera, E.d.D.(curriculum and learning environment designer with expertise in strength-based education for neurodivergent children) goes in-depth with each learning profile and how to support them through modular learning.
