032: Free to learn

Professor Peter Gray was primarily interested in the motivations and emotions of animals before his son Scott started struggling in school, at which point Professor Gray’s interests shifted to developing our understanding of self-directed learning and how play helps us to learn. He has extensively studied the learning that occurs at the Sudbury Valley School in Sudbury Valley, MA - where children are free to associate with whomever they like, don't have to take any classes at all, and yet go on college and to satisfying lives as adults. How can this possibly be? We'll find out.