Nature’s

Powerful Tutors

verywhere, children play and explorewhen they have the opportunity, andthey do so in certain universal ways. My

thesis is that the drives to play and to explorecame about in evolution to serve the functionof education. Moreover—and this is the radi-cal part of the thesis—I’m going to argue thatthese drives are so powerful, and so well de-signed for their purposes, that they can pro-vide the foundation for education, even in ourcomplex culture today. If we would providesettings that optimize children’s opportunitiesfor play and exploration, we would not needcoercive schooling.

I will describe here three sets of observationsthat help convince me of the educative powerof children’s natural play and exploration.

Mitra’s Demonstrations of MinimallyInvasive Education in IndiaThe first set of observations concerns somestudies in India, conducted by Sugata Mitra,science director at an educational technologyfirm in New Delhi (Dangwal, Jha, & Kapur,2006; Mitra, 2003; Mitra & Rana, 2001). Mitraand his colleagues installed computers out-doors in very poor neighborhoods and moni-tored the activity at each computer with thehelp of video recorders. They did this in 26different places, with 100 computers in all.

The same general results occurred in eachcase. Children who had never seen a computerapproached and explored this strange device,which looked to them like some kind of televi-sion set. They touched some of the parts andapparently by accident, discovered that theycould move a pointer on the screen by movingtheir finger across the touch pad. This in-evitably led to a series of further exciting dis-coveries. The pointer turned to a hand when itwas moved to certain parts of the screen. Bypushing (clicking) on the touch pad when thepointer was a hand, they could get the screento change. Each new discovery, made by onechild or a group, was shared with others.Within days, dozens of children were doingwhat children everywhere do when they haveaccess to a computer. They were surfing theWeb, downloading music and games, paintingwith Microsoft Paint, and so on. Children who

could read sometimes found articles on topicsthat interested them. Children who couldn’tread began to learn to read, as they recognizedwords on the screen that were read by othersin their group.

Mitra’s observations show how three fun-damental aspects of human nature—curiosity,playfulness, and sociability—can combine toprovide a powerful foundation for education.Curiosity drew the children to the outdoorcomputer and motivated them to manipulateit in various ways to learn about its properties.The manipulations led to exciting discoveries,each of which led to new questions and newdiscoveries. For example, the discovery thatclicking on one icon caused the screen tochange led children to click on all of the otheravailable icons, just to see what would happen.

Playfulness motivated children to becomeskilled at using certain functions of the com-puter. For example, those who had already ex-plored the Paint program and knew how touse it were motivated to play with that pro-gram, to paint many pictures, with the resultthat they became skilled at computer painting.Play helps children to consolidate knowledgethey have already acquired and to develop skillin using that knowledge. In addition, playoften leads to new discoveries that renew cu-riosity and lead to new bouts of exploration.Exploration leads to play, which leads to moreexploration, and so on.

Sociability motivated children to share theirdiscoveries with one another and to play to-gether. When one child made a discovery, suchas the discovery that clicking on an iconchanges the screen, he or she would announceit excitedly to the others, and they, in turn,would try it out. Because of their sociabilityand language ability, each child’s mind is net-worked to the minds of all of his or herfriends. A discovery made by any one childspreads like a brush fire to the whole group ofchildren nearby; and then some child in thatgroup, who has a friend in another group, car-ries the spark of new knowledge to that othergroup, where a new brush fire is ignited, andso on, and so on. Mitra found that, because ofsuch social networking, roughly 300 children

became computer literate for each outdoorcomputer that he installed.

Mitra would love to have publicly availablecomputers installed in poor neighborhoodsthroughout the world. Such installations, bythemselves, without schools or teachers, wouldhelp wipe out illiteracy and give poor childrenaccess to the world’s knowledge. Mitra (2003)refers to such education as “minimally invasiveeducation;” a phrase he takes from the medicalworld’s “minimally invasive surgery.”

Anthropologists’ Reports ConcerningEducation in Hunter-Gatherer CulturesThe second set of observations comes fromanthropological studies of hunter-gatherercultures. Agriculture was developed a mere10,000 years ago (Diamond, 1997). For hun-dreds of thousands of years before, we lived insmall nomadic bands and survived by huntinggame and gathering wild edible plant materi-als. Our human nature, including our drivesto play and explore, would have been shapedby natural selection during our hunter-gatherer period.

We can’t go back in time to study our ancestors, but as recently as 20 or 30 years ago,it was possible for anthropologists to find, inisolated parts of the world, hunter-gatherergroups that had been almost untouched bymodern civilization. As part of my studies ofplay, I have surveyed the anthropological liter-ature on children’s lives within such cultures.In addition, my graduate student JonathanOgas and I asked a number of anthropologistswho had lived for extensive periods withhunter-gatherer groups to respond to a ques-tionnaire about children’s lives within the cul-tures they had studied (Gray & Ogas, 1999).Nine different anthropologists, representingsix different hunter-gatherer cultures—threein Africa, two in Asia, and one in NewGuinea—responded. Although each culture isin many ways unique, the literature survey andquestionnaire revealed a remarkable degree ofcross-cultural consistency. I can summarizethe results as three general conclusions. (Liter-ature supporting these conclusions includes:Draper [1976]; Gosso et al. [2005]; Konner[1972]; Marshall [1976]; & Turnbull [1968].)

Distinguished Lecturer

EYE ON PSI CHI FALL 2007 19

The Educative Functions of Free Play and Exploration Peter Gray, PhD

Boston College (MA)

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Distinguished Lecturer

Conclusion 1: Children in hunter-gatherercultures have to learn an enormous amountto become successful adults. To becomehunters, boys must learn how to identify andtrack the two or three hundred differentspecies of birds and mammals that their grouphunts. They must learn how to craft the toolsof hunting, such as bows and arrows, blow-guns and darts, snares, nets, and so on (theprecise list depending on the culture). And, ofcourse, they must develop great skill in usingthose tools. To become gatherers, girls mustlearn which of the countless varieties of roots,nuts, seeds, fruits, and greens in their area areedible and nutritious; when and where to findthem; how to extract the edible portions; andhow to process them. In addition, all hunter-gatherer children must learn to build huts,make fires, cook, fend off predators, predictweather changes, navigate their hunting andgathering grounds, treat wounds and diseases,assist births, care for infants, maintain har-mony in the group, negotiate with neighbor-ing groups, tell stories, make music, andengage in the various dances and rituals oftheir culture.

Conclusion 2: Children learn all this with-out being taught. Hunter-gatherers do not inany formal way teach their children. If you askadults how children learn, they will say theylearn on their own through self-chosen activi-ties—activities that we would refer to as playand exploration. This appears to be true inevery hunter-gatherer culture that has everbeen studied.

Conclusion 3: Children are afforded agreat deal of time to play and explore. The re-spondents to our questionnaire were unani-mous in saying that the children andadolescents they observed were free essentiallyall day, every day, to play and explore on theirown, and this fits with the conclusions of all ofthe published studies of young people’s activi-ties in hunter-gatherer tribes. Little, if any, pro-ductive work is expected of children or even ofyoung teenagers. By their own choice, theyplay at the kinds of activities they need topractice. For example, boys play for countlesshours at hunting, mimicking the behaviors oftheir fathers. With little bows and arrows, theymay at first shoot at butterflies and toads andthen at small furry animals near their camp.With time, they begin to actually kill somesmall game to add to the food supply. Withfurther time, their playful hunting graduallybecomes the productive hunting of adult-hood—still done in a playful spirit.

The respondents to our survey referred tomany other examples of valued adult activitiesthat were mimicked regularly by children inplay. Digging up roots, fishing, smoking por-cupines out of holes, cooking, caring for in-fants, building huts, climbing trees, buildingvine ladders, using knives and other tools,making tools, carrying heavy loads, buildingrafts, making fires, defending against attacksfrom predators, imitating animals (a means ofidentifying animals and learning their habits),making music, dancing, story telling, and ar-guing were all mentioned by one or more re-spondents.

Studies of the Graduates of the Sudbury Valley SchoolThe third set of observations comes from myown studies of the Sudbury Valley School, aradically alternative day school located inFramingham, Massachusetts. The school hasbeen in existence for nearly 40 years, and Ihave had the opportunity to observe it and itsstudents for about 25 years. The school is non-selective and has a very low tuition—muchless than the per pupil cost of the nearby pub-lic schools. It accepts students age 4 throughhigh-school age. At present it has about 200students and 10 adult staff.

The school is remarkable in two closely re-lated ways (Gray & Chanoff, 1986; Greenberg,1970). The first has to do with its democraticadministration. All school decisions—includ-ing the hiring and firing of staff members andthe legislation of all rules of behavior—aremade by the School Meeting, at which eachstudent and staff member has one vote. Thesecond has to do with the school’s approach toeducation. The school was founded on thepremise that children educate themselves bestwhen they are free to follow their own inter-ests. Just as hunter-gatherer children are freeall day to play and explore on their own, so are

Sudbury Valley students. Staff members serveas responsible adult members of the schoolcommunity and are glad to respond to stu-dents’ questions and requests for help, but donot see it as their job to direct, motivate, orevaluate students’ learning. If you visited theschool at any given time of day, knowing onlythat it is a school, you would assume that youhad come at recess time.

Extensive follow-up studies of the gradu-ates, including one that I conducted, have re-vealed that they go on to happy, successful,meaningful lives (Gray & Chanoff, 1986;Greenberg & Sadofsky, 1992; Greenberg, Sad-ofsky, & Lempka, 2005; Sadofsky, Greenberg,& Greenberg, 1994). Those who have chosento pursue higher education have had no ap-parent difficulty getting accepted and per-forming well at good colleges and universities;collectively, the graduates have been successfulin the whole spectrum of careers that our cul-ture values. My own further studies have fo-cused on how students learn at the school. Ihave found it useful to distinguish betweentwo categories of learning: (a) basic skills, ofthe sort that everyone is well off knowing inour culture; and (b) special interests and pas-sions, which are different for different studentsand commonly provide the direction for fu-ture careers.

Learning the basics. In a literate and nu-meric culture, children play at activities thatinvolve reading, writing, and numbers, just aschildren in a hunting-and-gathering cultureplay at hunting and gathering. Children at theschool typically learn to read in the course oftheir daily activities, often with little awarenessthat they are doing so. They regularly playgames, including computer games, that in-volve written words. Young children admirethe reading skills of older children and adoles-cents—who can often be overheard discussingbooks they have read—and are eager to join

20 FALL 2007 EYE ON PSI CHI

the “club” of readers. Adolescents and staffmembers also enjoy reading to young chil-dren, and that provides an additional contextfor learning to read. Similarly, children learnthe elements of arithmetic through such activ-ities as making change, keeping score ingames, cutting recipes into quarters or thirds,and so on. Social skills are even more basic toour well-being than are the three Rs, and chil-dren continually practice the skills of gettingalong with each other in their social play at theschool.

Acquiring special interests and passions.Through their free play, students at SudburyValley become good at the activities that theymost enjoy, and many of them go on to ca-reers in those activities. Among the graduatesare many successful artists and musicians whodeveloped their love and skill at art or musicin their play at the school. The graduates alsoinclude many computer software designersand IT specialists who developed their com-puter skills through play. Here are a few otherexamples (taken from the previously citedstudies of graduates):

One graduate is a skilled machinist and in-ventor. When he was a young child at theschool, he was the leader of a group of boyswho would build whole cities of Plasticine,making everything to scale. From that, he wenton to taking old tricycles, bicycles, and eventu-ally automobiles apart and putting them backtogether, sometimes in innovative ways.

Another graduate, who became captain of a cruise ship, developed her love of boatsthrough play at the school. Another, who isnow a professor of mathematics, developed hislove for math initially through a fascinationwith science fiction and role-playing gamesbased on science fiction. He discovered thatgood science fiction starts with some arbitraryproposition and develops its consequences in alogically consistent way. Later, he discoveredthat the same is true of mathematics. Still an-other graduate, who is a highly successful fash-ion designer, began by making dolls’ clothesand then, clothes for herself and friends.

Of course, not all graduates of the schoolhave gone from their childhood playful inter-ests to careers in the same field. In many cases,students developed a broad set of skills and in-terests and took some time, after graduation,to determine a career direction.

The Value of Age MixingAll the observations that I have described hereinvolve settings where children interact acrossa broad range of ages. When we segregate chil-

dren by age, we deprive them of the playmatesfrom which they have the most to learn. In along-term qualitative study of age mixing atSudbury Valley, my former graduate studentJay Feldman and I identified many ways bywhich age mixing optimizes the educativepower of play and exploration (Gray & Feld-man, 2004; Feldman & Gray, 1999).

Age-mixed play is less competitive andmore nurturing than same-age play. Whenplayers differ widely in age, experience, andability, there is no point in trying to proveoneself better than others. Rather than focuson winning, players find ways to make gamesfun and challenging for all concerned. Agemixing is valuable both to the younger and theolder children involved.

Younger children benefit by being exposedto the more sophisticated activities and abili-ties of older children, among whom they findrole models. A useful idea here is Lev Vygot-sky’s concept of a zone of proximal develop-ment: defined as the realm of endeavors that achild can do in collaboration with more skilledothers, but cannot do by himself or herself orwith others at his or her same level (Vygotsky,1978). For example, two 4-year-olds cannotplay a simple game of catch. Neither canthrow or catch well enough to make the gamefun. However, a 4-year-old and an 8-year-oldcan play catch and enjoy it. The 8-year-old cantoss the ball gently into the hands of the 4-year-old so the latter can catch it, and the 8-year-old can run and leap and catch the wildthrows of the 4-year-old. So, catch is in thezone of proximal development for 4-year-olds.We have made analogous observations formany intellectual and social skills, not justphysical skills.

Older children also benefit in many waysfrom their interactions with younger ones. Inage-mixed play, older children have opportu-nities to practice leadership and nurturanceand to consolidate their own knowledgethrough teaching. Also, the creative activitiesof younger children inspire older children andadolescents to continue to play at such activi-ties as painting and modeling with clay, and todevelop artistic skills.

As a culture we are affording children continuously less opportunity for free play, un-guided by adults, and continuously less oppor-tunity to interact with children who differ fromthemselves in age. The observations I have de-scribed here suggest that, in letting these trendscontinue, we are depriving children of the mostenjoyable routes to education.

ReferencesDangwal, R., Jha, S., & Kapur, P. (2006). Impact of minimally invasive

education on children: An Indian perspective. British Journal ofEducational Technology, 37, 295-298.

Diamond, J. (1997). Guns, germs, and steel. New York: Norton.Draper, P. (1976). Social and economic constraints on child life among

the !Kung. In R. B. Lee & I. DeVore (Eds.), Kalahari hunter-gather-ers: Studies of the !Kung San and their neighbors (pp. 199-217).Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Feldman, J., & Gray, P. (1999). Some educational benefits of freelychosen age mixing among children and adolescents. Phi DeltaKappan, 80, 507-512.

Gosso, Y., Otta, E., de Lima, M., Morais, M., Ribeiro, F. J. L., & Bussab,V. S. R. (2005). Play in hunter-gatherer societies. In A. D. Pellegrini& P. K. Smith (Eds.), The nature of play: Great apes and humans(pp. 213-253). New York: Guilford.

Gray, P., & Chanoff, D. (1986). Democratic schooling: What happens toyoung people who have charge of their own education? AmericanJournal of Education, 94, 182-213.

Gray, P., & Feldman, J. (2004). Playing in the zone of proximal develop-ment: Qualities of self-directed age mixing between adolescentsand young children at a democratic school. American Journal ofEducation, 110, 108-145.

Gray, P., & Ogas, J. (1999). Summary of results of a survey on hunter-gatherer children’s play. Unpublished manuscript, Boston College.

Greenberg, D. (1970). The crisis in American Education: An analysisand proposal. Framingham, MA: The Sudbury Valley School Press.

Greenberg, D., & Sadofsky, M. (1992). Legacy of trust: Life after theSudbury Valley School experience. Framingham, MA: The SudburyValley School Press.

Greenberg, D., Sadofsky, M., & Lempka, J. (2005). The pursuit of hap-piness: The lives of Sudbury Valley Alumni. Framingham, MA: TheSudbury Valley School Press.

Konner, M. (1972). Aspects of the developmental ethology of a forag-ing people. In N. G. Blurton Jones (Ed.), Ethological studies of childbehavior (pp. 285-304). Cambridge, England: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Marshall, L. (1976). The !Kung of Nyae Nyae. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.

Mitra, S. (2003). Minimally invasive education: A progress report onthe “hole-in-the-wall” experiments. British Journal of EducationalTechnology, 34, 267-371.

Mitra, S., & Rana, V. (2001). Children and the Internet: Experimentswith minimally invasive education in India. British Journal ofEducational Technology, 32, 221-232.

Sadofsky, M., Greenberg, D., & Greenberg, H. (1994). Kingdom ofchildhood: Growing up at Sudbury Valley School. Framingham, MA:The Sudbury Valley School Press.

Turnbull, C. M. (1968). The forest people. New York: Simon & Schuster.Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. In

M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, E. Souberman (Eds), Mindand society: The development of higher psychological processes(pp. 79-91). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Distinguished Lecturer

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Dr. Peter Gray is professor of psy-chology at Boston College (MA),where he has served his depart-ment at various times as depart-ment chair, undergraduate programdirector, and graduate program director. His early research had todo with neural and hormonalmechanisms of basic mammalianmotives and emotions. His morerecent research is concerned with self-directed education—particularly with the educative value of children's play. He is au-thor of Psychology, a college level introductory textbook, now in its 5th edition. Before joining Boston College, he studied psychol-ogy as an undergraduate at Columbia University (NY) and earneda PhD in biological sciences at Rockefeller University (NY). Heearned his way through college by coaching basketball andworking with youth groups in New York City. His avocationstoday include long-distance bicycling, backpacking, kayaking,and backwoods cross-country skiing.