Ep. 543: Peter Gray (Part Two) – School’s Impact On Creativity and Critical Thinking

Part Two of Three
Dr. Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology at Boston College, and author of Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. Peter serves on the Organizing team for the Alliance of Self-Directed-Education. He also runs a blog on Psychology Today called Freedom to Learn, where he regularly explains and promotes self-directed education from a variety of angles.

Today Peter and I discuss creativity and critical thinking – two skills we agree are left underdeveloped (or even damaged) by public school and college.

On critical thinking, Peter has referenced studies and surveys that reveal about 50% of employers are dissatisfied with entry-level, college graduate employees (PayScale Inc.) and that college does little to improve higher level thinking (Academically Adrift: Limited Learning On College Campuses – 2011).

On creativity, Peter wrote a piece called As Children’s Freedom Has Declined, So Has Their Creativity. Peter informs us that there are actually quantitative studies, including the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, that show a marked decline in children’s creative capacity since the 1980s. We discuss the causes of this decline in detail.
We finish with a friendly disagreement (then agreement) on the educational merits of video games.

In part one we discussed the biological foundations of self-education.
In part three we’ll talk about Peter’s vision for self-directed education in the future.

Related Shows:
[PODCAST] #504: Unenclosed Children and Self-Directed Learning – With Kerry McDonald
[PODCAST] #378: An Introduction To Self-Directed Learning and Living For Teens (with Nick Hazelton)
[PODCAST] #511: James Davis – Forced Learning Is Too Dangerous
[PODCAST] #513: Building Self Directed Learning Communities (With Diane Murphy)

Related Series:
The Creative Pursuit (2016)

Please Support School Sucks
We do cool things! Thanks to your support.

School Sucks is one of the longest running liberty-minded podcasts on the web, and the only one completely devoted to the issue of education (versus public school and college). Your support keeps the show going and growing, which keeps us at the top of the options for education podcasts and leads to new people discovering our work. Please help us continue to spread this important message further!
Thanks for visiting this page. Before you do anything, please bookmark and use this link for your Amazon shopping: Shop With Us
One-Time Donation Options:
Paypal/Venmo;
Donate DASH
Donate ETHEREUM
Donate LITECOIN
Donate BITCOIN
Donate BITCOIN CASH
Donate ZCASH
Recurring Options:
Support Us On PATREON
Help incentivize our production! Pledge $1 per content item and access dozens of Patron only audios and videos.
Join the A/V Club
If you’re looking for more School Sucks content, the A/V Club option grants you access to a bonus content section with 400+ hours of exclusive audio and video. If you are a regular consumer of our media, please consider making a monthly commitment by selecting the best option for you…

A/V Club – Basic Access – $8.00/Month
A/V Club – "Advanced" Access – $12.00/Month
Sigma Sigma Pi – "Privileged" Access – $16.00/Month

 
Crypto Addresses:
DASH; XcZfPP6GZGVo9VKViNBVJZja5JVxZDB229
ETHEREUM; 0x3c5504CE3401C028832173506fa30BD4db4b7D35
LITECOIN; LKNp24f5wwvZ2QzeDbvxXgBxyVwi1yXnu2
BITCOIN; 1KhwY836cfSGCK5aaGFv8Q7PHMgghFJn1U
BITCOIN CASH 1AmqLVxjw3Lp9KT5ckfvsqfN2Hn3B1hCWS
ZCASH; t1by1ZGJ63LoLSjXy27ooJtipf4wMr7qbu4