Self-Directed Education (from the Alliance for Self-Directed Education)
  • Education is the sum of everything a person learns that enables that person to live a satisfying and meaningful life. 
  • Self-Directed Education is education that derives from the self-chosen activities and life experiences of the person becoming educated, whether or not those activities were chosen deliberately for the purpose of education. (https://www.self-directed.org/sde/)
  • 4 (Innate) Educative Drives: curiosity, playfulness, sociability, planfulness (self-directed executive functioning) 

​Play
They play at the full range of skills that are crucial to their long-term survival and wellbeing.
  • They play in physical ways, as they climb, chase, and rough-and-tumble, and that is how they develop strong bodies and graceful movement.
  • They play in risky ways, and that is how they learn to manage fear and develop courage.
  • They play with language, and that is how they become competent with language.
  • They play socially, with other children, and that is how they learn to negotiate, compromise, and get along with peers.
  • They play games with implicit or explicit rules, and that is how they learn to follow rules.
  • They play imaginative games, and that is how they learn to think hypothetically and creatively.
  • They play with logic, and that is how they become logical.
  • They play at building things, and that is how they learn to build.
  • They play with the tools of their culture, and that is how they become skilled at using those tools.
Play is not recess from education; it IS education. Children learn far more in play, and with far more joy, than they could possibly learn in a classroom.

The Six Optimizing Conditions of Learning
  1. Social expectation (and reality) that education is children’s responsibility.
  2. Unlimited time to play, explore, and pursue one’s own interests
  3. Opportunity to play with the tools of the culture
  4. Access to a variety of caring adults, who are helpers, not judges
  5. Free age mixing among children and adolescents
  6. Immersion in a stable, supportive, respectful community
Learning & Play Researchers