Children are born full of curiosity, eager to participate in the world. They learn as they live, with enthusiasm and joy. Then we send them to school. We stop them from playing and actively exploring their interests, telling them it’s more important to sit still and listen. The result is that for many children, their motivation to learn drops dramatically. The joy of the early years is replaced with apathy and anxiety. I don’t know why Dave decided to move me off the mandarin oranges. Perhaps he noticed my vacant expression and thought I needed a change to perk me up. Or maybe there was some new employee who needed to start out on the oranges. We never chatted in the factory. We couldn’t risk missing a cake, and the local radio station blared too loudly anyway. Faces came and went, and we only got to know each other if, by chance, we were sent on our break at the same time. The most stressful work situation to be in is one where you have no control.

As well as a grounding in theory, the book provides a roadmap to help self-directed learning become a reality for families. Changing Our Minds blows apart the myths and assumptions underpinning not just compulsory schooling but also wider societal attitudes to topics such as mental health, children's rights and ideas about what constitutes a fulfilling life. * Rose Arnold, founder of Suitable Education * If you are a parent worrying whether self-directed education will work for your child, because you have been told that they have special needs which can only be met in the school system - think again' If you are a parent worrying whether self-directed education will work for your child, because you have been told that they have special needs which can only be met in the school system – think again’Expert led, enforced instruction is not the only way to learn, and the evidence that shows that it is the most effective method has clearly defined parameters. If your aim is for all children to learn a specific body of knowledge and retain it, and you are confident that you can motivate children to do so, then direct instruction from an expert with lots of repetition (otherwise known as drilling) may well be effective. If your aim is children who can think critically and creatively, and who are developing their potential as active and diverse human beings, then there is no evidence that drilling them will achieve this. It’s simply not part of the way in which the studies were designed. There is, however, good reason to be sceptical about claims of the utter necessity of all those hours in classrooms, because there is research which shows that children who do not attend school at all learn effectively to the point where they are able to access higher education (Riley, 2020; Fisher, 2021).

Ryan, R. & Deci, E. (2018). Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development and Wellness. Guilford Press. It's a very interesting and valuable book, that took many assumptions that I consider correct and somehow managed to make an extreme conclusion. There are different models of learning, with different evidence bases. Only one is being championed by the government, and it’s the one which focuses on controlling children’s learning and behaviour. It’s the one which discourages critical thinking about the curriculum. It’s one which values the culture of (dead) white males over any other. The suggestion that ‘we know’ ‘what works best’ is used to control us too, to prevent dissent and discourage disagreement. We should not allow ourselves to be blinded by claims of evidence. We should continue to apply our critical thinking… even though their model itself suggests that we are not expert enough to do so. Soon my dreams were filled with ‘thunks’ and cream. I stopped being able to sleep. I couldn’t do anything with the time I had off work. At the same time, I felt anxious and nervous all the time. My weekends were spent dreading Monday. At work, I was reduced to a rather faulty automaton. I had no control over anything. Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist and author of Changing Our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of their Learning, published by Robinson.So the quibble isn’t with the claim that there is evidence. There is evidence that instruction, practice and repetition works, if the aim is to retain large amounts of information, although it’s less clear whether you can successfully impose this on other people without a very strict regime of control. The quibble is more about philosophy of education and whether retaining large amounts of particular types of information is the goal we should have for our children’s education. And there are some difficult questions about exactly what the purpose is of requiring children to learn a lot of information before they are allowed to engage in critical thinking or question what they are learning. Birbalsingh, Katharine (Ed) (2016). Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way. John Catt Educational Ltd. Children are born full of curiosity, eager to participate in the world. They learn as they live, with enthusiasm and joy. Then we send them to school. We stop them from playing and actively exploring their interests, telling them it's more important to sit still and listen. The result is that for many children, their motivation to learn drops dramatically. The joy of the early years is replaced with apathy and anxiety.