DALTON — When Jennifer Crews’ son was 4 years old, he began to rebel. Bedtime became a battle and, after months of stress and frantic internet searches — “Is it illegal to lock your kid in his room?”— Crews got to the bottom of it. Max’s highly-structured preschool was causing him to feel like he had lost control over his life, which he was attempting to regain. As an educator herself, Crews understood the inherent need for structure that went hand-in-hand with having fifteen 3- to 5-year-olds in one classroom. That said, when she visited her son’s classroom and saw his reaction to the directive climate, it became clear he was rebelling against authoritative control, and she vowed to make a change.
It turns out, her family’s quest for a solution hinged on meeting Dr. Peter Gray — a research professor at Boston College keen on the lifelong value of play — who, as luck would have it, will be giving a talk called “Children’s Natural Way of Learning” on Thursday, May 19 at the Dalton CRA.
“[Dr. Gray] shared the research on children’s natural ways of learning, based on the study of hunter-gatherer cultures where children are free from adult supervision, [and it] was fascinating,” said Crews, who first heard Gray speak at the Jersey Shore Free School. As a Sudbury school (inspired by Framingham’s Sudbury Valley School, founded in 1968) the environment is 100% student-directed. Max’s father was intrigued but a little less enthusiastic about the idea of sending their son to a self-directed learning environment.
“We enrolled Max for the fall and never looked back,” said Crews, citing Gray’s scientific and research-based case as instrumental in their decision. That was nine years ago, and Max’s younger sister eventually followed suit. Even Crews had a hard time wrapping her brain around the idea that kids did only what they wanted to do — even if it meant playing video games all day — but she was “desperate enough that I felt it was worth a try.”
“I could see that Max had a strong sense of inner authority, and the idea of trying to pound that out of him so he could get by in the existing educational system was more than I could bear,” said Crews, pointing to her own very personal realization as an adult that she was living a life fueled by others’ expectations of her rather than her own passions. “I didn’t want to do that to [Max],” she said.
In the near decade since, Crews has become a huge fan of Dr. Gray. The pair met at a TEDx event at the Jersey Shore, where Gray’s talk on the decline of play was the most-watched of the entire conference. His books, among them “Free to Learn” and “The Harm of Coercive Schooling” (plus a college textbook now in its 8th edition) are not only thought provoking but have also inspired many — among them, Crews.
“When we moved to the Berkshires, we wanted a self-directed learning environment like Jersey Shore Free School but it didn’t exist here,” said Crews who, while she acknowledges “great schooling options” in the region, has “connected with enough families who want an unschooling experience for their kids that it made sense to add this type of educational setting to the mix.” Enter Berkshire Freedom Academy.
Crews and Deborah Rimmler are preparing to launch BFA in Fall 2022. “We have 16 learners so far and need a few more to make it viable,” said Crews who — in an ideal world — envisions launching with 30 students to ensure a nice distribution of kids ages 5–19.
Suffice it to say, Gray’s upcoming visit has been in the works for some time. In the fall of 2019, Crews reached out to him seeking input; he not only obliged, but also promised to visit the Berkshires when BFA was ready to launch — hence Thursday’s event. “[Dr. Gray] is speaking pro-bono because he is so committed to the self-directed learning movement and is just a lovely human,” said Crews.
Gray is a founding board member of the nonprofit Let Grow, aimed at helping school districts and communities understand how to safely give kids more freedom and recreate that 1950s environment when the entire community looked out for kids. His own play includes long-distance bicycling, kayaking, backwoods skiing, and vegetable gardening.
NOTE: The May 19 event, hosted by the BFA team, will focus on the importance of freedom in the learning process. Gray’s talk is for parents, educators, people who work with children, and people who were once children — in other words, everyone. Tickets are free, but registration is required.
