"But, if you observe children learning in their first few years of life, you can see that they can and do learn on their own - we leave them alone to crawl, walk, talk, and gain control over their bodies. It happens without much help from parents"
About this Quote
Watch a toddler pull up on a table, topple, try again, and slowly stitch balance and intention into a new skill. Babble becomes words, then sentences, not through lessons, but through immersion, imitation, feedback, and a fierce internal drive. Daniel Greenberg points to these first years as living proof that human beings are equipped to educate themselves. The motor, sensory, and linguistic revolutions of early childhood unfold without syllabi or grades. The job of adults, mostly, is to safeguard space and time for the process to run.
Greenberg built a philosophy and a school model on that observation. At Sudbury Valley, learning is self-directed and democratic, premised on the belief that curiosity is not a rare spark but a steady flame if left un-smothered. The early years are his cornerstone example: if children can conquer walking and language on their own timeline, perhaps they can tackle reading, mathematics, art, and technology under similar conditions of freedom, access, and community.
Without much help does not mean without adults. Parents and caregivers provide the ecology: safety, emotional security, rich language around them, tools to handle, and a culture that makes certain skills meaningful. Adults model, answer questions, and intervene when asked or when safety is at stake. What is absent is coercion and micromanagement.
The contrast is with conventional schooling that often replaces intrinsic motives with external rewards and controls. When the locus of control shifts outward, persistence and joy can collapse. Greenberg argues that trust is the missing ingredient: trust that trial and error teaches, that boredom can be a catalyst, that mixed-age communities transmit knowledge organically.
Skeptics note that later domains can be abstract and cumulative. Yet even there, interest and ownership remain powerful predictors of depth. The practical takeaway is not to abandon guidance, but to design lives and learning spaces where agency leads, help is available, and time is generous. Treat curiosity as the default setting and education as something people do, not something done to them.
Greenberg built a philosophy and a school model on that observation. At Sudbury Valley, learning is self-directed and democratic, premised on the belief that curiosity is not a rare spark but a steady flame if left un-smothered. The early years are his cornerstone example: if children can conquer walking and language on their own timeline, perhaps they can tackle reading, mathematics, art, and technology under similar conditions of freedom, access, and community.
Without much help does not mean without adults. Parents and caregivers provide the ecology: safety, emotional security, rich language around them, tools to handle, and a culture that makes certain skills meaningful. Adults model, answer questions, and intervene when asked or when safety is at stake. What is absent is coercion and micromanagement.
The contrast is with conventional schooling that often replaces intrinsic motives with external rewards and controls. When the locus of control shifts outward, persistence and joy can collapse. Greenberg argues that trust is the missing ingredient: trust that trial and error teaches, that boredom can be a catalyst, that mixed-age communities transmit knowledge organically.
Skeptics note that later domains can be abstract and cumulative. Yet even there, interest and ownership remain powerful predictors of depth. The practical takeaway is not to abandon guidance, but to design lives and learning spaces where agency leads, help is available, and time is generous. Treat curiosity as the default setting and education as something people do, not something done to them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Parenting |
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