Unintended Learning

Here's a seed for next week's walk-and-talk on one of the school's founding beliefs: That most learning is an unintended consequence of following one's interests.

How do kids learn to use computers, TV recorders and other gadgets? Their focus isn't on learning, it's on doing fun things, moving forward with their drives and goals. The learning is a natural consequence.

Sometimes Sudbury-model kids decide to go back to a mainstream school. They generally find that they are just as advanced as traditionally-schooled kids, who have been busy "learning" while the Sudbury-model kids were "just following their interests".

Sudbury-model kids do sometimes intentionally learn specific things. It's a small fraction of the time. We need schools that fit the ways kids are driven to learn.