School of JoyBooks and authors we resonate with
We didn't invent the ideas behind School of Joy. We build on decades of research and experience from people who studied, in depth, how children truly learn.
Peter Gray
Author of Free to Learn. A research psychologist who spent years studying free play in children and why it has declined so dramatically in recent decades — the most-cited author in the self-directed education community.
Sir Ken Robinson
Known for the TED talk Do Schools Kill Creativity?, one of the most watched in the platform's history — on how standardised systems suppress exactly the skills children will need.
John Taylor Gatto
A former award-winning New York teacher who became one of the fiercest critics of compulsory mass schooling, through books such as Dumbing Us Down.
John Caldwell Holt
A pioneer of the unschooling movement, author of How Children Fail and How Children Learn — among the first to document how school failure is often caused by teaching methods themselves.
Alfie Kohn
A constant critic of rewards, punishments and grades as motivators of learning, through Punished by Rewards — he explains why competition often undermines real learning.
Laura Markham
A clinical psychologist, author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, focusing on the emotional connection between parent and child as the foundation of any healthy discipline.
Shefali Tsabary
A psychologist, author of The Conscious Parent — she promotes the idea that parents grow alongside their children, not just shape them.
Gabor Maté & Gordon Neufeld
Co-authors of Hold On to Your Kids, on the importance of healthy attachment to adults in a child's development.
Articles
We write about alternative education, self-directed learning and everyday life at the centre. Updated monthly.
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