[grabbalacious]

Most thoughtful people seem to agree that school is bad for creativity and that real learning is led by curiosity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

But we still have little idea how curiosity works exactly or how an institution could be turned from an exam factory into something a bit closer to a child's bedroom and computer at home, i.e. to a place of play.

For most of life we need permission to play. Parents allocate 'screen time'. At university one is effectively granted permission to do 'curiosity-led' research by an external grant agency.

So what does institutionalised play look like? Perhaps something like a university. Yet how much could university life be said to be 'following the fun'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idvGlr0aT3c

[ianai]

I think institutionalized play would look more like a library staffed with people in place of the books - and a traditional library on premises. Ie have people of “all” careers or skills do some portion of their work on site with a way for interested students to engage with them. Maybe they offer classes for the really interested. Definitely leave a casual way to interact with the experts that’s noncommittal. Like have a request board for students to post topics or expertise they’d like a subject area expert discuss the basics of within a lecture.

I have to redline the current practice of heavily weighting towards exams and giving almost no weight to homework or reflections of actual effort towards learning. Some careers may pivot on crucial hour long expositions of skills (ala sales or trial law), but mostly people have time to figure out a problem and carefully plan or communicate with coworkers and more experienced people.

Your end grade should reflect your performance 99% of the time instead of .01% or whatever portion effectively one lecture length of a class represents.

[jdbernard]

I wanted to respond to just this statement:

For most of life we need permission to play. Parents allocate 'screen time'.

I don't disagree with your larger point but in my experience the limitation on screen time is an important protection of unstructured, self-directed play (especially for younger kids).

[emiliobumachar]

Seconded. My kid will take however much screen time he's allowed. I usually resort to authority to separate him from his screens. Otherwise, I can nudge him away from screens to precious few choice activities, but I don't remember ever seeing him disengaging a screen without nudging, except for physiological needs.

[leppr]

Isn't this basically a Montessori school?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education