Less Instruction, More Child-Led Play Leads to Optimal Learning with Carmen Gamper

Carmen Viktoria Gamper is founder of the New Learning Culture program, supporting parents, homeschooling families and schools in offering child-directed, flow-rich learning environments. Her new book is Flow to Learn: A 52 Week Parent’s Guide to Recognize and Support Your Child’s Flow State - the Optimal Condition for Learning. For children, playing and learning are the same. During play, children effortlessly drop into a state of deep, energized focus called “flow,” which psychologists consider “optimal experience,” and educators increasingly describe as the optimal state for learning. Additionally, extensive research confirms that unstructured, free, spontaneous play is extremely beneficial for children and crucial to their healthy brain development. Most mainstream educational settings today are not conducive to flow — they actually obstruct and prevent flow. Teaching children primarily through spoken and written words and on screens separates them from the direct experience of their environment. Yet parents, grandparents, educators, caregivers and other adults in a child’s life can be nurturers of flow by not regulating or overtaking the child’s creative process. Learn more at flowtolearn.com