Soon my dreams were filled with ‘thunks’ and cream. I stopped being able to sleep. I couldn’t do anything with the time I had off work. At the same time, I felt anxious and nervous all the time. My weekends were spent dreading Monday. At work, I was reduced to a rather faulty automaton. I had no control over anything. Why settle for diminishing the human spirit and minimal competencies when our wonderful, unique children and young people can take control of their own lives and learning. Naomi's book shows us how SDE can cultivate the kinds of human beings we'd all like to be and perhaps a brighter vision for society at large. * Peter Humphreys. Former: Headteacher, educational adviser, consultant, researcher, Visiting Lecturer in Teacher Education, Co-founder and Chair Centre for Personalised Education * But hang on a moment. Many parents, educators and psychologists across the country responded to Williamson’s speech with a ‘huh?’ What is this evidence he’s talking about? How does it square with the research showing how important play and motivation is for learning? Where did he get that confidence about the same thing working for everyone, when any teacher knows that each child is different and that teaching a class of children rarely results in them all learning the same thing? How does it fit with our own experience as adults – where sitting facing the expert for hours every day isn’t how most of us choose to learn?

When we look at the wider environment, it’s unsurprising that children are distressed. Children today have easy access to an enormous amount of information, from all around the world. The news is not hidden from them and much of the news is not reassuring. I worked from nine to six, and I had no control over when my breaks were; Dave would decide. Sometimes I would start at nine, and he would send me on my break at ten, and then my lunch at twelve, leaving me working from 12.45 p.m. – 6 p.m. without a break. Autonomy has been related to increased wellbeing in a large number of studies. When people have choice about what they do, and can stop when they want to, they feel better about the world and themselves. Richard Ryan and colleagues found that wellbeing for college students and workers increases at the weekend; the so-called ‘weekend effect’. Even when people work at the weekend, they tend to do it in their own time and in their own way, and therefore have increased autonomy as compared to during the week.Many people assume that the most stressful jobs are the ones at the top, the ones where you have the power to determine the future of thousands of employees, or to steer a company away from bankruptcy. It suits people in these jobs for everyone to think this, because that justifies their high salaries. It’s not uncommon for someone to choose a job where they have few choices and no control, in the belief that this will be less stressful. It’s not clear what benefits there are in reproducing this low-autonomy system at school. Just because some jobs have few choices is no reason to spend twelve years making children practise feeling powerless. The school system works by gradually reducing autonomy as children grow. At pre-school and nursery, children are typically allowed to choose between a range of activities and are not made to continue with something once they have lost interest. However, from the age of five onwards, school becomes increasingly more controlling. Children generally have no meaningful choices about what they do all day. Even when, at age fourteen, they do get to make some decisions, it’s usually between which classroom they sit in and what information they will be tested on, rather than anything more significant.

As well as a grounding in theory, the book provides a roadmap to help self-directed learning become a reality for families. Changing Our Minds blows apart the myths and assumptions underpinning not just compulsory schooling but also wider societal attitudes to topics such as mental health, children's rights and ideas about what constitutes a fulfilling life. * Rose Arnold, founder of Suitable Education * People who report high levels of wellbeing at work tend to be those – you’ve guessed it – with higher levels of autonomy over what they do. Much as I needed the money, I just couldn’t do it. I lasted four weeks. Dave smiled when I handed in my notice. With Changing Our Minds Naomi Fisher established herself as the voice of reason in a sea of misinformation about an education system in existential crisis. This new book cements her reputation as a champion of young people's rights by giving a voice to those who are most impacted and yet too often silenced. For this model of learning is all about how to get knowledge and skills into children. The science is procedural, mechanistic even. Any difficulties in education are reduced to how can we persuade children to face the front to comply with the regime of instruction, practice and repetition, one which the Education Secretary answers by referring to discipline and behavioural standards. Educational philosophy is completely missing from their approach. The question of why children might learn goes unmentioned, and the question of what they will learn is answered again by ‘the science’.Those of us who work with children might want more out of education, however. We might want to look at what children learn about themselves and their place in the world, and we might want to know how being so strictly controlled at school affects children’s wellbeing and ability to cope when they get into the less structured environment of university or work – one where intrinsic motivation matters. If you are a parent worrying whether self-directed education will work for your child, because you have been told that they have special needs which can only be met in the school system – think again’ Gopnik, A. (2017). The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells us about the Relationship Between Parents and Children. Vintage. I soon noticed that there was an unofficial hierarchy of jobs. Conveyor-belt jobs were the lowest of the low. If the supervisor liked you, you could get promoted to the spray gun. If you missed out the occasional piece of fruit or sometimes got your satsumas the wrong way round, not a chance. Blending theory, practical advice and lived experience, clinical psychologist Naomi Fisher introduces the world of self-directed learning and tailoring the learning environment to your child.