Learning Without Lessons

In Learning Without Lessons, David F. Lancy offers the first attempt to review the principles and practices for fostering learning in children that are found in small-scale, pre-industrial communities across the globe and through history. His analysis yields a consistent and coherent "pedagogy" that can be contrasted sharply with the taken-for-granted pedagogy found in the West. His analysis finds that teachers, classrooms, lessons, verbal instruction, testing, grading, praise, and the use of symbols are rare or absent from indigenous pedagogy. Instead, field studies document the prevalence of self-guided learners who rely on observation, listening, learning in play from peers the hands-on use of real tools and, learning through voluntary participation in everyday activities such as foraging.