Children come into this world burning to learn, but the enduring lesson of school is that learning is work, to be avoided however possible. In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray shows that we can reverse the harmful effects of modern schooling by liberating our children to pursue their own interests through self-directed play. Gray, who has devoted his research career to understanding the biological foundations of education, argues that to promote learning, we must engage the core aspects of human nature--curiosity, playfulness, and sociability--instead of inhibiting them. A brave, counterintuitive proposal for freeing our children from the shackles of the curiosity-killing institution we call school, Free to Learnshows that it's time to stop asking what's wrong with our children and start asking what's wrong with the system.