He is a Canadian physician, best selling author, and speaker who is renowned for his work on addiction, trauma, stress, and childhood development.
Recently, a friend sent me an excerpt from an interview where Dr. Maté talks about how schools “have it all wrong” when it comes to teaching children.
He says that schools (traditionally speaking) are not focused on healthy brain development but the teaching of skills and facts, which require students to sit long hours in classrooms.
From an evolutionary perspective, Dr. Maté states that children used to learn through experiences and play by being out in nature with adults.
Play, he asserts, is essential for healthy brain development which is the result of positive interactions and experiences within one’s environment that shapes the brain.
Brain development is rarely taught in teacher education programs.
Therefore, teachers rarely consider the conditions necessary for healthy brain development in students or how to create those conditions.
Dr. Maté stresses that children are naturally curious beings who are innately wired to play, which is a guarantee for learning.
In other words, the more children are encouraged to play the more they will want to know about the world around them and love the process of learning.
Essentially, learning will cease to be a struggle and instead come with ease.
The excerpt ends with Dr. Maté saying,
“So the job of the schools should be the nurturing of healthy brain development through nurturing relationships, lots of play, lots of interaction, lots of spontaneity, lots of creativity, and those kids will know the facts really well, because they’ll want to.”
This was a short interview excerpt with a very powerful message!