Gever Tulley

Gever Tulley – Life, Work & Ideas

Explore the life and ideas of Gever Tulley — educator, tinkerer, writer of 50 Dangerous Things, and pioneer of hands-on learning. Learn about his philosophy, projects, and memorable insights.

Introduction

Gever Tulley is an American writer, educator, speaker, and technologist known for promoting learning through hands-on exploration and “tinkering.” He is perhaps best known for his book 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) and for founding the Tinkering School and Brightworks School. His work invites us to rethink how children—and adults—learn, shifting from passive instruction to active experimentation.

Early Life & Background

• While specific details about his early childhood (date of birth, parents) are less documented publicly, Tulley has shared in interviews that he grew up in Northern California, in a small community surrounded by open space.

• From a young age, he was drawn to experimentation, tools, and figuring out how things worked. His curiosity about building and making shaped his later educational philosophy.

• He is a self-taught software engineer / technologist (though his role transcends coding alone).

Education & Early Career

• Tulley’s formal education in computing or engineering is less emphasized in public sources; rather, his reputation is built on hands-on projects and applying technological and design thinking to education.

• Early in his professional life, he worked at various technology and design ventures and began experimenting with alternative educational models.

• He also developed strong public speaking credentials, including TED talks that helped propel his ideas into wider recognition.

Major Projects & Contributions

Tinkering School

In 2005, Gever Tulley founded the Tinkering School, a summer / camp-style program where children and young people work on large, ambitious building projects (such as tree houses, rope bridges, roller coasters) using tools, materials, and guidance.

At Tinkering School, participants learn by doing, failing, iterating, and exploring — rather than following step-by-step instruction alone.

Brightworks School

In 2011, he co-founded Brightworks, a K–12 school in San Francisco. The school is premised on the same principles: students learn through projects, exploration, and self-driven inquiry, supported by adult “collaborators.”

Brightworks employs a curriculum called the “Brightworks Arc,” dividing learning phases into Exploration → Expression → Exposition, giving students time to explore a topic deeply before creating and sharing results.

Writing & Advocacy

• His book 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) encourages parents and educators to let children engage in “risky” but meaningful activities—climbing trees, using tools, exploring fire—under supervision, to foster confidence, judgment, and creativity.

• He has also authored Dangerism!: Why We Worry About the Wrong Things and What It’s Doing to Our Kids.

• Tulley gives frequent talks (including TED) about innovation in education, engagement, curiosity, and the power of “fooling around” as a serious mode of discovery.

Institute & Kits

Tulley also founded the Institute for Applied Tinkering and Tinkering Labs, which develop educational kits and tools to support tinkering-style learning more broadly.

Philosophy & Educational Vision

At the core of Tulley’s philosophy are several interlocking ideas:

• Learning by making and experimenting: Rather than passively absorbing information, learners should build, test, break, and iterate.

• Trust in children & default to “yes”: He argues that overprotection stifles growth. Giving children more autonomy (with guidance) builds judgment. In one TED talk, he emphasizes letting children be “co-authors” of their education.

• Danger as a teacher: Not reckless danger, but controlled challenge helps children understand risk, safety, and responsibility.

• Curiosity & play as engines of discovery: He places high value on “fooling around” — play, exploration, messing up — as essential cognitive tools.

• Connecting disciplines & real problems: Projects often cross physics, art, mechanics, design, storytelling. Learning is contextual and project-based.

• Scaling the philosophy: Through schools, kits, advocacy, and speaking, he aims to spread hands-on, tinkering-centered education beyond niche settings.

Reception & Critiques

• Tulley’s emphasis on “dangerous things” has attracted criticism from some psychologists and parents concerned about safety. Some argue that encouraging risky play may lead to accidents.

• Critics sometimes question how scalable his model is in traditional school systems constrained by standardized testing, budgets, and liability concerns.

• Supporters praise him for reframing how we think about childhood, risk, creativity, and autonomy in education.

Selected Quotes & Insights

Here are some notable lines and ideas attributed to Gever Tulley:

“We learn more when we explore than when we are told.”

From his TED talk “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do”, he proposes:

“The default answer should be yes.”

On the mindset of tinkering:

“If you don’t try, you’ll never know what happens.”

On overprotection:

“Worry is the enemy of wonder.”

These reflect his conviction that curiosity and risk (within reason) are vital to learning and growth.

Lessons from Gever Tulley

1. Give learners agency
   When learners choose, shape, and test their own projects, they invest more and learn more deeply.

2. Embrace failure
   Mistakes are not defeats but feedback—tinkering invites iteration rather than perfection.

3. Balance risk with guidance
   It’s not about recklessness, but about supervised opportunities to test boundaries.

4. Integrate disciplines
   Real-world problems don’t respect subject silos; project-based work encourages synthesis of skills.

5. Scale through tools & ideas
   Tulley shows how one can move from small experiments (camps) to broader systemic change (schools, kits, advocacy).

Conclusion

Gever Tulley is an influential voice in reimagining education for a more curious, hands-on world. His work challenges assumptions about childhood, safety, and how we learn. Through schools, books, talks, and tinkering tools, he seeks to give children—and grownups—the permission and space to explore, experiment, and grow.