John Holt - Educational and Social Critic

Have you ever been playing with a toddler and asked them a question that you know they know the answer to (Where is your belly button? What does a dog say?) and instead of answering the question they get agitated or look at you blankly?  According to John Holt, the blank stare or agitation is because the child is either insulted by the unsolicited quizzing and/or you’ve made them question if they really do know the answer – since apparently you don’t have faith that they know.  Their passion for learning is dampened.  From Holt’s book How Children Learn: Even in the rare case when a child does not react defensively to questions, too much quizzing is likely to make him begin to think that learning does not mean figuring out how things work, but getting and giving answers that please grownups. On teaching children when they haven’t asked to be taught –or when they wanted to do something by themselves: If in our eagerness to teach and help them, we send them enough of these messages of doubt and distrust, we may soon destroy most of all of their confidence in their ability to learn for themselves, and convince them that they really are too lazy, incurious, and stupid to learn.  We will have made our fears come true. Holt takes an extreme view against school, advocating home-schooling instead.  I’m about half way through reading How Children Learn and while we are not going to home-school M, the book offers a lot to think about.  I’m on a quest to understand the what and why of the varied approaches to educating children that are available to us, starting with preschool.  Stay tuned.  I'll do my best to keep the pictures cute...