Rating: 5 stars +
I have a few books by John Holt, and I believe this one is my favorite. It contains a mixture of advice, observation, speculation, and anecdotes. The organization of it is helpful and logical -- it starts out with chapters for major areas of learning such as reading and writing, math, science, and music, then goes on into some more general information about learning.
The concepts, as many others have pointed out, are mostly very intuitive. Holt does challenge "traditional" schooling often, and some of what he says is a little shocking at first, but upon further thought, the reader will likely come to understand that he is very much correct.
There were numerous things throughout the book that I was nodding vigorously in agreement with throughout.
One thing he said stuck out to me: "...I don't like being around people who act and talk as if their mission in life is to educate me, whose relation to me is always that of teacher to pupil." I DO know people like that, and I choose to limit my time around them. As an editor and tutor myself, I don't go around correcting adults, because that's not my place. Why then do we as parents think that we have to correct children on everything ALL the time? One of the biggest nuggets of wisdom I have taken from Holt's books is that mistakes are meaningful. Children rarely make truly random mistakes; they often give us insight into how they are developing. Instead of jumping on them every time they do something wrong, we can choose to respond differently (or not at all).
My daughter often mispronounces certain words, and I used to get irritated and correct her, but then I read How Children Learn. In this book, Holt described many situations where children continued saying words wrong (or writing words wrong, etc.) for years before suddenly saying them right. It was Holt's belief that the children probably know how to say these kinds of words correctly but don't for a few reasons. Long story short, I have stopped correcting so much in our regular everyday life (and even as much in "scholastic settings" -- we just started kindergarten this fall). I am glad I have read these books. They have been incredibly insightful.
That being said, I don't agree with absolutely everything. I do think a lot of how he views how children think may not be completely accurate for every single child. I think it depends on temperament. I don't believe that every child has an innate aversion to adults helping them (although, I'm not a child psychologist, so maybe this is true of a certain age?). Sometimes his advice seems limited because he says not to do something but does not offer any advice on what to do instead. When I came upon those kinds of things in the book, I kept wishing he were alive so that I could email him. I would be writing to him all the time! It's such a tragedy that he's no longer with us. He did offer a select few games/activities that can be used (such as a spelling flashcard game on page 37 of my version) and I tried to mark those for use later.
I wish every parent would read this book. It's not very long, but it has some really valuable insight.
Purchase here! (Kindle version is only $2.99 at the time of this post!)
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