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Title: How Children Learn (Classics in Child Development) by John Caldwell Holt ISBN: 0-201-48404-8 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: September, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.89 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Must Read For Every Parent
Comment: This book is so true. If you're looking for guidance on how to begin to teach your children this is the place to start. This will put you on the right track!!!!
Rating: 5
Summary: A must-read for all parents and educators
Comment: Anyone who works with children or is interested in education and psychology will enjoy John's interesting ideas. Most of this book is anecdotes about John's experience with different young children and his thoughts about how children learn in different areas that are based on those experiences.
Rating: 5
Summary: young children do learn a lot without an adult forcing them
Comment: How Children Learn
By John Holt
5 stars
Holt didn't have children of his own, and his first opinions of children and learning came from being a schoolteacher in an elite private school, where he taught math to 5th graders. He was exposed to younger children and babies who were friends and relatives, and began forming different opinions about learning, which he shares in this book. Holt is fascinated by the notion that children accomplish so much before formal schooling begins and realizes that the way school is set up goes directly in opposition to what is natural and has worked for these children up to the point they are sent off to school.
The beginning of the book covers the age ranges from birth up through age 3 to 5, that is, before children go to school. Holt talks about a certain type of important learning that takes place up until the time a child enrolls in school at which point the experience of schooling changes their personality. The book starts off with how children succeed in learning many important things and huge feats such as speaking and with proper grammar and pronunciation and walking without formal schooling and that children accomplish much learning without an adult being the facilitator of it. In general the style of writing is that Holt describes a situation and then gives his opinions of the learning experience. Sometimes Holt does little experiments such as introducing a toy or a non-toy (such as a typewriter) to young children to see how they react to it and what they do with it. Holt observes with delight and amazement, these young children who are friends and relatives (they are not his students or participants in a research projects). It is clear that Holt enjoys these young children and he respects them and relishes the time he spends with them.
This revised edition makes clear which text is original then what was added-which is new perspective as he had spent more time around children and his theories matured and changed a bit. Seeing the two perspectives clearly was very interesting and educational.
Regarding the discussions about babies and toddlers there are good observations here and I appreciate them. As a stay at home parent, I have already witnessed much of this (and more) and for some of the chapters I felt I wasn't learning anything I hadn't already witnessed with my own two eyes. However, readers who are childless will definitely learn much about how learning happens from infancy and up. I highly recommend that anyone interested in going into the profession of teaching read this book, or any current teacher who is childless. Holt gives the children much-deserved respect for their innate ability to learn and figure out the world around them.
Later chapters get more analytical as Holt integrates his own observation of schooled children (about grade 5 and below) and compares and contrasts with other educators, scientists and child psychologists. (It doesn't seem to me that Holt is analyzing preteens or teenagers.) Here is where Holt exercises his ability to write clearly and concisely drive home his point in a convincing manner.
Again and again Holt shows how a child to is forced to "learn" things (such as in public and most private schools) is actually having their personality changed in the process. The act of being forced to do things and to prove oneself over and over via testing and not being trusted by adults changes their personality. Holt feels the schooling procedures have negative consequences on all children; albeit some children are more negatively affected than others. The child can develop anxiety, mistrust, and fear of all adults not to mention self-esteem problems or just killing their curiosity or interest in learning.
Great quotes from other books on education and learning are included here with Holt's reactions. A short list of books on school reform is included. The summary alone is almost worth the price of the book.
For more specific information about what goes on in school and how children learn to play the school game and how forced teaching is not always effective, read Holt's "How Children Fail".
This would make a great gift for expectant parents, I feel it would point out to them that babies deserve a lot of respect for being able to figure out the world around them. This notion of being in awe of and respectful of children starting at birth is seldom written about...so many of us were under the misguided notion that an adult must be the one to force learning onto babies and children (me included until I birthed my babies and saw firsthand how smart they are).
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Title: How Children Fail (Classics in Child Development) by John Caldwell Holt ISBN: 0201484021 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Learning All the Time by John Caldwell Holt ISBN: 0201550911 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: September, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling by John Holt, Patrick Farenga, Pat Farenga ISBN: 0738206946 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Unschooling Handbook : How to Use the Whole World As Your Child's Classroom by Mary Griffith ISBN: 0761512764 Publisher: Prima Lifestyles Pub. Date: 29 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto, Thomas Moore, David Albert ISBN: 0865714487 Publisher: New Society Pub Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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