“It is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere—mutilation of spontaneity, of joy in learning, or pleasure in creating, or sense of self. . . . Because adults… — John Holt Copy Share Image
“When children are very young, they have natural curiosities about the world and explore them, trying diligently to figure out what is real. As they become "producers " they fall away from exploration and start fishing for the right answers with little thought. They believe they must always be right, so they quickly forget mistakes and how these mistakes were… — John Holt Copy Share
The idea of painless, nonthreatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence. If you think it your duty to make children do what you want, whether they will or not, then it follows inexorably that you must make them afraid of what will happen to them if they dont do what you… — John Holt Copy Share
“Fear, boredom, and resistance--they all go to make what we call stupid children.” — John Holt Copy Share Image
Schools assume that children are not interested in learning and are not much good at it, that they will not learn unless made to, that they cannot learn unless shown how, and that the way to make them learn is to divide up the prescribed material into a sequence of tiny tasks to be mastered one at a time, each… — John Holt Copy Share
“John, if you ever get a family, there’s one thing you should know. No matter how well you get along with your children when… — John Holt Copy Share Image
It is hard not to feel that there must be something very wrong with much of what we do in school, if we feel… — John Holt Copy Share Image
“Why do they do this? Because it gives them a license to act like tyrants and to feel like saints. “Do what I tell you!” roars the tyrant. “It’s for your own good, and one day you’ll be grateful,” says the saint. Few people, feeling themselves powerless in a world turned upside down, can or even wish to resist the… — John Holt Copy Share
Since we can't know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead,… — John Holt Copy Share Image
“Leaders are not, as we are often led to think, people who go along with huge crowds following them. Leaders are people who go their own way without caring, or even looking to see, whether anyone is following them. "Leadership qualities" are not the qualities that enable people to attract followers, but those that enable them to do without them.… — John Holt Copy Share
