“When children are very young, they have natural curiosities about the world and explore them, trying diligently to figure out what is… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
The idea of painless, nonthreatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence. If you… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“Fear, boredom, and resistance--they all go to make what we call stupid children.” — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“Much of what we call History is the success stories of madmen.” — John Holt Education 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… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“John, if you ever get a family, there’s one thing you should know. No matter how well you get along with your… — John Holt Children 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… — John Holt Children 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… — John Holt Copy Share Image
“We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way.” — John Holt Education Copy Share Image
Since we can't know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in… — John Holt Able 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… — John Holt Clear head Copy Share Image
People should be free to find or make for themselves the kinds of educational experience they want their children to have. — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“Someone asked the other day, "Why do we go to school?" Pat, with vigor unusual in her, said, "So when we grow… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“I doubt very much if it is possible to teach anyone to understand anything, that is to say, to see how various… — John Holt Education Copy Share Image
We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“A teacher in class is like a man in the woods at night with a powerful flashlight in his hand. Wherever he… — John Holt Behavior change Copy Share Image
“A life worth living, and work worth doing - that is what I want for children (and all people), not just, or… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“For many years I have been asking myself why intelligent children act unintelligently at school. The simple answer is, "Because they're scared."… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“This idea that children won't learn without outside rewards and penalties, or in the debased jargon of the behaviorists, "positive and negative… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“Not long after the book came out I found myself being driven to a meeting by a professor of electrical engineering in… — John Holt Book Copy Share Image
To a very great degree, school is a place where children learn to be stupid. — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
“It is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere—mutilation of… — John Holt School Copy Share Image
By now I have come to feel that the fact of being a child, of being wholly subservient and dependent, of being… — John Holt Childhood Copy Share Image
“Why do people take or keep their children out of school? Mostly for three reasons: they think that raising their children is… — John Holt Children Copy Share Image
