John Holt's Quotes on True Learning

+ JMJ +

To learn more about John Holt's educational philosophy, I've posted a number of his quotes below.  In my opinion, it's so much better to hear from the master himself!

“Birds fly, fish swim, man thinks and learns.  Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do, and all we need to do, is bring as much of the world as we can (to them); give children as much help and guidance as they ask for; listen respectfully when they feel like talking; and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest."

~  John Holt in How Children Learn                                                                               

The most important thing any teacher has to learn, not to be learned in any school of education I ever heard of, can be expressed in seven words: Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.

~  John Holt

"Teaching does not make learning…organized education operates on the assumption that children learn only when and only what and only because we teach them. This is not true. It is very close to 100% false. Learners make learning.”

~  John Holt

“If I had to make a general rule for living and working with children, it might be this: be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued.”

~  John Holt

There is no difference between living and learning.

~  John Holt

“Any child who can spend an hour or two a day, or more if he wants, with adults that he likes, who are interested in the world and like to talk about it, will on most days learn far more from their talk than he would learn in a week of school.”

~ John Holt

“Most of us are tactful enough with other adults not to point out their errors, but not many of us are ready to extend this courtesy to children.”

~   John Holt

Children are born passionately eager to make as much sense as they can of things around them. If we attempt to control, manipulate, or divert this process...the independent scientist in the child disappears.

~   John Holt

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, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.

~   John Holt

The anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure... severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied.

~   John Holt 

Education... now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers, spectators, and 'fans,' driven more and more, in all parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to improve 'education' but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman business of people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape themselves.

~   John Holt

"I choose to define it here as most people do, something that some people do to others for their own good, molding and shaping them, and trying to make them learn what they think they ought to know. Today, everywhere in the world, that is what "education" has become, and I am wholly against it. People spend a great deal of time—as for years I did myself—talking about how to make "education" more effective and efficient, or how to do it or give it to more people, or how to reform or humanize it. But to make it more effective and efficient will only be to make it worse, and to help it do even more harm. It cannot be reformed, cannot be carried out wisely or humanely, because its purpose is neither wise nor humane. "

~  John Holt

"To parents I say, above all else, don't let your home become some terrible miniature copy of the school. No lesson plans! No quizzes! No tests! No report cards! Even leaving your kids alone would be better; at least they could figure out some things on their own. Live together, as well as you can; enjoy life together, as much as you can."

~   John Holt


"Children do not need to be made to learn to be better, told what to do or shown how. If they are given access to enough of the world, they will see clearly enough what things are truly important to themselves and to others, and they will make for themselves a better path into that world then anyone else could make for them."

~   John Holt in How Children Fail

Next to the right to life itself, the most fundamental of all human rights is the right to control our own minds and thoughts. That means, the right to decide for ourselves how we will explore the world around us, think about our own and other persons' experiences, and find and make the meaning of our own lives. Whoever takes that right away from us, as the educators do, attacks the very center of our being and does us a most profound and lasting injury. He tells us, in effect, that we cannot be trusted even to think, that for all our lives we must depend on others to tell us the meaning of our world and our lives, and that any meaning we may make for ourselves, out of our own experience, has no value."

~  John Holt in Instead of Education

Let me sum up what I have been saying about learning. I believe that we learn best when we, not others, are deciding what we are going to try to learn, and when, and how, and for what reasons or purposes; when we, not others, are in the end choosing the people, materials, and experiences from which and with which we will be learning; when we, not others, are judging how easily or quickly or well we are learning, and when we have learned enough; and above all when we feel the wholeness and opennesss of the world around us, and our own freedom and power and competence in it. When then can we do about it? How can we create or help create these conditions for learning?

~  John Holt in What Do I Do Monday?

 

What is Eclectic Home Learning?

+ JMJ +

Eclectic Home Learning is the type of learning we have chosen to implement in our homeschool.  We don't limit ourselves to practicing only one educational philosophy, but we take certain principles from several that suit our children's learning styles and help them thrive.  In our case, we combine what we determine to be the best of Charlotte Mason's, John Holt's and Maria Montessori's educational philosophies for our family, with a certain degree of classical and traditional education.  To elaborate, below are some passages on Eclectic home education from several websites.

This is adapted from a post by Rhonda Miller, 05-28-2010:

A traditional definition of "eclectic" from the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary says, "selecting what appears to be best in various doctrines, methods, or styles; composed of elements drawn from various sources".

Therefore, it is fitting to say that eclectic homeschoolers examine the many methods of homeschooling and then select the methods and/or learning lifestyles that are best suited to their children's needs in each subject of study.

Some homeschoolers, though, especially in their first year of homeschooling, prefer the uniformity of a boxed curriculum and the safety net it provides in being all-inclusive. But as one mother said, "It IS much easier if everyone learned exactly the same, LOL, the way it's done in schools. But it's not as much FUN though."

Miller continues:

Thankfully, after a few years under my belt, I began to understand that all learning did not have to come from the same source. That's when I ventured out and began selecting different methods based on each child's learning style and ability. Instead of selecting one flavor that only one child liked, I could select all the flavors that made everyone happy!  It was at that point that I could see improvements in my children's learning.  

An eclectic education is one in which a solid educational foundation can be built based on one's own views, morals, and belief system. If something doesn't work, it can be put aside and another way can be explored. It's all about what works best for your family!  Just as all flavors of cookies shouldn't go into the same jar, all flavors of kids shouldn't be forced to use the same method of study!

From me, Shelley (Sweetums5):

Modifying a child's education according to his abilities and interests involves more work for the parents, but it is worth the trouble because it fosters a love of learning in the child that lasts a lifetime.  

This customized form of education is difficult to implement in schools because of the large number of students enrolled.  Instead of letting the curriculum serve the student, because of the way schools are set up, the students have to serve the curriculum, whether it fits their learning styles or not.  The opportunity to customize a child's education according to his strengths and interests is one of the many advantages home education has over schools.

From the Time 4 Learning website:

Eclectic homeschooling is the result of a parent's commitment to provide a highly individualized education plan for each of their children, based on their child’s strengths, learning styles, and interests. Eclectic homeschoolers see value in a variety of different educational methods. 

They pick and choose what works for their families, often coming up with a hodgepodge of ideas that they then tweak and fine-tune to fit the specific needs of their children.  While actual statistics are hard to come by, we believe most homeschooling families use an eclectic approach to their children’s education.

Another mom shared:

“I had to tweak what we were doing. I had a vision of what I wanted our homeschooling days to be like, but my daughter hated doing the expensive boxed curriculum we had purchased. She said she might as well have stayed at school with all the workbooks she was doing.”

Resources that eclectic homeschoolers use include online learning, library books, literature lists “borrowed” from other homeschooling styles, courses at local schools, mentors, and bits and pieces of various other curricula.

Eclectic Learning is Active Learning

Sunday, February 14, 2010

*The message below is adapted from The Unschooling Handbook, by Mary Griffith*

As young children everyone of us had a natural curiosity to learn our environment, to walk, to talk, to run, to use our senses, to ask why and what about everything we came into contact with. Many of us are "disciplined" and labeled for unguided/ misguided behaviors resulting from our innate desire to learn or be a part of our environment. Many are too often told to settle down, keep quiet, wait till tomorrow... next year, maybe later -- and offered no logical explanation; until we finally give up on self-discoveries (so essential to real learning) and resign to being told what, according to adults, is "important" to learn or memorize.

Our minds are spoon-fed a fast-food education and given little else in-place to prepare for life after school at all, or to satiate our active development, other than sleep/TV/fiction/video games. In short times, it becomes difficult to explore any other interests, to take initiative, or to find purpose and enjoyment in education.

Yet when we seek to learn about our interests in a way that comes naturally to us, we experience true learning that isn't stored and forgotten by our short-term memory immediately after a test. I challenge you to allow learning to become a natural part of life, an everyday means of exploring ideas, improving skills, and developing your talents. Go to the Zoo, visit museums, host a dinner from scratch, create a scrapbook, visit guest speakers, write an article for your favorite magazine, take road trips, form a reading group, create an investment... join and invite your fellow readers on The Wall. The possibilities for learning are exciting and endless.

Eclectic Home Learning in our Family:

I have taken what is best for our family's needs from the rich educational philosophies of John Holt, Maria Montessori and Charlotte Mason to comprise our own blend of Eclectic Home Education.  Our children have thrived on these learning lifestyles.

I will be writing a post on each of these learning lifestyles and the benefits we've derived from them.  

Lastly, we also practice Melissa Wiley's concept of Tidal Homeschooling (Melissa is a Catholic homeschooling mom of 6 and author of the prequels to Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books), and Dr. Mary Hood's Relaxed Homeschool Mindset.

Ever since we've embraced these natural, healthier, respectful, pro-family and pro-life learning lifestyles, we no longer experience the stress of fast-food education and rat-race schooling in our home.

Lastly, here is a series of posts I've just put together on John Holt's educational philosophy:

Inspirations from John Holt & Our Catholic Faith

John Holt Quotes  

Unschooling Quotes

Catholic Unschooling Quote from St. Therese

  

A Conversation with John Holt