Is your school stopping your child from learning?

“Education, with its supporting system of compulsory and competitive schooling, all its carrots and sticks, its grades, diplomas and credentials, now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. “

John Holt

So says John Holt in his sublime book, “Instead of Education.“

There are many lessons for teachers and sports coaches in this book (and parents if they choose to read it.)

Holt’s underlying premise is that the Education System with its S-chools and t-eachers (his annotations) systematically prevents and inhibits the natural learning of children.

It will make for uncomfortable reading for many people.

“Next to life itself, the most important human right 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 meaning of our own lives. Whoever takes that right away from us, by trying to ‘educate’ us, attacks the very centre of our being and does us a most profound and lasting injury.”

page 8

If we force someone into a situation, we are inhibiting their freedom to choose.

Holt loves learning, and this being a Pelican book, is a fan of the autodidact, but not as in stumbling upon things by accident or struggling to learn everything from scratch. Instead he calls them “do-ers” and they seek help and guidance from those who can.

“The do-er, not someone else, who has decided what he will say, hear, read and write, or think or dream about.  He is at the centre of his own actions. He plans, directs, controls and judges them. He does them for his own purposes- which may of course include a common purpose with others.”

page 9

The “do-er” is making decisions about what they want to learn, and seeking out opportunities to do so.

This may be familiar to those of you who have done a 6- week calligraphy course, tried creative writing, wanted to learn to play the piano, or tried to learn a language on Duolingo.

Or, to sports coaches who have someone come to them to learn how to do a handstand, swim butterfly, or do a clean and jerk.

“The most we may be able to do may be to find ways to help some children to find ways to prevent compulsory learning from killing the curiosity, energy, resourcefulness, and confidence with which they explore the world, and to find ways outside of school to nourish and encourage these qualities, so that even if they learn little or nothing worthwhile in school, they can continue the learning they were doing so well before they went to school.”

page 12

“The most valuable and indeed essential asset the student brings to any task is a willingness to adventure, to take risks. Without that, it can’t learn anything. The teacher must not kill this spirit, but honour and strengthen it. Thus one of the stupidest things the S-chools do is insist that children ‘comprehend’ everything they read, and read only what they comprehend. People who read well do not learn this way. They plunge into books that are ‘too hard’ for them, enjoying what they can understand, wondering and guessing about what they do not, and not worrying when they cannot find an answer.”

page 74

A personal bugbear of mine, as both my children who were keen book lovers before starting at school, have been told they are not allowed to read ‘advanced‘ books! Instead, their reading ability is measured by number of words read!

“From my own experience in t-eaching I know that when a t-eacher invents what they seem like a good series of graded tasks, he may fall in love with it, and try to lock the student into it. We can see this in the teaching of most school subjects, which are not sequential at all, and in the teaching of music which is in some ways sequential, but has much more room for exploration and invention than many music teachers encourage or allow.“

page 75

Martial Arts, gymnastics and swimming love grades and certificates.

The learner may enter the Dojo to learn self-defence, but is soon told they have to learn the grading syllabus. The belts become the goal, rather than learning to fight (and no, they are not synonymous).

The same with swimming, well intentioned parents sign their kids up to swim classes for safety reasons.

They then watch their child trapped in an artificially constructed stage because the child’s breast stroke is perceived to be incorrect. This has little to do with preventing drowning in quarries or at sea, but the parents are by then lost in this system.

They have no idea if the child will be safe, so they compare notes to see if their child is a “winner“. Holt talks a lot about the Education System being designed to produce “winners“. By definition if only a few children can be winners, the rest must be losers.

The certificates show that your child is a “winner.”

Later Holt describes a good tennis coach he once had.

“As long has his students are having fun flailing away at the ball, let them do it. If he sees that they are beginning to get more frustration than fun out of this, he may suggest a simpler, more do-able, and hence more enjoyable task. The trick is to find the balance that is most interesting, exciting and useful to the student. Better yet, to let the student find it.”

page 76

This is gold dust and reflects the biggest change to my coaching over the last 5 years. I once watched my daughter in a tennis lesson spend the last half hour having 8 attempts at hitting a ball. The rest of the time she was queuing or running around the net.

In the same time, my younger son was “flailing away at the ball” on the sideline with his mate. I stopped counting at 100 attempts. They were having fun and discovering different ways of using a racket, throwing, catching and then some wrestling.

Teachers hate chaos, and yet a lot of learning goes on whilst flailing. A lot more than when queuing. I now allow a period of self-discovery in every class: the children work on what they want to work on.

I observe them and then can help them get better at what they want, before adding in ideas of my own.

“Well, back to reality,” and have gone on doing just what we had done all along, which was to try to bribe, scare and shame children into learning what someone else had decided they ought to know.”

page 160

On teachers returning to work after attending a conference learning how to be better teachers. The honesty, whilst refreshing, is also dispiriting.

“The schools say, of course, that the reason for compulsory attendance laws is to make sure that the children learn all the important things the schools are teaching. But children must be in school even when school tests show and the school admits they are not learning anything, or have already learned what the school is teaching.“

Page 161

It’s interesting that schools tell parents that they are encouraging the children to be “resilient” and “independent”, yet then tell the children not to do cartwheels in case they get hurt and not to read more advanced books in case they get put off reading!

“Even in schools which allow and encourage children to ask questions and reward them for doing so, the children soon stop asking. For when we reward children for doing what they like to do- find out about the world– they soon learn only to do it for rewards. Since the rewards of the school only go to a few winners, most children, the losers, stop asking questions. This is one of the flaws of positive reinforcement; it works only as long as we keep it up.”

page 177

Summary

This book resonated with me, and I am perfectly aware of my confirmation bias. I love teaching, but hate the constraints formed by a system. I love learning and am constantly seeking out teachers, mentors or courses to help me on my journey.

Holt has articulated his views on teaching extremely well. I recommend this book to all coaches and people who want to learn.

Thanks to Mandi Abrahams of Castle Books for the recommendation.