Saturday, 17 May 2014

john holt

Mentioned in the recent blog entry on the theme of the 'hidden curriculum'
Jay Doubleyou: the hidden curriculum
was the 'radical educator' John Holt.

Some would identify him as a 'libertarian'.
Here's a piece on YouTube - his biography starts at 1.45 minutes - in very clear American English:
John Holt: Libertarian Outsider | by Jeff Riggenbach - YouTube

He's been compared to Ivan Illich, Edgar Z Friedenberg and Paul Goodman:
Education and “Stupidity” by Edgar Z. Friedenberg | The New York Review of Books
New Statesman | Paul Goodman: America's classic bad teacher

In 1964, Holt published his first book, How Children Fail, asserting that the academic failure of schoolchildren was not despite the efforts of the schools but actually because of the schools.

After corresponding with a number of these families, Holt began a newsletter in 1977, dedicated to home education, Growing Without Schooling.[2]
Holt's philosophy was simple:
"... the human animal is a learning animal; we like to learn; we are good at it; we don't need to be shown how or made to do it. What kills the processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it."[3]
It was no great leap from there to arrive at homeschooling. In 1980, Holt said:
"I want to make it clear that I don’t see homeschooling as some kind of answer to badness of schools. I think that the home is the proper base for the exploration of the world which we call learning or education. Home would be the best base no matter how good the schools were."[3]
John Holt (educator) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also:
Jay Doubleyou: explaining how your country's education system works
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