How Children Learn

After reading Linda Dobson's First Year of Homeschooling I decided to read a completely different type of homeschooling book. John Holt's How Children Learn is written in an entirely different style and took some time to adjust to. Dobson's book is laid out in an organized chapter, section, sub-section, sub-sub-section style and Holt's book is the complete opposite. Holt has minimal chapter separations with a sort of rambling-from-one-subject-to-the-other style with very little concluding or summing up of information. At first it was hard for me to understand why his book has sold so many copies and has been translated into over a dozen languages.....Why would thousands of people enjoy a book written with such an apparent lack of organization?

The answer is that Holt is trying to illustrate his views on learning not only by what is written in his book but also by how his book is written.

Holt feels that children learn in what appears to be an illogical, multi-lateral fashion. To us it may seem that children's actions and inquiries are redundant or unnecessary but they are simply exploring their surroundings in their own way in order to make sense of what they experience. By writing his book in a more flowing, apparently slightly scattered way Holt enhances his explanations of how children learn.

Holt also focuses on the topic of learning vs. teaching. Holt suggests that our society is far to obsessed with teaching. He explains that children will learn by exploring and that many things that are "taught," children would learn on their own if we left them to their own devices. He uses the analogy of walking, we do not teach a child how to walk, he simply works through the steps over a number of months, and eventually puts all the pieces together and takes his first steps. Holt explains that all learning is like this when un-interrupted by interrfering parents and teachers. For example, young children do not need to have their speech corrected, as they mature they will explore with different pronunciations and begin to recognize that they are not pronouncing words as those around them and they will decide to pay attention and self-correct. When we intervene and nag a child with speech and grammar corrections we are sending the message that the child is incompetent in speech and that they cannot learn the proper patterns on their own. This stifles the child's confidence and actually perpetuates the speech difficulties by producing power struggles between the adult and child.

Similarly, Holt explains that parents interfere with other types of learning. When a child manages to singlehandedly get both of his shoes on for the first time and the parent only points out that the shoes are on the wrong feet the child, previously proud of his accomplishment, feels only shame and despair. No wonder he refuses to put his shoes on for the next outing. By pointing out his mistake instead of enjoying his success the parent manages to remove the child's pride and replace it with feelings of inability and incompetence. When parents continually refuse to recognize a child's successes and focus only on their imperfections the child looses their self-confidence, their drive to discover and learn, and this results in a child who acts and feels helpless. We need to empower our children by giving them the space to explore and learn and sharing their excitement and pride when they feel they've had success. Holt explains that the teaching that goes on at traditional schools works only to discourage and debilitate children in their quest to learn. Children are forced to learn topics with which they are uninterested and using methods that are not tailored to their individual needs. Given the current state of our traditional school he strongly suggests learning at home.

Although initially I felt "How Children Learn" was disorganized and slightly incomprehensible, my opinion changed half-way through. I realized that Holt's rambling actually reinforced his illustrations of how children learn and I really began to appreciate his admiration for his subjects. He illustrates his amazement at how children explore the world and get interested in the most minute details. His many anecdotes about the different children that he worked with helped me to understand what children need to feel accepted and free to engage themselves in their world. Although I doubt Holt wrote this book as a parenting book, he offers such sensitive, warm treatment of children that any parent can come away with positive values with which to treat their children, in addition to a greater understanding of how to create the most child-friendly learning environment.