Book: How Children Fail

By John Holt

I took a lot of notes while reading this book. (Couldn't highlight as it was a library book.) Started off quite slowly, felt that it was quite a tedious read, as the format is in notes which the author wrote as he taught in schools or observed other teachers in class. Thus there is no clear points, no conclusion, no summary, etc. Gotta make your own inferences as you go along.

The first chapter was titled 'Strategy'. Mainly about how children try to handle classroom situations. Not that relevant to me as I am not a teacher and my children are not in school yet.

I shall copy here the notes I took from the second chapter onwards, i.e. what I found to be important points.

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Children have no concept of 'success' until they need to please adults. Children think in terms of effort and adventure. It is only when pleasing adults becomes important that the sharp line between success and failure appears. [pg 67 -70]

"Perhaps they are thrown too early, and too much, into a crowded society with other children, where they have to think, not about the world, but about their position in it." [pg 77] A powerful statement to me

Intelligent = intensely involved with life. Use common sense, to analyze, to check answer. [pg 88]

Children need to be secure. They become fearful when they feel insecure. "The scared fighter might be the best fighter, but the scared learner is always a poor learner."
Be real, not some idealized notion of 'teacher' (or 'parent'!). Children feel secure when they sense you are real. [pg 88-95]

Heavy workloads force children into answer-directed strategies. They are more willing to do thinking to figure things out when workload is light.[forgot to note the pages]

Children don't learn because we teach them, i.e. try to control the contents of their minds. [pg 231]

"Freedom to live and to think about life for its own sake is important and even essential to a child." Should make schoolrooms and schoolwork as interesting and exciting as possible so that children will act intelligently and get into the habit of acting intelligently. [pg 262-265]

Love for learning is destroyed by encouraging and compelling children to work for petty & contemptible rewards such as gold stars, '100', 'As' etc.

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This book has further firmed my resolutions to homeschool my children until Primary One at least. Waiting for the author's other books 'How Children Learn' and 'Teaching Your Own' - Excited!