The above question is not meant rhetorically. Like many home educating parents, I bought a copy of "Teach your own" years ago. I didn't think much of it and stuck it in a bookcase for the next decade or so. Recently, I fished it out and had a look through it. I had quite forgotten just how truly, monumentally awful it is!
For those unfamiliar with John Holt's books, his most popular ones consist of long, rambling, personal monologues, in which he reflects on his life as a teacher. He writes in a chatty, informal style, as though he were a favourite uncle giving you some friendly advice and his books are larded with a nuggets of homespun wisdom, usually presented in a toe curlingly twee way. He sprinkles homely anecdotes around and "Teach your own" also features many stories from parents who home educate according to his wise and good principles. I have chosen a couple of pages more or less at random; pages 143 and 144 in the chapter on Learning without Teaching. Let us look at the fathers whom he quotes approvingly and see if what they are saying is worth hearing.
The first man says, "It is not possible for an inquisitive child to delve deeply into dinosaurs without wondering about, and learning, how big they were (measurements), how many roamed a certain area (arithmetic), where they lived (geography), what happened to them (history) etc." This is, despite anything John Holt might believe to the contrary, a pretty fair load of nonsense. It is perfectly possibly to spend months being interested in dinosaurs, learn their Latin names and everything about them without once learning anything at all about geography or arithmetic.
I have known plenty of kids who become obsessed by dinosaurs. I have never met one who learned how many roamed in a certain area, let alone learned any arithmetic as a consequence. The reasons are obvious. Firstly, nobody has the remotest idea how many dinosaurs did roam in a certain area. Secondly, I have been looking in all the books in the local library about this aspect of dinosaurs. Not one has anything to say on the subject. Neither is any child likely to learn geography from studying dinosaurs. For one thing there were no continents at that time, just one large landmass called Pangaea. Fat lot of use that geography would be, unless you were planning to take a holiday in the Carboniferous Era. I couldn't find anything about this in any of the books in the kids' library either.
I don't believe for a moment that any child has ever learned any arithmetic as a result of reading about dinosaurs, or any geography either! On the next page, Holt quotes with apparent approval a father who has a four year old son, "He repeats and repeats things until he has them. We put him to bed at 9pm and often at 11pm we can hear him talking to himself as he goes over things he wants to get straight." Apparently the child counts to a hundred and twenty nine constantly and keeps obsessively muttering to himself about what he has learned that day. Now call me Mr. Old Fashioned, but if my four year old child were laying in the dark for two hours counting to a hundred and twenty nine and repeating everything he had learned that day, I would be seriously concerned. Sounds like an anxious kid who needs to relax.
The book is full of this sort of thing; pointless anecdotes which are supposed to present unschooling as a wonderful way of life. Perhaps the most irritating aspect of the book is the creepy and patronising way that Holt talks about children. Here he is on page 144 talking about visiting, " An eight year old friend and her mother". I can tell you now that grown up men don't really have eight year old girls as their friends. Presumably this is actually the daughter of a friend of his. To pretend that it is the child who is his friend is at best patronising and at worst, slightly sinister. I am on excellent terms with the young daughters of friends, but if I started referring to an eight year old girl as "My friend" it would raise a few eyebrows! He is always talking about "My young friends". Yuk.
Practically every page of this book has something to annoy one. How it ever came to be seen as a seminal work on home education is an absolute mystery.
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"Neither is any child likely to learn geography from studying dinosaurs. For one thing there were no continents at that time, just one large landmass called Pangaea. Fat lot of use that geography would be, unless you were planning to take a holiday in the Carboniferous Era.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this part of geography? I certainly learnt about how the landscape was shaped by glaciers, earthquakes and volcanoes and how the land masses are still moving along fault lines in geography at school. Can't remember if we went as far back as the single land mass but it seems connected. I've just had a look through my Philip's Modern School Atlas and it includes a section on continental drift going back to Jurassic times with snapshots forward to the present day, but why argue about the classification of facts or theories? Does it matter if it comes under geography or history, it's still an interesting fact and important to our understanding of our world. I don't remember reading about the number of dinosaurs within an area, but it may be an area the comes up during discussions about dinosaurs. We might wonder if they had territories in the same way as modern animals and it might lead to further reading about what types of animals are territorial. I don't this did happen within our family but territorial animals have been discussed as a result of other interests. Mine certainly learnt something about maths and proportion when we discussed their size, comparing them to humans, other modern animals, our house, etc. I think it gave them a much greater understanding of what, say, 10 or 20 meters looks like. Current day geography also came up when we looked at where various fossils were found. We would often go and find places on the world map on our wall whilst reading about dinosaurs. We also discussed the movement of land masses and how fossil records, along with geological records, can help us work out which land was attached to which and how long ago.
I'm not a particular fan of his writing style and I don't agree with everything he wrote (his understanding does develop over time and he makes this point himself, he starts of as a 'normal' teacher), but certain parts of it do ring true and I'm afraid the dinosaur part does for us so maybe not the best choice of topic to choose to make a point!
"I am on excellent terms with the young daughters of friends, but if I started referring to an eight year old girl as "My friend" it would raise a few eyebrows! He is always talking about "My young friends". Yuk.
ReplyDeleteAgree with you here. I also cringe when I hear of LA officials talking about 'their' families or 'their' children when talking about 'their' known home educators!
But not as bad as a local CID man who when talking to me referred to "my victims". I think I know what he meant, but it still gave me a start!
ReplyDeleteThinking about Holt and carrying on my thoughts about AE....I can't really give a reasoned answer about Holt- especially as I haven't read the book....although I am always a bit suspicious of anyone basing what they do purely on the ideas of others....I can only say that I have come to understand how my own children learn, and the examples you give wouldn't fit well with my home educated daughter (well, perhaps her autistic tendencies have some parallels with the 4 year old mentioned above!). I do recognise that all children are different - and if I look back at the education of my eldest son (who always went to school) it is certainly true that in some things he was entirely self taught - he was at primary school just a computers were introduced into the classroom and he had learnt a huge amount about computing on his own as a 7 year old with an old PC my father gave him. At school he was the trouble shooter who everyone admitted knew far more than the staff and subsequently all this proved useful since all through his 4 years at uni he could fund himself by high paying programming jobs on the side. Yet whilst I could say his IT and computing skills were entirely self taught and self motivated, I do think that the maths involved wouldn't have been possible unless someone actually taught him the basics of multiplication or division in the first place. Likewise he may be entirely self motivated about things like piano practice now, because he understands the importance of perfection, but I think our parental nagging to practice whilst he was working through early grades was neccessary for him to reach this point.
ReplyDeleteLoved the two books 'How Children Fail' and 'How Children Learn'. Can honestly say that, when I read them in the mid 80's, they revolutionized the way I did my job (as a Head of Special Needs in a secondary school.)
ReplyDeleteSo, no, he isn't the *most* annoying writer! LOL!
However, less than impressed with 'Teach Your Own' which seemed a jumbled collection of ideas not related to real experience of home education. He wasn't a parent, as he? I do think that is important, because home ed is so much intertwined with our *relationships* with our children. I looked to that book for help when I started HE'ing in the mid 90's and didn't find it very inspirational.
Mrs Anon
Yes, "How children Fail" is not as dreadful as some of his stuff. It is still a mite to folksy for my taste. When all is said and done, it is his personal experiences and what he thinks he has learned about children from them. Like you, I think that the fact that he never actually raised a child of his own makes him a bit of a dud when it comes to talking about home education.
ReplyDeleteInteresting what you say Julie, about keeping your son to the grindstone at the piano when he was younger. A lot of adults wish that they had kept at music and not a few that I know have implicitly blamed their parents for not making them stick at it. I taught my own daughter the guitar up to Grade 5, despite the fact that I cannot play it myself. By the time she reached fifteen, it was obvious that she didn't want to pursue it further, so we dropped it. I think though that the very fact that she was able to achieve this gave her a bit of a boost. And of course it really is impossible to make a child do any instrument if they are determined not to. So even if we nag about practice, the fact that the child does it suggests that they are willing to co-operate.
"Yet whilst I could say his IT and computing skills were entirely self taught and self motivated, I do think that the maths involved wouldn't have been possible unless someone actually taught him the basics of multiplication or division in the first place."
ReplyDeleteSome would say the same about IT and computer skills. One of my children made the mistake of enrolling on an adult education IT course without checking it out properly beforehand. The first lesson covered how to use the mouse and made a start on using the keyboard! Once someone can count objects and understand numbers in a concrete way it doesn't take long to teach multiplication or division in my experience. I just explained that 5 times 4 means 5 lots of 4 and they were away. Why do you think he would be able to learn to program but not maths? Programming is much more difficult than maths in my experience. BTW, I'm also not criticising, just trying to understand your point of view!
I don't know - I suppose I am mrerely observing what happened (ie he was taught maths, and made to practice the piano etc, but wasn't taught programming and doesn't need to be told to practice now -mind you, he is now 24, so if he hadn't learnt that practice is important by now we wouldn't probably still have a piano player). I think my point was that although I can't see AE ever being my choice when educating my daughter ( whom I do Home ed) I could have seen it working with my eldest son (who went to school) because he is a much more self motivated sort of student anyway.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting. I know that IT is taught as a subject in schools, but I never thought it important. My daughter is the family IT geek and yet learned everything that she knows using the computers in the library until she was eleven. At that age, we finally bought a computer. So yes, I can see how this works, a child teaching himself IT without any help. I don't see Physics and Chemistry in the same light. Perhaps I am drawing an artificial distinction between what I view as traditional academic subjects and IT, which I see as a bit of a non-subject.
ReplyDelete"I am on excellent terms with the young daughters of friends, but if I started referring to an eight year old girl as "My friend" it would raise a few eyebrows! He is always talking about "My young friends".
ReplyDeleteThinking further about this though, it was probably written before the paedophile paranoia we suffer from these days, which must be especially difficult for male teachers of younger children. I think the children were also often the children of his friends so maybe they viewed each other as friends? Not sure about that, will have to think some more.
"So yes, I can see how this works, a child teaching himself IT without any help. I don't see Physics and Chemistry in the same light."
ReplyDeleteI've taught myself IT and Chemistry and to be honest, the Chemistry was easier!
Well yes, I think that I would feel the same. Perhaps that is because I am middle aged though. I'm sure that if I began Chemistry, a lot of it would come back to me from forty years ago. IT on the other hand, I would be far more hesitant about tackling.
ReplyDeleteSimon said,
ReplyDelete"So yes, I can see how this works, a child teaching himself IT without any help. I don't see Physics and Chemistry in the same light."
and,
"Well yes, I think that I would feel the same. Perhaps that is because I am middle aged though. I'm sure that if I began Chemistry, a lot of it would come back to me from forty years ago."
Either you are contradicting yourself here or you misunderstood my point. I taught myself Chemistry from scratch, it wasn't a case of remembering it from forty years ago (apart from obvious basics). I found Chemistry just as easy (or easier) to learn than IT yet you seem to think that a child teaching themselves IT without help is likely but cannot see the same applying to Chemistry. Why?
Because IT is basically a series of things that one must do and rules that must be followed. You can deduce the rules empirically by trial and error. My daughter learned by experimenting with a computer at the library. You cannot possibly deduce the mechanism of co-valent bonding in this way. You must learn about it. Nor are you likely to stumble across the correct method of carrying out titrations by accident. (I would, in any case, be reluctant to allow a child to experiment aimlessly with caustic soda and suphuric acid). How will you discover that atoms are composed of protons and neutrons? What about ionic half equations? Chemistry is a subject which must be approached in a methodical way. Getting to GCSE level in IT on the other hand, is not that hard. That of course is why people are more impressed with a GCSE in Chemistry than one in IT.
ReplyDelete"My daughter learned by experimenting with a computer at the library. You cannot possibly deduce the mechanism of co-valent bonding in this way. You must learn about it."
ReplyDeleteHave I suggested otherwise? My point is that it's entirely possible to learn both IT and Chemistry from scratch from books or web pages by yourself if you are a self directed learner. Do you really think John Holt thought children would learn about dinosaurs (and by extension, maths, geography, etc) without books or information? If they can learn about dinosaurs, why not chemistry? Whilst they are young (or older if they are late readers), children are helped by having these books read to them (plus other sources like library computers, museums, relevant trips, etc) and this self directed autonomous education can include Chemistry as well as IT and dinosaurs.
I remember playing a game with mine when they were about 7 where we pretended to be molecules of water gradually being given more energy, I think the subject cropped up after a TV programme. As we gained energy we jostled against each other and spread further apart, gaining speed and talked about becoming water and eventually steam.
Older teenagers will be able to go it alone more often until eventually they need very little help and this can all result from intrinsic motivation as in my case. The natural curiosity of children is the basis of natural/autonomous learning and there is no reason why an older child, curious about chemistry, wouldn't read a textbook to satisfy that curiosity just as I did.