The Plowboy Interview: John Holt

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There wasn't any strong pressure for change coming from outside the schools, either. Why? I'm afraid the plain truth is that most Americans don't really like children . . . even their own! Adults don't trust youngsters, and school is an institutionalized expression of that fact. To put it another way, one of the foundation stones on which schools rest is a great big rock that says children are mostly no damn good.

PLOWBOY: Do you really believe that most adults-even parents-actually do not dike children?

HOLT: I know that's true . . . I've spent a lot of time observing how society treats children. Look, I could give you a tenhour interview entirely on the subject of adults' feelings toward young people, but let me tell you just one tiny example.

I recently read a construction design manual that was full of surveys showing buyers' preferences concerning townhouses and clustered housing. And the number-one concern of potential owners was that they not live in a place where they could hear the sounds of children playing. They weren't talking about the noises of youngsters smashing bottles or having gang fights with zip guns, mind you . . . no, the buyers queried were objecting simply to the sounds of children having a good time together.

PLOWBOY: So you decided that reforming public schools was an impossibility. What did you do next?

HOLT: I began advising people who were dissatisfied with traditional education to leave the public system and start their own educational centers. But the almost infinite hassles of forming and running a full-fledged school-and especially the necessary and neverending search for funds-killed most such efforts.

Finally, I realized that a parent whose objective was to establish a decent learning situation for her or his child might avoid all the fights and struggles involved in trying to reform the public school-or to start one from scratchby moving directly to the objective. How? Just teach the child at home.

PLOWBOY: Is that all you mean by the term "home schooling"?

HOLT: Well, in its strictest meaning the phrase simply describes children learning at homeand in the surrounding world-in ways that they and their parents determine. In some instances, the parents have rather oldfashioned ideas and end up scheduling their programs sort of like miniature schools. On the whole, though, people soon tend to get away from such restrictive approaches . . . because they find-from experience -that children learn better if they direct their own educations.

PLOWBOY: Can you expand on your con cept of what home schooling should be?

HOLT: I think that learning is not the result of teaching, but of the curiosity and activity of the learner. A teacher's intervention in this process should be mostly to provide the learner with access to the various kinds of places, people, experiences, tools, and books that will correspond with that student's interests . . . answer questions when they're asked . . . and demonstrate physical skills.

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