The Plowboy Interview: John Holt

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

I also feel that learning is not an activity that's separate from the rest of life. People learn best when they're involved with doing real and valuable work, which requires skill and judgment.

These concepts are my basic philosophy of learning-and are mirrored in my magazine, Growing Without Schooling but I'm in favor of having people teach their children at home and don't insist that they have my reasons for doing it or even follow my methods. As a result, the readers of Growing Without Schooling, or G WS, include a variety of people . . . ranging from leftist counterculturists to right-wing fundamentalists.

PLOWBOY: Is the home-schooling movement entirely a negative reaction against established educational systems?

HOLT: No, indeed . . . because it has such incredible positive benefits for children. True, people often start teaching their children at home because they see bad things happening to the youngsters at school. Many such parents, though, find that their children soon become happier, nicer, and more inquisitive human beings than they were when enrolled in educational institutions.

Home schooling can be beneficial to the entire family, too. A lot of people write me to say that-when their children were sent off to school each day-the parents almost felt their families were being broken up. For such people, home schooling is a family-saving movement.

PLOWBOY: But aren't a lot of parents nervous about trying to educate their youngsters themselves? I can imagine someone thinking, "I don't know how to teach! "

HOLT: I run across that fear all the time, and in people with Ph.D.'s just as often as in Joe Blow from Kokomo. I tell such folks that teaching is not a mystery . . . anybody who knows something can help anybody .else who wants to learn it. In fact, what passes for official "teacher training" often makes people much less effective educators than they would have been if they hadn't had it.

PLOWBOY: But what if you don't know a subject? Suppose the child gets interested in something that's over your head . . . like, possibly, physics?

HOLT: The youngster doesn't have to learn physics from you . . . there are plenty of available books on the subject. Besides that, lots of other people in the world know something about physics. If a 12-year-old, say, types a letter to somebody-and, by the way, knowing how to touch-type is a valuable skill for children to possess, and I've never in my life known a youngster who's had access to an electric typewriter who didn't learn to use itand if the letter is neatly typed, asks a question, and doesn't admit that the writer is 12 years old, the chances are that the child will get an answer

PLOWBOY: But surely some people are apprehensive about educating their children despite such assurances.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print