How Children Learn (Classics in Child Development)

by John C. Holt

A child has no stronger desire than to make sense of the world, to move freely in it, to do the things that he sees bigger people doing. Why can’t we make more use of this great drive for understanding and competence? Surely we can find more ways to let children see people using some of the skills we want them to acquire—though this will be difficult when in fact those skills, like many of the “essential” skills of arithmetic, are not really used to do anything. Who, in real life, divides one fraction by another? Meanwhile, at home, we should try to keep out of reach, and even out of sight, valuable or dangerous objects that we don’t want children to touch. At the same time, we should keep on hand a good many objects cheap and durable enough so that a child can touch them and use them; we shouldn’t have to worry if they get broken. Maybe certain ordinary household objects would be good presents for small children: an eggbeater, a saucepan, a flashlight. After all, it doesn’t make much sense, in a family that will later spend tens of thousands of dollars on the child’s education, to get upset, and to upset him because he or she may ruin something worth twenty-five cents.

good idea