How Children Learn (50th anniversary edition) (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)

by John C. Holt

All I am saying in this book can be summed up in two words—Trust Children.

little children strongly dislike being given more help than they ask for.

The spirit behind such games should be a spirit of joy, foolishness, exuberance, like the spirit behind all good games, including the game of trying to find out how the world works, which we call education.

Most of us are tactful enough with other adults not to point out their errors, but not many of us are ready to extend this courtesy (or any other courtesy, for that matter) to children. Yet it is important that we should, because they are perceptive and sensitive, and very easily hurt, humiliated, and discouraged. For this reason I was careful,

Bill Hull once said to me, “Who needs the most practice talking in school? Who gets the most?” Exactly. The children need it, the teacher gets it.

the test of intelligence was not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.