John Caldwald Holt ED 530 Theorist Presentation Summer Session 2010 Pam Quaglia

Background Born April 14, 1923 in New York City The son of well-to-do parents Formally educated in private schools in the United States and abroad Studied to be an industrial engineer at Yale University Joined the Navy at age twenty Served for three years during World War II Began working for the United World Federalists in New York (1946) Image Source: unschoo.htmlhttp://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/lifewithoutschool/2007/09/what-is- unschoo.html

Background Traveled throughout Europe ( ) Started teaching at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School Taught elementary and secondary school for over ten years Eventually decided schools could not be reformed and left the classroom to pursue writing and lecturing (1967) Popular speaker, known as an advocate of school reform Visiting teacher for education departments at Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley Died September 14, 1985

Philosophy of Learning Basically that the human animal is a learning animal; we like to learn; we need to learn; we are good at it; we don’t need to be shown how or made to do it. What kills the processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it.

Educational Theories Author and advocate of home schooling Believed home schooling offered many advantages such as intimacy, flexibility, and time control Felt that schools were a kind of artificial institution and the home was a natural one Coined the term “unschooling” Unschooling refers to the education of children outside the formal school institution Believed that pressure and other tensions of the formal schooling environment negatively affected children and their learning

Educational Theories His ideas were considered offensive to other educators Believed school pressures played a role in students lack of attention Believed children were actually afraid in the school setting causing them to worry Felt that children needed to feel at ease to be able to start using their brain instead of worrying A scared learner is a poor learner

Books How Children Fail, first book in 1964, describes how school suppresses natural curiosity and creativity and encourages compliance and “good work” How Children Learn, his second book in 1976, continued his views on the institution of school and criticized large class sizes due to his belief that children learned best alone or in small groups First two books sold over a million and a half copies

Books Wrote numerous books throughout the next decade and his remaining years concerning education theory and practice, alternative schools, and other school related social issues Unfinished at the time of his death, Learning All the Time, was completed with material from his book Growing Without Schooling and published in 1989

Additional Works Created “Growing Without Schooling” in 1977, America’s first magazine concerning issues surrounding home schooling Magazine has continued even after his death

Home Schooling The practice of educating children at home instead of the traditional public or private school setting Approximately 1.1 million students were being home schooled in the spring of 2003 according to data from the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) Laws for home schooling vary widely from state to state concerning teacher licensure, testing, curriculum and paperwork

Home Schooling 2003 Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys program.

Quotes What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world: plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out. ~ John Holt

References Adapted from "Mothering Interviews John Holt", Mothering, Issue 19, Spring 1981, with the kind permission of Marlene Bumgarner, Mothering, and Holt Associates. Retrieved May 25, 2010 from Associates Cambridge Forum Speakers John Caldwell Holt. Retrieved May 29, 2010 from Costley, K. (2006). Remember John Holt and "How Children Fail?" A Book Review. Online Submission. Retrieved from ERIC database. IES National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved May 26, 2010 from John Holt (1923 – 1985) Retrieved May 25, 2010 from John Holt (1923–1985). John Holt and Growing Without Schooling. Retrieved May 25, 2010 from