Reflections on John Holt's How Children Learn (Book)

In the introduction to his book, John Holt wrote that his book can be summed up in two words – Trust Children.  In other words, he’s saying leave the child on their own and s/he will learn on their own.  This is indeed a very simple yet difficult option before any caring and concerned parents.

Leave the child alone to learn? Most parents would ask that sarcastically, but what most parents never asked was how a child learn their language, or to differentiate they variety of dogs (in term of colours, size, breeds, etc.) from one category of just ‘dogs’ to a category of ‘different coloured dogs’, to a category based on the size of dogs, and category of breeds of dogs.  They all are dogs, but they are different, and the child still come to learn and categorize that all these animals of different size, different colours, different looks, and different shapes, no matter, they all belong to the category of dogs.  Whereas, something that is similar to a dog, like a cat, are not called a dog by the child.  We never taught the child how to read our face and facial expression, yet they know when we are angry or happy. The child learns to categorize all these animals on their own, they learn to read our faces, and if they can do all that complex and even abstract thing, all we need to do is trust them to learn on their own as well.

Leaving the child alone to learn is difficult for parents to do because to trust children, parents must trust themselves first, and most parents grew-up to believe that they are not trustworthy.  Since such perception, or lack of confidence become so ingrained in the parents, they are bound not to trust their children.  What parents need to do is break this long downward cycle of fear and distrust, and trust their children the way they were never trusted.

Children have this capacity to learn in the most natural and powerful way, and they know how to use their mind in a special way.  Their way of learning fits their condition, their capacity and physical abilities.  But parents, being concerned that their children are different, and not aware that they had been messed up, will try to school and teach them to use their way of thinking in such a manner that they will end up like their parents.  The child knows how to make sense of their world, but in school setting, we want them and try to teach them to make sense in a way that makes sense to the adult. When we try to teach our children to think and make sense of the world the way we do, we are interfering with their natural way of making sense, and this make the child believes that they are not worthy, making them scared and discouraged.

A school should not change the way the child make sense of the world, but instead, the child should be encouraged to utilize the environment provided in the school to use and enhance their natural abilities to make sense of the world in a much more effective way.