''How Children Fail'' is a non-fiction book by
John Holt that was published in 1964 and republished in 1982 in a revised edition. It has sold over a million copies.
In it, he cites personal
teaching
Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the context of an educational institution. Teaching is closely re ...
and research experiences that led him to the belief that traditional schooling does more harm than good to a child's ability and desire to truly
learn
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learn ...
.
Synopsis
In ''How Children Fail,'' John Holt states that
children
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
love to learn but hate to be taught. His experiences in the
classroom
A classroom or schoolroom is a learning space in which both children and adults learn. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, ranging from preschools to universities, and may also be found in other places where education ...
as a
teacher
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
and as a researcher brought him to conclude that every child is
intelligent. However, children become unintelligent because they are accustomed by teachers and
school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
s to strive only for teacher approval and the “right"
answer
Answer commonly refers to response to a question.
Answer may also refer to:
* Answer (law), any reply to a question, counter-statement or defense in a legal procedure
Music
* Answer, an element of a fugue
Albums
* ''Answer'' (Angela Aki alb ...
s and consequently forget everything else. There, children see value not in
thinking
In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...
, discovery, and
understanding
Understanding is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to use concepts to model that object.
Understanding is a relation between the knower and an object o ...
but only in playing the power
game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
of school.
Children believe that they must please and
obey the teacher, the
adult
An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of major ...
s, at all costs. They learn how to manipulate teachers to gain clues about what the teacher really wants. Through the teacher's
body language
Body language is a type of communication in which physical behaviors, as opposed to words, are used to express or convey information. Such behavior includes facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement, touch and the use of space. Th ...
,
facial expression
A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of controversial theories, these movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers. Facial expressions are a ...
s and other clues, they learn what might be the right answer. They mumble, straddle the answer, get the teacher to answer their own
question
A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammar, grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are inte ...
, and take wild guesses while waiting to see what happens, all in order to increase the chances for a right answer.
When children are very young, they have natural curiosity about the
world
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
, trying diligently to figure out what is real. As they become "producers" rather than "thinkers," they fall away from exploration and start fishing for the right answers with little thought. They believe that they must always be right and so quickly forget mistakes and how the mistakes were made. They believe that the only good response from the teacher is a yes and that a no is a defeat.
They
fear
Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...
wrong answers and shy away from challenges because they may not have the right answer. That, in the school setting, does their thinking and learning a great disservice. A teacher's job is to help them overcome their fears of
failure
Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective (goal), objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of Success (concept), success. The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a parti ...
and explore the problem for real learning. Too often, teachers are doing the opposite, building children's fears up to monumental proportions. Children need to see that failure is honorable and that it helps them construct meaning. It should not be seen as humiliating but as a step to real learning. Being afraid of mistakes, they never try to understand their own mistakes and cannot and will not try to understand when their thinking is faulty. Adding to children's fear in school is
corporal punishment and
humiliation
Humiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It is an emotion felt by a person whose social status, either by force or willingly, has just decr ...
, both of which can scare children into right/wrong thinking and away from their natural exploratory thinking.
Holt maintains that when teachers praise students, they rob them of the joy of discovering
truth
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs ...
for themselves. They should be aiding them by guiding them to explore and learn as their interests move them. In
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, children learn
algorithms
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...
, but when faced with problems with
Cuisenaire rods
Cuisenaire rods are mathematics learning aids for students that provide an interactive, hands-on way to explore mathematics and learn mathematical concepts, such as the four basic arithmetical operations, working with fractions and finding divisor ...
, they cannot apply their learning to real situations. Their learning is superficial in that they can sometimes spit out the algorithm when faced with a problem on paper, but they have no understanding of how or why the algorithm works and no deep understanding about
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
s.
Holt believes that end of year
achievement test An achievement test is a test of developed skill or knowledge. The most common type of achievement test is a standardized test developed to measure skills and knowledge learned in a given grade level, usually through planned instruction, such as tr ...
s do not show real learning. Teachers (Holt included) generally
cram
Cram may refer to:
* Cram (surname), a surname, and list of notable persons having the surname
* Cram.com, a website for creating and sharing flashcards
* Cram (Australian game show), a television show
* ''Cram'' (game show), a TV game show that ...
for these tests in the weeks preceding. Meanwhile, the material learned is forgotten shortly after the tests because it was not motivated by interest and has no practical use.
See also
*''
How Children Learn
''How Children Learn'' is a nonfiction book by educator John Caldwell Holt, first published in 1967. A revised edition was released in 1983, with new chapters and commentaries.
The book focuses on Holt's interactions with young children and his ...
''
*
Unschooling
Unschooling is an informal learning that advocates learner-chosen activities as a primary means for learning. Unschoolers learn through their natural life experiences including play, household responsibilities, personal interests and curiosity, ...
References
{{reflist
1964 non-fiction books
Books about education
American non-fiction books