Product Description

It has become common knowledge that our educational system is in dire straights. Children graduate high school without knowing how to read while students are driven to violence by the brutal social climate of school. In Instead of Education John Holt gives us practical, innovative ideas for changing all that. He suggests creative ways to take advantage of the underused facilities we already have. Reading this brilliant educator revolutionizes our thinking about what schooling is for and what we can do to accomplish its true goals.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #144855 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781591810094
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
Be clear about this: Instead of Education, although less widely known than his more famous titles, is John Holt at the top of his game. If you are one of the millions of walking wounded still staggering from your own encounter with forced institutional schooling, and trying to spare your own kids from its damage, this book will be your guide and a good friend. -- John Taylor Gatto, Former New York State Teacher of the Year

John Holt was a prophetic voice in the educational wilderness who vividly explained why our system of schooling often frustrates genuine learning. He made this quite clearly indeed in his groundbreaking work Instead of Education. It is as radically relevant to the educational challenges of our generation as it was to his. -- Ron Miller, Ph.D. Author of Free Schools, Free People

About the Author
John Holt was a fifth grade teacher who worked in private schools. In 1964, his book How Children Fail created an uproar with his observations that forcing children to learn makes them unnaturally self-conscious about learning and stifles children's initiative and creativity by making them focus on how to please the teachers and the schools with the answers they will reward best. His subsequent book, How Children Learn (1967), also became widely known. The two are still in print and together they have sold over a million and a half copies and have been translated into over 14 languages. Holt went on to become a visiting lecturer at Harvard and Berkeley, but his tenure at both places was short-lived. Holt did not feel the school establishment was serious about change in the ways he wanted to go, such as changing the relationship of the child to the teacher and the school to the community. In 1985, John Holt died of cancer at the age of 62, having written 10 books that were very influential in the development of the homeschooling and unschooling movements.

Customer Reviews

Holt great as usual
It's the sixth book of Holt I have read so far and probably the most syntetic; he outlines not only the problems but also the solutions. He has no mercy for knowing-better educators, T-eachers working not FOR, but ON students, S-chools full of fear and anxiety and humiliation, coercion, mindlessness, forced learning, carrot-and-stick attitude; and great appreciation for sensitive, competent t-eachers that are models themselves, self-directed do-ers and s-chools that are not compulsory and help their students to thing better on their own terms. Holt's radical vision is very clear, very understandable; his solutions so natural that they seem to be inevitable and not radical at all. His ability to deconstruct the mechanisms of human learning and expose the hidden curriculum of public schools and social system we live in is outstanding. The book is worth every minute you spend on reading.

A seminal contribution to education policy discussions
Instead Of Education: Ways To Help People Do Things Better by alternative education advocate John Holt (author of the 1964 book How Children Fail) is an iconoclastic and seminal work presenting a persuasively argued case for "un-schooling" from traditional classroom structures and curriculum fare, to innovative, self-directed learning as the basis for a truly creative life. A direct challenge to the complacency of today's educational status quo (even in this political age of "no child left behind" and school voucher proposals), Instead Of Education should be required reading in every Teacher's College, District School Board, and governmental education policy development office whether it be federal, state, or local. Instead Of Education is a significant and seminal contribution to education policy discussions and commended to the attention of education reform activists at all levels and from all perspectives.

Excellent book.
I have read a lot of Holt's books, but this is one of the best. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in schooling, education, and providing children and teens with quality experience. As a public school teacher, I can say every word in this rings with sheer brilliance. I disagree that school can cause injury or damage, but I do agree that the hours, years in school could be spent much more fruitfully, authentically, and enjoyably.