UNITED STATES AUTHOR · EDUCATION · PHILOSOPHY
John Caldwell Holt
JOHN HOLT, author, educator, lecturer, and amateur musician, has written nine books, including How Children Fail and How Children Learn. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. Recently he has become the leading advocate of home schooling and the editor as well as publisher of a magazine for home-schooling families, called Growing Without Schooling. Of his own educational background, John Holt has this to say: "I have come to believe that a person's schooling is as much a part of his private business as his politics or religion, and that no one should be required to answer questions about it. May I say instead that most of what I know I did not learn in school, or even in what most people would call 'learning situations.' "
I can't get Nell out of my mind.
— from How children fail, 1964
Most acclaimed
How children fail
1964
A series of informal memos describing how typical grade-school pedagogy suppresses a child's innate desire to learn, leaving the child frustrated, confused, and fearing failure.
Freedom and beyond
Correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru,1889-1964, first Prime minister of India and Shri Krishna Sinha, 1887-1961, first chief minister of Bihar.
Teach your own
1981
The classic work on teaching children at home, updated for today's new laws, new lifestyles, and a new generation of homeschooling parents. Today more than one and a half million children are being taught at home by their own parents. In this expanded edition of the book that helped launch the whole movement, Pat Farenga has distilled John Holt's timeless understanding of the ways children come to understand the world and added up-to-the-moment practical advice. Rather than proposing that parents turn their homes into miniature schools, Holt and Farenga demonstrate how ordinary parents can help children grow as social, active learners. Chapters on living with children, "serious play," children and work, and learning difficulties will be of interest to all parents, whether homeschooling or not, as well as to teachers. This new edition is supplemented with legal advice as well as a guide to cooperating with schools and facing the common objections to homeschooling. Teach Your Own not only has all the vital information necessary to be the definitive reference for parents teaching their own children, it also conveys John Holt's wise and passionate belief in every child's ability to learn from the world that has made his wonderful books into enduring classics.