haagen_daz reviewed How children fail by John Caldwell Holt (Classics in child development)
Review of 'How children fail' on 'GoodReads'
4 stars
Pretty interesting book about Holt's experiences in the classroom. I really liked the notebook-esque format as well as the later commentary. As I was thinking about my own frustrations with work at the time, this seemed to also be a useful book about company management.
A few takeaways:
- "children fail because they are afraid, confused, and bored:" this seems like a pretty helpful framework, not only for thinking about the circumstances in which children disengage, but also for thinking about how adults lose motivation.
- the idea of "producers" vs. "thinkers." I see "producer" behavior frequently, even among adults, where people freeze up and stop thinking when they feel pressure to give the right answer. I do think that framing it as behaviors instead of character traits might be more helpful.
- John Holt's journey from "how can I make school work for these kids?" to "School sucks, kids …
Pretty interesting book about Holt's experiences in the classroom. I really liked the notebook-esque format as well as the later commentary. As I was thinking about my own frustrations with work at the time, this seemed to also be a useful book about company management.
A few takeaways:
- "children fail because they are afraid, confused, and bored:" this seems like a pretty helpful framework, not only for thinking about the circumstances in which children disengage, but also for thinking about how adults lose motivation.
- the idea of "producers" vs. "thinkers." I see "producer" behavior frequently, even among adults, where people freeze up and stop thinking when they feel pressure to give the right answer. I do think that framing it as behaviors instead of character traits might be more helpful.
- John Holt's journey from "how can I make school work for these kids?" to "School sucks, kids need to learn in self-directed ways" is fascinating to follow.
