The case for treating children like real people, not pets and slaves, and for making available to them all the adult rights and responsibilities as outlined in the US Bill of Rights. This book will challenge not only your ideas about what constitutes "childhood" in today's society, but your ideas about society as a whole.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Holt at his best!,
By
This review is from: Escape from Childhood (Paperback)
This is my favorite book of the many Holt has written. It does not cover any aspects of learning/educational issues as do his other books. Instead it addresses the matter of looking at children as whole individuals who should be treated respectably, as any adult would want to be. Our culture too readily encourages parents, and adults in general, to use their voice in a excessively authorative manner which only serves to bully and demean children. No one would want to be spoken to or treated in such a condensending manner. This book will open your eyes to the damage we are doing to our beloved kids when we accept the cultural standard way of parenting. Highly recommended!
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Insightful approach to children's rights.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Escape from Childhood (Paperback)
When I first heard of John Holt I was given a quotation and a comment. The quotation was from 'Escape from Childhood' page 1: "I propose...that the rights, privileges, duties of adult citizens be made available to any young person, of whatever age, who wants to make use of them." The accompanying comment was that Holt's work can be taken as a charter for paedophiles. I disagree. Unless I missed something fundamental I found Holt a progressive thinker who argued for the removal of the taboos which led young peole into sexual ignorance and often tragic experimentation. He was ahead of his time. Nowadays we're all aware of the importance of sexual education for the young. Twenty years ago such thinking was anathemna to many, though not Mr Holt. More generally this book is a first class discussion of rights and responsibilities, and it will offer anyone a useful light with which they can explore this academic minefield further. For Holt the escape from childhood is as much about acknowledging the responsibilities of the young as it is about acknowledging their rights. As he says, "If we gave up our vested interest in children's dependency and incompetence - would they not much more quickly become independent and competent? We ought to give it a try." He could be right. The 190 (out of 192) countries who have signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child should all listen up and read.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Revolutionary,
By
This review is from: Escape from Childhood (Mass Market Paperback)
Most discussion of what passes as "children's rights" today seems to fall into two categories. One is what I think of as the bare minimum of rights: the child's right not to be beaten or molested. The second uses the term as a euphemisim for parental rights: who gets them in a custody battle and when the state is justified in revoking them. Holt's thoughtful book is revolutionary because it does not fall into one of these categories. Instead Holt argues that children are not the property of their parents or the state, that they are human in their own right, and that they deserve all of the rights adult citizens already have. In the first few chapters Holt examines the current state of childhood in the West. In the second half of the book he details specific social, economic, political, and educational rights he argues children should have, and suggests how society might have to change to accomodate these rights.
On the whole, Holt presents an argument profoundly sensitive to the plight of children without ever letting himself or his readers descend into sentimentality. My criticisms of the work, were I to list them, would be mostly technical in nature. With post-Columbine hysteria steadily turning schools more and more prison-like and innovations like the V-chip and Internet filters increasing in popularity, _Escape_ is just as relevant today as it was in 1974, if not more so. It's shameful that books like this are so difficult to find and so often out of print.
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