The Underachieving School [Paperback]

John Holt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2005

The Underachieving School is brimming with inspiration and ideas on how to teach children, with respect and attention to how they actually learn.

Editorial Reviews

Review

His indictment of the 20th century school is broad and powerful, supported by highly persuasive examples and reflections. His book is a warning beacon on a hill, luminous and inspiring. One of the most stimulating books this reviewer has yet been privileged to read on this subject. -- Christian Science Monitor

John Holt never minces words. He sees villainy in our schools and goes after it with the fury of a betrayed lover and the relentless advocacy of a prosecuting attorney. Holt stands for the child and against the school in its present form. -- Saturday Review

This gentle, soft-spoken teacher sounds a rallying cry for revolutionary change in the schools. -- Los Angeles Times

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 164 pages
• Publisher: Sentient Publications (September 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591810388
• ISBN-13: 978-1591810384
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,257,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Schools Can't Be Fixed, April 7, 2004

By 

Tammy L. Schilling "tammyl84" (MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Underachieving School (Paperback)

In The Underachieving School, John Holt Shows us why schools can't be fixed. It's not a lack of money, too many students per teacher, too many societal problems, or any of the other ideas that have been blamed for the state of schooling. Holt shows, rather than tells, that schools can't be fixed because they are not a good idea gone bad. They were a bad idea to begin with.

Full of first hand accounts, this book shows the difference between learning and schooling; why schools are bad for children mentally, physically, and emotionally; why teachers talk too much and prevent students from real socialization; why tests are not only useless, but harmful; why schools turn previously well mannered children into "behaviour problems"; and so much more...

An excerpt from The Underachieving School highlights the problem:

"In school certain things are "spozed" to happen; the kids are "spozed" to sit still, be quiet, read the texts, do the workbooks, pass the exams. If none of these things happens, if the kids learn nothing, riot in the halls, drop out, that's OK, as long as you tried to make happen what was "spozed" to happen. But if you tried to make something else happen, even if, like Herndon's, your kind of order worked and your kids found things worth doing and actually did them, you're a threat to the system, and out you go. "

Many of us think that bad schools and student underachievement are a modern problem. They are not. Everett Reimer wrote about achievement problems in the 70s. John Taylor Gatto wrote about the 80s and 90s. Flesch, of "Why Johnny Can't Read" fame, wrote in the mid-50s. John Holt writes in the early 60s.

Read this book. Read Holt's others books. Read the authors above who came before and after Holt. Then you will have a broad picture, and will be able to truly understand, The Underachieving School.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational and informative ideas on how to children should be properly educated, March 5, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Underachieving School (Paperback)

The Underachieving School by John Holt contains inspirational and informative ideas on how to children should be properly educated, while retaining the respect and attention to how children actually do learn. Holt's interpretation displays to readers the difference between learning and schooling. Through author John Holt's original thinking, The Underachieving School is well written with clear and thoughtful style as result of Holt's firsthand experience with such issues. Highly recommended to all school administrations nation-wide, as well as parents, teachers, and educational government organizations.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Important Provocative Re-Assessment of Schooling in America, April 3, 2010

By 

J_Onyx "I never let my schooling interfere wi... (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Underachieving School (Paperback)

John Holt was a leading pioneer in re-examining public education, public educator's assumptions and theories. He began calling attention to where exactly the American compulsory school system came from and what students were really learning. They are learning but not what most people, right, left, or center think. Holt was also the major force behind the modern Homeschool movement. Today, John Taylor Gatto is more relevant & further along. But Gatto and the few others who insist compulsory and college schooling are not about education & probably never were owe much to John Holt. Holt began as a reformer but finally had to conclude the entire system must be shut down and education re-made anew from the ground up. I think both men go a little too extreme in their criticisms and their proposed solutions. Their extreme conclusions are not well supported. American education since 1870 has not been totally useless to a free people.

I recommend Holt to those few truly interested in education matters and issues. First, you may want to read the late philosopher Mortimer J. Adler's conclusions about education and schooling. They are not the same thing and probably never were. Fortunately, America's has its supply of people like Mark Twain who admitted: "I never let my schooling interfere with my education"

Holt knew that Socrates, Plato, & Aristotle despised professional teachers. Socrates observed that they soon turned schools into being about them, into fulcrums for serving up their interests. The three thinkers also concluded that people confuse education, schooling, & vocational training. Aristotle wrote "a vocational education is for slaves. higher learning is for free men."

John Dewey in his earlier and only truly major work, "Democracy and Education", echoed Aristotle. His elitist authoritarian education dogma that is echoed & aped today in our Schools of Education came after he became an ideological Fellow Traveler & basked in the Sunlight of "Papa Joe" Stalin whom he glowingly promoted in lectures presented to admiring professors of education. He got on so well with Stalin that Stalin strongly recommended Dewey to young Mao, China's new communist dictator. Dewey was extremely impressed with Mao too, after many months in China as Mao's personal guest. Perhaps education professors should compile a book about Dewey's hand in Mao's making of the Chinese working class.

I also recommend E.P. Thompson's classic, "The Making of the English Working Class" & what John Taylor Gatto has to say about the authoritarian, elite origins of the compulsory American school system. Aspiring teachers will not get introduction to these enlightening analyses in any Teacher's Education course.

Holt (and Gatto even more so) want you to know that our public schools are doing an efficient, fine job, depending on what you understand their assigned mission to be and on who actually determines that mission. It clearly isn't you and me.