Tools of Learning
Pendleton, Elsa
Tools for Learning What Do I Do Monday? by John Holt. Dutton. 318 pp. $6.95. This Book Is About Schools, edited by Satu Repo. Pantheon. 457 pp. $7.95. The Soft Revolution, by Neil Post- man and...
...It is as simple—and as com- plicated—as that...
...But the only place you will find the ad- dress is on the inside fold of the dust jacket...
...Uneven, subjective, sometimes pompous, sometimes appar- ently irrelevant, the material is fresh and shocking in its candor...
...don't throw out the dust jack- et...
...There is an excellent bibliography and a charmingly modest mention of John Holt's Associates, a group pre- pared to share its ideas and experi- ences with citizen groups...
...Neil Postman and Charles Wein- gartner, authors of Teaching as a Sub- versive Activity, have a new book aimed directly at students...
...When they work well, other people in the community understand what they are doing and want them for their own children...
...1.95...
...Then, al- most anything can happen...
...The end of the book discusses things students and parents can do, all of them positive and possi- ble...
...This is one of those decisions that depends on the tactical situation...
...The Soft Revolution is a calcu- lated hodge-podge of "advice, maxims, homilies, metaphors, models, case studies, rules, commentaries, jokes, sayings, and a variety of other things...
...The most serious objection to Holt's book is his implication that the public school system is not likely to work: "There is much heated and not very helpful argument among teachers and teachers-to-be about whether they should work in public schools or start independent and free schools of their own...
...is a disap- pointment, but a useful tool nonethe- less...
...Perhaps the dismaying part of read- ing Holt these days is that he has be- come part of the Education Elite...
...There is an indefinable Pooh-like quality in Holt's books...
...Therefore, the place to begin is first to see schools as a symptom of a greater sickness, and then begin with the book which seems least useful, to let it open our minds just a little bit...
...If a public school will allow a teacher to do a good many things that he thinks are important and helpful to children, and not require that he do too many things that are harmful, it is obviously a good place to work . . . but if a school seems not only bad but unwill- ing to change, immovable, a teacher who works there will probably not only be wasting his time, but in spite of his good intentions will, as much as any- one else in the school, be doing more harm than good to his students/' In sweetly reasonable tones that evoke the style of the State Depart- ment trying to convince us that the Vietnamese people really want defoli- ation, Holt argues that what this coun- try needs is an aroused citizenry, aban- doning the public school system in or- der to create a new system of free schools...
...Reviewed by Elsa Pendleton When you buy John Holt's new book (What Do I Do Mon- day...
...And this is the essence of our difficul- ty...
...It is pos- sible that cultish allegiance to his ideas may lead to what he himself would most dislike—new education so rigidly child-centered that it would itself be- come dogmatic...
...It is disappointing because it re- peats so much material that is easily available elsewhere—for example, in Holt's earlier books, How Children Fail and How Children Learn...
...For children who have truly horrible teachers, the suggestions can be adopted by parents...
...The authors begin with the assump- tion that most people are receptive to new ideas if they are not bludgeoned into accepting them...
...There are also essays by Edgar Z. Friedenberg, Dr...
...Tools for Learning What Do I Do Monday...
...John Holt's children never throw their Cuisinaire rods...
...Each of these books has been de- signed for a different group of chil- dren...
...This can put pressure on the public schools to start some such schools of their own, which they have done and are doing in quite a few places...
...In the case of Cuisinaire rods, I had the feel- ing that he has told us more about them than we want to know...
...Holt's suggestions are good, and ba- sic...
...Instead of the age-old antagonism between teacher and pupil, instead of the competition with grades as the teacher's weapon and failure as the student's response, why not a coalition of student and teacher...
...He writes: "Free schools are important agents of change, both as a training device and as a model...
...Holt quotes lavishly from George Dennison's The Lives of Children, which is a good enough book not to need the interpre- tation and running commentary it re- ceives here...
...The Soft Revolution, by Neil Post- man and Charles Weingartner...
...Libraries, please note...
...Delta...
...183 pp...
...Reading his new book, you will learn about some specific experiments and tools for helping young children write numbers, or compose stories, or meas- ure various things...
...It is important to be aware of the many new education books being pub- lished, saying many of the same things Holt has been telling us since 1964 —that the child is vulnerable, pre- cious, able to achieve much more than we expect from him, and that the schools must change or die (many people are beginning to prefer the lat- ter choice...
...The soft revolution "has as its purpose the renewal and reconstruction of ed- ucational institutions without the use of violence...
...This is an anthology of writings from This Magazine Is About Schools and contains children's poetry, book reviews, plans for school design, es- says on feminism and on mental ill- ness, and journals of teaching experi- ences...
...The bibliography— which in this case consists of specific addresses, book titles, and names of or- ganizations^—is superb...
...Among the many experiments in al- ternative education, some of the more exciting seem to be in the Toronto area, judging by the reports in This Book Is About Schools, edited by Satu Repo...
...You will be led, gently and reasonably and tactfully, to the realization that little of this is going on in your child's school, that just about everything that is happen- ing to your child is hurtful and harm- ful, and that the only thing that will save him is your going out Right Now and Organizing Something...
...We continue to classify and cat- egorize and separate our children one from another because that is what we do with all the parts of our own lives...
...Thomas Szasz, and Peter Marin...
...In a recently published journal of teaching experiences, a teacher ruefully con- fesses that she had brought out her Cuisinaire rods for the children to ex- periment with, and her jars of beans to count, without realizing that the rods and the beans would be thrown about the room, and lost...
...You may be familiar with Holt's ideas and some of his techniques...
...But most of all, the book is lively, positive, pointed, and enjoyable...
...The young, the adolescent, the privileged, the deprived, all appear and disappear in their separate places...
...Whether he is writing about Sesame Street or alternative education, his name is now sufficiently prestigious to insure respectful attention...
...So you will decide to write to the Associates to find out what they have to offer...
...How refresh- ing...
...It should be of great interest to parents and other adults as well...
...It would be interesting to know how many of them have not already occurred to the kind of teachers who are apt to try them now...
Vol. 35 • September 1971 • No. 9
