John Holt Quotes

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Famous John Holt Quotes

“If he didn't know what it was "supposed" to do, he wasn't going to try to make it do anything; it might do the wrong thing, and someone might think it was his fault.”

Learning Wrong How Children Learn Supposed To

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“We think in terms of getting a skill first, and then finding useful and interesting things to do with it. The sensible way, the best way, is to start with something worth doing, and then, moved by a strong desire to do it, get whatever skills are needed.”

Desire Learning Skill How Children Learn

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“But the greatest difference between children and adults is that most of the children to whom I offer a turn on the cello accept it, while most adults, particularly if they have never played any other instrument, refuse it.”

Children Learning Adults Difference Cello How Children Learn Music Playing

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“If we try to make children fantasize, these fake fantasies, like the ready-made fantasies of TV, will in time drive out most of their true fantasies, the ones that come from their experience in the world and their need to make sense of it and become at home in it.”

Reality Fantasy Learning Tv How Children Learn All A Lie Fake Fantasy

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“How much people can learn at any moment depends on how they feel at that moment about the task and their ability to do the task.”

Ability Learning Mood How Children Learn People Learning

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“There is more real learning in a good picture than in twenty workbooks.”

Learning Skills How Children Learn Workbook Good Picture Real Learning

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“The only thing to do was to turn off the questions and watch - like a child. Take it all in. See everything, worry about nothing.”

Children Learning No Worries How Children Learn No Questions Think Like Children

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“With the bike right before them, they could not see how it was put together, or if they could, could not hold that knowledge in mind long enough to transfer it to paper. It seemed as if their schooling had been for so long so far removed from reality that they were no longer able to see reality, to grasp it, to come to grips with it.”

Reality Learning Schooling How Children Learn

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“The person who really needs to know something does not need to be told many times, drilled, tested. Once is enough.”

Knowledge Learning Need Testing How Children Learn

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“Words are not only a clumsy and ambiguous means of communication, they are extraordinarily slow.”

Learning Communication Words Ambiguity Clumsy Slow How Children Learn

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

“For a long time I have been interested in my own thoughts, feelings, and motives, eager to know as much as I can of the truth about myself. After many years, I think that at most I may know something about a very small part of what goes on in my own head. How preposterous to imagine that I can know what goes on in someone else's.”

Thinking Head How Children Learn Own Thoughts Truth About Myself

Book:How Children Learn

Source: How Children Learn

About the Author

Known for: Author
Quotes: 39

Books & Sources

How Children LearnRelated source material

Learning All the TimeRelated source material

How Children FailRelated source material

Never Too Late: My Musical Life StoryRelated source material

Freedom and BeyondRelated source material

Escape from ChildhoodRelated source material

Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things BetterRelated source material

Teach Your Own: The Indispensable Guide to Living and Learning with Children at HomeRelated source material

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Famous John Holt Quotes