Books: "How Children Fail", John Holt

[ailbhe]

Title: How Children Fail

Author: John Holt

Publisher: Penguin

ISBN: 0140135561

I haven't finished this yet, but so far it's eye-opening. Like What Mothers Do, it articulates stuff I already felt to be true, and it does it clearly. A lot of my difficulties as an adult are easy to see in terms of methods of learning and being taught and surviving school, and I am - again - massively, immensely, technicolouredly grateful to my mother for managing to encourage independent, questioning thought anyway, in spite of, well, everything she had going against her.

This book is going to be a useful reread even before Linnea is school-age, because I'm going to need to be reminded of it for myself as well as for dealing with her and with other people's opinions of how we're raising her.

(She seems socially fairly well adapted, so far, though she does have a faulty ranking system - breastmilk is better than bananas, and better than banana muffins, but not as good as Maya Gold chocolate, damn her.)

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Hee. I don't think there's anything wrong with her ranking system at all.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Hello! I've seen you around on a few journals (glitzfrau's, and I'm almost positive somewhere else as well, only I can't think where) and you sound like an interesting person. May I friend you? That is, if you don't mind me suddenly appearing and being awkward on your journal. I'm not keen on introducing myself to comparative strangers and it seems to look far worse in print, so to speak.

I remember my parents having that book. I've no idea whether they found it useful or not but the title worried me like anything when I was about six or so!

[ailbhe]

And how, *exactly*, am I going to stop you? Hmm? You can always read it sneakily, after all.

As tothe title: Eeep, yes! What a scary title for a child to read. However, I don't OWN any of these books. I have a local library, you see, and I'm not afraid to use it. I even make the librarians do searches and order me things, which one quite enjoys and the other sees as a personal affront.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Well, if you really did object, I wouldn't. But it's more to make sure I don't sound like I'm marching in and demanding things.

My local library has a rather confusing system for requesting books: you can look at their catalogue and your loans from anywhere on the internet, but in order to get a book from another branch you have to ask a librarian for a little square of paper on which you write down the details of the book you're after. The librarians always seem surprised that I've come prepared to spell the author's name without further assistance.

[ailbhe]

I say things like "What have you got on home education or potty training?" and my pet librarian seems to enjoy searching for me - I think it gives her something to do.

The slips of paper method is the one preferred by the Chief Librarian.

[barakta]

I used to love interesting queries when I worked as a librarian. I made a regular very happy when another librarian had given up on her query and I asked if I could have a go. Within 5 mins the lady had her obscure stamp collecting book located and on request. From then on I was given all of the obscure search requests which my colleagues couldn't do from knowledge in their heads.

Now that I'm just a patron again I find the limited version of the search system really frustrating. I haven't dared ask for anything obscure and date limited (90% of them have forgotten how to do it) because I'd probably rip the keyboard from them and do it myself *grin*

Re: Books: "How Children Fail", John Holt

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yes, that's an excellent book; i remember reading the original edition years ago, but haven't had a look at the revised one. i've also read a couple of other books by him -- i pretty much think anything by john holt is worth reading.