by Shellie Delancy

Created on: February 18, 2007   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

I read John Holt's book, "How Children Fail" long before I ever had children. If fact, I was a junior in college at the time. If I remember correctly, he wrote about schools in the inner city. These were the schools where the students had the least chance of ever making through high school, let alone ever making it to college. He worked at a school where no matter what one teacher did, there were 50 more that couldn't care less and were just ""doing their job". Have you any idea what some of the inner city school children were facing everyday on their way to and from school? Have you any idea what these students were facing when they returned to their homes? More often than not, there was one parent and many children. Poverty was not a word, it was a lifestyle. It was all that these children could expect. Who spoke for these children? Who really cared? Mr. Holt cared. He saw directly how poverty and politics created these centers of UN-schooling.

Something had to be done and someone had to be the voice in the wilderness. Mr. Holt was a very intelligent man and he left a legacy that is not ignored today. In fact, we have more Alternative Schools, Charter Schools, Home Schools and Self-Study Programs offered through regular schools today than ever. These schools provide a needed environment for students who just don't fit in. Often by no fault of their own, some students just don't get good grades when they find themselves in a regular classroom setting. Learning is a process that doesn't have one way and one way alone. There are different types of learners that require a different method of teaching.
I dare say that anyone who has had children of their own or has nieces and nephews, or even Godchildren knows that no two children are alike. This is just the start. No two children who are raised in different households are the same and no two children understand the world at exactly the same pace. Some students are good at math; some aren't. Some children love to read: some don't.
Ask any teacher if all of the students in his or her class get the same grades on the same test. Ask any principal if he or she has students that just cannot sit still and therefore find that they get in trouble. The bell curve, which is a measurement of poor scoring, normal scoring or excellent scoring shows that there is always at least 10% of the population that is on either side of the bell curve. The students that are in the middle are managing. The students that are on the outside of the bell curve are either bored and not stimulated or bored and overstimulated. I know, I have been a teacher in many grades and I have yet to see otherwise.
John Holt did what he could to help parents who were willing to try something different in order to help their children to succeed. Schools all over the world are not like ours. That reflects other differences among cultures. Mr. Holt understood children and cared. He was a humanitarian and wanted to make a difference. He represented what many teachers go into teaching for...TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. He showed that an educated man can see things from a different point of view and can do something.
"Growing Without Schools" by Mr. Holt was a way that a community of caring parents would be able to do everything they could to make the world a better place by starting at home. The "unschooling movement" is alive and well. May God Bless Mr. Holt.

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