Comments on: Cory Doctorow on John Holt on Kid-Centered Learning

By: Jenny Luca

Jenny Luca — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 01:19:28 +0000

Just re-read my above comment and it should have read ‘ever been said’ not ‘never’! Doh!

By: Gary Stager

Gary Stager — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:49:08 +0000

John Holt books – http://astore.amazon.com/constructivistconsortium-20/002-7519795-5263203?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=16

By: Gary Stager

Gary Stager — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:48:00 +0000

For those of you interested in classic books about learning and teaching, check out http://www.constructivistconsortium.org/books

By: Jenny Luca

Jenny Luca — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:03:03 +0000

Great teachers inspire their students in so many ways. I’ll never forget feeling like the kid who nobody noticed. The I hit Grade 3 and Mr. Burnham. He walked past my desk on our first day together, looked at me and said, “Hmmmn, Jenny O’Brien, I think I’m going to like you”. A more powerful statement had never been said to me. It gave me permission to shine. From then on my confidence grew and I have Mr.Burnham to thank for that. As an adult I got the chance to meet him. He didn’t remember me. No mind, I remembered him and the power of his words.

By: Jane Lute

Jane Lute — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:06:43 +0000

Wow, your reference to John Holt jolts me because suddenly I am aware that the wise ones, the voices, of education [didn'tcallitreformthen] of my generation are now, like the Vietnam War and — even!!!– the Sixties! — and JFK and EVERYTHING in the social-political realm since then, have slipped into an amnesiac limbo, a time neither HOT NOW! nor History. Things in this Limbo are not necessarily not important but are for now sidelined.

Please let’s remember John Holt, Herb Kohl, Dewey, Maria Montessori, Piaget, Jonasthan Kozol (still, thank goodness, alive and writing), Ned Gorman, Dorothy Day, Saul Alinsky and all concerned about the education of poor children.

By: Kate Tabor

Kate Tabor — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:52:50 +0000

Doctorow sounds like he is espousing “progressive education” of the John Dewey, Francis Parker variety (Hello, 1901 calling!). For years this has been viewed by many as something you scrape off your shoe not something that we should embrace. Curious how in the wake of school reform (Goals 2000, NCLB) we are catching glimpses of “real” learning again. Can’t test that.

I, too, loved Doctorow’s Little Brother. It is a book for geeks and for anyone who worries at all about our disappearing civil liberties.

By: Paul C

Paul C — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:28:49 +0000

“Most resonant for me was his description of kids’ learning unfolding from the natural passionate obsessions that overtake them.”

I love that quote. It’s the goal of every great teacher.

For me it was reading all the science fiction I could lay my hands on in the late 60′s: Verne, Clarke, Asimov, Temple.

Unfortunately it was not motivated by my English teachers of the day.

I was a great self motivator.

By: Pushed to Joy « Chalkdust101

Pushed to Joy « Chalkdust101 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:54:20 +0000

[...] Will writes today about an article he read in BoingBoing by Cory Doctorow rehashing Jon Holt’s How Children Learn. While I’ve not read Doctorow or Holt, Will pulled a quote from Doctorow (as he was discussing Holt’s title) that matched squarely to my experience sitting in for Erica Hartman tonight at Back to School Night: Most resonant for me was his description of kids’ learning unfolding from the natural passionate obsessions that overtake them. [...]

By: michelle

michelle — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:37:20 +0000

In our high school AP English class (senior year, I think), our teacher allowed us to revise The Canterbury Tales for modern times (with some obvious restrictions) and then present it in whatever format we chose. My group wrote a screen play, and we videotaped it around town. Our class was in stitches while watching the video. I have never forgotten the stories of The Canterbury Tales, plus my group and I learned that some morality issues from the 14th century actually applied to us.

By: Wendy Droke

Wendy Droke — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:08:01 +0000

I remember a college English professor who asked me to write a paper on the Communist Manifesto and Darwin’s Evolution of Species. I wrote the entire paper as a “short story” from the standpoint of what our college would look like as a socialist (a-la Marx) society. I was able to tie in the knowledge from the readings as (long) footnotes referencing the texts and showing I knew and could support my statements from both the socialist and evolutionary standpoints.

My take on this is a little different – I am a math geek, not an English geek. However, this gave me a method for approaching the paper that was easier for me to get into. It is one of the few papers I truly enjoyed writing; I probably spent twice as much time on that one assignment than any other paper I wrote for the class. And certainly scored the highest grade I received all year.

By: John Pederson

John Pederson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:37:16 +0000

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/23/how-children-learn-c.html

Link to the article on Boing Boing. I never thought to check the comments.