"Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how." -John Holt
This kills us. Cracks us up and makes us cry. We quote from it daily still.
Wook was 22 months old and often talked about "something in our house" which he named "Tow"...or it coulda been "Toe"... who knows. Anyway, he wanted to send a help message to Daddy at work (transcripts below for those w/o the ear for a 2 year old):
"Hey daddy, we need help, we're gonna help you to because um, we need help.
'Cause you know what's going on? There's something in here. To because, you know what's going on. (Yes.)
'Cause, we need help. (We do.) Mmm, hmm.
(K, look at the camera.)
'Cause, um, Daddy? You at work? What are you doing something there? You just working? Doing some paper 'tuff? .....doing something??
(Okay, say bye.)
Bye Daddy, I love you! MmmmMaaaa!"
"By nature people are learning animals. Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn. Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do - and all we need to do - is to give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for, listen respectfully when they feel like talking, and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest."
John Holt
"In the end, the secret to learning is so simple: Think only about whatever you love. Follow it, do it, dream about it...and it will hit you: learning was there all the time, happening by itself." -Grace Llewellyn
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
George Bernard Shaw
Real, natural learning is in the living. It's in the observing, the questioning, the examining, the pondering, the analyzing, the watching, the reading, the DO-ing, the living, the breathing, the loving, the JOY. It's in the joy. ~Anne Ohman
"How could youth better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?" -Henry D. Thoreau
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