John Holt citáty

„Dieťa, ktorého život je plný vyhrážok a strachu zo trestu, je uzavreté v ranom detstve. Neexistuje spôsob, ako by mohlo vyrásť a naučiť sa prevziať zodpovednosť za svoj život a za svoje činy. A čo je najdôležitejšie, nemali by sme predpokladať, že podriadenie sa hrozbám našej nadriadenej moci, je prospešné pre charakter dieťaťa. Nie je to totiž prospešné pre nikoho.“

„Choroba moderného sveta je mnohými spôsobmi školou vyvolaná choroba. Práve v škole sa väčšina ľudí naučí očakávať a akceptovať, že ich nejaký odborník vždy môže zaradiť do nejakého rebríčka či hierarchie. V škole sa stretávame, zvykáme si a učíme sa vieru v úplne ovládanú spoločnosť.“

„Skutočnou skúškou inteligencie nie je to, koľko toho vieme urobiť, ale to, ako sa správame, keď nevieme, čo máme robiť.“

„Ľudia sú učiace sa zvieratá; učíme sa radi; potrebujeme sa učiť; sme v tom dobrí; nepotrebujeme, aby nám niekto ukazoval, ako to robiť, alebo nás k tomu nútil. Čo tieto procesy zabíja, sú ľudia, ktorí do toho zasahujú, ktorí to chcú regulovať a kontrolovať.“

“No one is more truly helpless, more completely a victim, than he who can neither choose nor change nor escape his protectors.”

“The most important thing any teacher has to learn, not to be learned in any school of education I ever heard of, can be expressed in seven words: Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.”

“It is not just power, but impotence, that corrupts people. It gives them the mind and soul of slaves. It makes them indifferent, lazy, cynical, irresponsible, and, above all, stupid.”

“The anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know.”

“The idea of painless, non-threatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence. If you think it your duty to make children do what you want, whether they will or not, then it follows inexorably that you must make them afraid of what will happen to them if they don’t do what you want.”

“All I am saying in this book can be summed up in two words: Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.”