Irmus

“we can trust children to find out about the world, and that when trusted, they do find out.”
― John Holt, Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better: Way to Help People Do Things Better

“What can those people do who feel as I do about them, but have children stuck in them? On the whole, there seem to me three possibilities: (1) Help the child to cope with S-chool. (2) Help him to escape it. (3) Give him an alternative.”
― John Holt, Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better: Way to Help People Do Things Better

“The danger of letting people ask, "Is this the best way to do this job?" is that after a while they may ask, "Is this job worth doing?”
― John Holt, Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better: Way to Help People Do Things Better

“Japanese gardeners, over many centuries, have learned to do things to trees, to clip their roots or trim their branches, to limit their supply of water, air, or sun, so that they live, and for a long time, but only in tiny, shrunken, twisted shapes. Such trees may please us, or they may not. But what could they tell us about the nature of trees? If a tree can be deformed and shrunk, is this, then, its nature? The nature of these trees, given enough of the sun, air, water, soil, and food they need, is to grow like trees, tall and straight. People can be more easily deformed, and worse deformed, even than trees—and more than trees, they feel it, it hurts. But”
― John Holt, Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better: Way to Help People Do Things Better