School is Bad for Children

 "School is Bad for Children" is an essay written by John Holt(1923-1985).He was an educational theorist who taught for many years in educational and elementary schools.This essay deals with the hazards of formal education and  the school takes away almost every child's individuality.

According to him, schools are killing the curiousness of the students by forcing the limited knowledge of books in their mind. When a child comes at school he comes with a lot of expectation that he will learn something,make friends and become himself with a lot of enthusiasm.But all of the expectations goes in vain  and returns home feeling low and pessimistic. The writer argues that the schools change the students' natural intelligence, curiosity, confidence, interdependence, patience and energy into laziness, dependings in professor, submissiveness ,low self esteem etc. Actually the child has got enough confidence about his potentiality but the teachers always discourage him. There are other children but they are unable to communicate with each other and by the time they reach college they are unable to socialize with others. The school usually creates the gap between learning and real life due to which the students get in confusion.The classroom is the artificial environment and students are robots .Usually the students are taken as a blank sheet of paper and the teachers are free to write on their mind. The teachers never trust the students and they never appreciate their natural knowledge. As a result the children feel that he is not worth of listening to.The teachers neglect the needs for the respects of individual difference and makes biases in terms of the grade sheet.The teachers teach the student that to make a mistake or to be confused is to commit a crime and as a result the students start cheating the teacher.The writer claims that the schools are teaching them to be indifferent and being odd is bad.According to the writer, there are fundamental changes necessary for school education. The first and foremost thing is that compulsory attendance should be abolished. He justifies that when something is made compulsory it develops unwillingness from the students. Curiosity is developed not to force but through freedom. The second reformation that the writer puts forward is that the students or the children should be taught in a natural environment. In other words, the teachers should bring the outer world into the school. For example, the students should learn about something not from the teacher but from the judging himself.Let the children work together and help together by using paired learning.He also point out the exams should be at list and he fixed curriculum should also be abolished.

In this essay John Holt talks about how the traditional education has created negative impacts on little brains.In oder to stop this reformation must be made.The world is dynamic so due to the change in the time the traditional education system also must be changed.In Nepal,still there is traditional education system practiced.This must be abolished by focusing on practical and real life.