School is bad for children - John Halt

 School is bad for children

                                                                  John Halt

In this essay, the writer seems to be against the idea of formal education about, he is not in favor of abolishing the school education, and however he stands for the reformation of traditional teaching system.

          According to him, schools are killing the curiosity of the students by imposing (forcing) the final truth in their mind. When a child comes at school he comes with a lot of expectation and frantically he returns home with the feeling of pessimism. Besides, the writer argues that the school has changed the students' natural intelligence, curiosity, confidence, resourcefulness independence, patience and energy into past, laziness, dependences, indifference. Actually the child has got immense confidence about his potentiality but the teachers always discourage him. The additional to this child, finds the classroom to be cooled and ugly. There are other children but they are unable to communicate with each other.

          Most of the schools separate the learning from the living. When they create the gap between life and learning the children are confused. The classroom environment is artificial and the teachers act almost like 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. Every individual has got different perspective and the teachers always try to establish the final perspective.

          The teachers teach the students that to make a mistake or to be confused is to commit a crime and as a result the students start creating the teacher. The writer claims that the schools are teaching him to be indifferent. The class environment is just opposite to the way how a child lives his life in a natural form. There is no doubt that there are other children in the classroom but all of them are in silence. They all seem as if they have nothing to do with each others. As a result, the child takes his teachers to be inhuman.

-         Reformation

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. It is self-evident that forceful. Knowledge is useless at the time of crisis. Curiosity is developed not to force but through freedom. Undoubtedly, the critics might counter argue, “If the children did not go to school where would they go?” It does not necessarily mean that if the children are not compelled to go to school, they will come out in the street. When the education system is made free, the children will be more eager to go to school.

          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 the law not from the teacher but from the judging himself.

The children should be allowed to judge their works by themselves. It is better to encourage the student to learn from each other rather than dictating what to the small kids learn more readily from their teacher. They also point out the exams should be at list and the fixed curriculum should also be abolished. His argument is that certain hour's examination cannot judge the ability of the students. Besides the fixed curriculum units, should be given the unlimited potentiality of the students.

          In this way John Halt stand for the reformation of the traditional system of school education. In his opinion most of the schools are running natural knowledge of the students and they are making them passive and dull.

 

 

In the first half in this essay John Halt criticizes formal education and says that schools convert students natural intelligences curiosity, confidence, resourcefulness independence ,patience and energy into passiveness, laziness, dependences, indifferences, boredom and low self-esteem. Halt further says that the schools discourage experimentation, creativity and originality. - They teach students that learning in separated from living and that students can't be trusted to learn and are no good at it. The children from school learn that the learning is a passive process. - School neglect students need and interest and shows no respect from individual differences - They teach students that, “to be wrong uncertain, confused is a crime and as a result students start to dodge, bluff, fake, cheat. - School doesn't teach to interact with other people and to lives and without paying attention to anything going around them. - Schools are almost always ugly, cold (not interested) and inhuman. - They encourage dishonesty, --- and anxiety - They provide, little opportunity for students to learn about the real world.

Halt’s recommendations to enhance real learning and improve school

·       - Abolish or modify compulsory school, attention.

·       - Take students into the community to learn about real world first hand.

·        - Bring more of the real world into schools different professional people to talk that they actually do.

·        - Encourage students to work together and learn from each other.

·       - Encourage students to learn to evaluate their own work and find their mistake and correct them.

·       - Eliminate (avoid) grades, exams and rank.

·       - Abolish the fixed, required curriculum.