Book- अच्छा स्कूल, Author-जॉन होल्ट, Book Review-Ankita Gour

 Book- अच्छा स्कूल

Author-जॉन होल्ट

Book Review-Ankita Gour

 

The book “अच्छा स्कूल” is written by ”John Holt”. This book creates a better understanding of the image of the school in society. It tells us the real meaning of a good school, therefore clears our perception towards the schools. Generally, we have our different conceptions regarding a good school, but here it tells us what actually a  good school means. This book drew the real definition of a good school, by setting different examples. It breaks our glare mindset towards school. In the book “अच्छा स्कूल” the author John Holt discussed one school named “New little school” of Denmark where there is open relation among teachers and students, hence students of this school conduct themselves bravely and honestly. Therefore, the conduction of real learning can happen here. By setting different instances and ideas of constructive learning, this book helps us in understanding the actual way of teaching the students, by letting them make their own learning constructively or we can say learning by doing. Teachers should be facilitators in schools. 

 

Author

John Caldwell Holt (April 14, 1923 – September 14, 1985) was an American author and educator, a proponent of homeschooling and, specifically, the unschooling approach, and a pioneer in youth rights theory.

After a six-year stint teaching elementary school in the 1950s, Holt wrote the book How Children Fail (1964), which cataloged the problems he saw with the American school system. He followed it up with How Children Learn (1967). Both books were popular and started Holt's career as a consultant to American schools. By the 1970s he decided he would try reforming the school system and began to advocate homeschooling, and later the form of homeschooling known as unschooling. He wrote a total of 11 books on the subject of schooling, as well as starting the newsletter Growing Without Schooling (GWS).

 

Summary

In the first chapter  “अच्छा स्कूल” the author John Holt discussed one school of Denmark, named “New little school”. In this school there is a fearless atmosphere and an open relation among teachers and students, hence students conduct themselves bravely and honestly, therefore we can say that here the actual learning can take place. The author discussed a movie “we have to call it school” based on this school, in the starting of the movie one teacher, said that we have to call it school as if we would not call it school,  children cannot come here. But accept the timing of the school, nothing is there like as a school. Here this community consists of 85 students of the age group 6 to 14 years of age and 6 teachers, and all of them are vibrant, Lively, Happy, Interesting, Safe Trusted, Supportive. The students come and learn constructively or learning by doing takes place here. In this community children live their lives as they like, they do whatever they want to do. Teachers provide all the material and tools, as well as use their all abilities and skills with children in school. If students need the help of teachers, teachers are always ready to help them. In every situation, teachers are always available there to help children. In this school, there is no class and no specific subjects. No examinations and no grades are given in this school. No formal parent teachers meeting conducted here, in case parents want to meet the teachers they are free to come and meet. 

 

Here children are free from any kind of pressure from teachers regarding studies. This school is free from the glare of the world, they are never forced to impress the world by showing or presenting their talent to society. This school never regards any kind of result from children in the form of making reports or making maps/charts after any visit, they themselves can decide what they learned from any visit and how it would help them in their life. 

 

The children of the new little school are open, honest, dependable, natural who is totally opposite to the children of so-called good schools, those who are ostentatious, cautious, frightened, limp, timid, flaunting. This school is one of the successful schools. The admission in this school is not based on the academic skills and IQ levels of the children, even many students come in this school whose performance was low in their previous school. 

 

The parents/guardians of the students of this school are amazing. They trust/have faith in their children unconditionally, and so their children are also amazing. If we can trust our children to know this world, then through this trust they will do it definitely. 

 

The author discussed (Bagsværd) Copenhagen, a small city. This school is situated in the industrial area of this city. He discusses the whole infrastructure of the school, and shows how they make the best out of wasteful kinds of tasks, and make every small thing useful. This idea shows us that there is no relation between the good infrastructure & facilities to the good education. So we cannot define a good education on the basis of the school building, infrastructure and facilities.

 

The author noticed three things about this school. The first one is that only a small part of things and equipment of the traditional schools are there in this school, second thing is that whichever instruments are there in this school, all are for the student's use, not like other schools where the locked almirah are there and there is not a kind of library from where it is not easy to take books. 

Third and the most important thing about such schools is that if anyone wants to start such a place for children, then there is no need to spend a lot of money. Children do not need such decorative material to learn. 

 

The unique thing about the students and teachers of this student is that if they want something for their school, they find a way to buy it at a low cost. If they have money also then they do not spend the whole money on buying the things only, instead, they would invest that money in some interesting work. 

 

The school visits Copenhagen and the nearby places, even the group of students visited Sweden.  If they would have money, they would do more journeys. 

 

Attendance- 

 Similar to other places, in Denmark also it is compulsory for the children to go to school. Many schools follow this law strictly, but this school does not. There isn't an attendance record in school, but it’s not compulsory for all students to be present at the same time, even teachers were not taking attendance daily. If students are absent, then it would not be a topic of concern. It is understood by teachers that there would be a valid reason for the student’s absence. This school is very open, someone would have definitely known about the student’s absence. 

 

Once one student remained absent for a long time, teachers started thinking of strategies to call him back. But there is freedom for students to remain absent, and it is also understood for children that there should be a valid reason. Children were not supposed to take permission from teachers to take the leave or to remain absent and they did not give any explanation to teachers for being absent in school. 

 

Once they all planned for a common lunch together, they divided different work to prepare lunch among all children and teachers. So children learn the skill of unity and leadership in such activities.

 

There are general assemblies organized in school, where teachers and students all participate actively & equally, each member of the school has equal right to speak in the assembly, and share their views.
 

Conversations and Dialogues-

They often make decisions by mutual understanding, not by giving votes. They usually have conversations and dialogues on these common issues. 

 

Arranging up the school furniture differently by students  -

Many times, they discuss the map of the school, then they plan to organize things differently, they start looking for new ideas to arrange the furniture of the school. They have the boxes of the bear in their school as furniture. They planned and started arranging the school, they took all the things, books and furniture outside the school, then cleaned the school thoroughly. After this, they arranged the boxes of the bear, books and other things in the school building. This is the biggest work and children usually take interest in such works. They do such work curiously. 

 

An ideal school should never be complete. There should always be a chance to redesign it. New little school is among them. 

 

Teachers and students all actively participated in all the work, for instance, one drum is played by a student and another by the teacher. The children in this school are full of energy. 

 

One more incident discussed by the author, once when all the children got the material and tools of welding, and every one of them started to do something with that, all were heating the nails and mold them in different shapes by beating them in different ways, but one of them was beating the heated nail in a wooden piece, it smokes out every time, and if anyone disturbs that boy, he used to shout very aggressively. After a few years when the author met him, he became a welder and a calm man. 

 

Similarly in music class, the music teacher gave freedom to each of the students to play different musical instruments, by their own choice and interests. The children who don't know how to play any instrument also played instruments of their own choice. All of them were playing instruments in different rhythms, but that music teacher did not scold them for playing it wrong or did not see them in an angry way as the teachers do in common schools. The other students who were not playing any instrument, started whistling whenever others were playing piano and drums. 

 

Children in this school used to play different recreational games with full attention. 

 

Through one of the incidents that happened there, we can compare it from other schools, one newly admitted boy in school, was very aggressive, he played something with one stick, he hit one girl’s eye and without feeling any guilt he went from there, but not even teachers scolded him for this mischievous thing. That girl also did not make any kind of complaint to anyone. If the same incident happened in any other school, then all children made a complaint about this to the teacher, and that boy also felt guilt for this. But here no such kind of atmosphere is there. All the children of this school called this boy the terrorist, as he was very naughty and aggressive. So, this school has an atmosphere through which children automatically changed into civilized persons, it was not like the other schools where teachers use to give speeches and punishments to correct the children. 

Why this school is successful?

 

This school is successful because here children learn everything by engaging themselves in learning by doing. Teachers never follow the lecture methods for teaching, they use to do conversations and dialogues with students. Sometimes these conversations never end. Even teachers involve students in their meetings also. This increased the ability of children to think in different directions, hence enhancing their thinking skills. 

 

Teachers of the New little school are very active. In other schools, teachers are asked to maintain a proper formal distance from the students but in this school teachers, ad students both have an informal conversation together school, therefore they learn in a stress-free and burden-free environment.

The students of this school perform better than other school children. The children need an environment that is open, and citizens play active, serious, responsible roles. 

 

Reflections-

• A good school is a place where children feel free to express themselves and share their views.
• A good school has a fearless environment where children do not need to fear from others.
• A Good school never means a good school building with good infrastructure.
• A Good School is a place where children learn by doing things freely.
• In a good school, the role of the teacher is to facilitate the children by providing the material and helping whatever is needed.
• A good school means, where children ask questions to teachers without any fear.
• In a good school, there are informal conversations between teachers and students, hence students learn effectively.
• In a good school teachers trust their students and never doubt them, they do not give punishments or lectures to guide them in the right direction, instead, they trust them and let them understand by themselves. 
• Teachers involve children in all meetings, all children have the right to put their views forward.
• Children have the freedom to do anything anytime, there is no time-bound or limit to study a specific subject in a specific time period.
• A good school is one in which there is a proper utilization of the resources and no show off is there.

 

Takeaways-

• We can motivate teachers of our reach to use the available resources, ask them to find the ways to the let the best learning take place in the resources they have.
• We can motivate teachers to facilitate the students, help them wherever is needed.
• We can motivate teachers to have informal conversations and dialogues with students, so that students will learn freely.
• We can ask teachers to stop using lecture methods to teach anything to children.
• We can ask teachers to stop guiding children by speeches and punishments to make them correct, let them learn by themselves.
• We can motivate teachers to let the children do the things and learn by doing different things. 
• We can motivate teachers to see positive in everything, and without looking for more resources, they can facilitate children to learn many things in school with the available resources.