Cappy

I’ve moved on to John Holt, the man who began the unschooling movement and penned ten books on the subject of child learning and youth’s rights before dying in 1985. His own education in the minds of children began simply enough: he and colleague Bill Hull, who both taught fifth grade, would take turns teaching while the other observed the class. That is it to say, observe the children, quietly and individually, during the course of the class. Before I say anything else I want to point out what a stroke of simple brilliance this was, as well as, to me, a condemnation of the compulsory system which never does such a thing. He watched kids, one at a time, as they sat in class, and wrote down his observations and thoughts. From this we have the beginnings of what I believe is the first and only true theory of child learning, because a man simply chose to learn about children rather than just teaching them. But on to the point of this post… I wanted to touch on a couple anecdotes that Holt provides in How Children Fail that I think provide some excellent insight into child behavior.

The Balance Beam

In one class Holt had a beam balanced in the center which could be held in place with a peg. The game was used to teach kids about balance and weight distribution by placing a certain number of weights out a certain distance on one end and having a student place a certain number of weights on the other end at a distance they thought would balance it out. For instance, the teacher places 4 weights at 5″ out on one end, and the child is given 2 weights to place on the other end, which in this case would balance at 10″ out. To provide incentive for involvement, the students were divided into two teams. Each student would place his weights, then every teammate, one by one, would bet whether or not the beam would balance. Each correct answer counted as one point. Can you guess what happened?

It became all about strategy! Making the best guess to minimize the maximum possible loss, a decision rule in game theory called minimax. Children focused on hedging their bets and covering their bases, not only for the purpose of gaining points but also to be sure a wrong answer didn’t embarrass them. One student, after being asked to confirm her choice of weight placement, said “Yes, but I don’t think it will balance.” The predictions of other students were very similar in their vagueness. In every case the result was clear: the students were no longer interested in balancing the beam, but rather of beating the points and predictions system.

Few students ever figured out the balance beam.

The Q Shriek

While Holt allowed much more talking and freedom in his class than most teachers, he still needed quiet sometimes. So, rather than simply demanding it like most teachers, he created the Q. The rule was simply this: When he wrote the Q on the board, the class was to be quiet. Holt writes:

And then, slowly, the children invented or developed a delightful custom. When I began to write the Q they would all make some kind of hum or murmur or sound, which would get louder and louder, rising to a shriek as I boxed in the Q with a flourish. But as soon as my chalk hit the edge of the blackboard, completing the box, dead silence.

A year later Holt has his own fifth-grade class in another school, and again used the Q. This class, just like the other, eventually invented the shriek, never knowing that it had been done before.

Competing Objectives

The lesson drawn from this, I think, is that an educator’s objective in a game or class practice should never be assumed to be shared by the students. In the first case, Holt’s objective was to teach kids about balance and weight. But the children, in their brilliance, created their own objective, and attempted to make the game their own, focusing on the incentive rather than the goal. (Also, it’s important to point out that in future classes, Holt put the balance beam and the weights in the back of class, never mentioning it or attempting to teach it. Without his predefined objective hindering them, almost all the kids in the class, even some very poor ones, figured it out on their own.)

In the second case, Holt’s objective was to get quiet in the class. But the children reminded him that this must be their’s as well, and invented the Q Shriek to make it so. And Holt was smart enough to allow the Q Shriek, where other teachers would have stolen the only personal connection those kids had to a rule they chose to follow.

You see, kid’s do not naturally want to please teachers and parents, they do not naturally want to learn specific facts, but are rather content to follow their own interests and will learn as it becomes necessary to fulfill those interests. When forced to learn (very oxymoronic) or forced to obey, children will immediately substitute their own objectives, never focusing where the teacher assumes they will. We are going to talk about this more in the future, as we discover the fear and danger that surrounds a child in compulsory education, and the many, many ways in which the very nature of schooling pulls a child’s mind away from learning.

Education