Bad For Children

Priscilla Torres
Mrs. Kimberly Mori
ENGL 1301- 5041
12 February 2015
The Reality of Education:
John Holt’s “School is Bad for Children”
An important goal of education is to allow a student to think freely, right? John Holt would claim otherwise in his 1989 essay, “School is Bad for Children,” in which he presents his perspective of school and how it limits the way a student to think. An analysis of “School is Bad for Children” reveals not only that the author’s personal beliefs have an important role in the effectiveness of the work but also that a use of rhetorical elements impacts the author's message and effectively engages the reader.
Not only is Holt an American teacher and an education theorists who taught for many years in elementary and secondary schools, he is also a respected author who wrote books on his philosphies about children’s education. Holt is able to write from his personal experience’s working as a teacher, which makes his theories logical. Appropriately, Holt uses philisophical fiction to write “School is bad for Children” to express his perspective on educational systems and how passionate he feels towards it.
The author wants to make clear that a child should not be forced to learn or think a certain way for they should be free to learn and express themselves however they want. Holt’s purpose is to show how the school’s curriculum limits a child’s education and express the idea that children should be learning from real-life experiences. The author aspires to open the eyes of school boards and educators, and show them that they are only impairing the childs