Abstract
John Holt (1923–85) was, during the 1960s and 1970s, the most famous radical critic of the US education system. His first book, How Children Fail (published in 1964) was a runaway best-seller.
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- 1.
In all quotations, emphasis is as in the original unless otherwise noted.
- 2.
N.B., Holt (1976) makes use of a distinction between ‘S-chools’ (compulsory, age-segregated) and ‘s-chools’ (such as schools of music, dance, martial arts). As it is clear from the surrounding discussion which sort of school is meant, I have silently removed this distinction in all the quotes used from this work, as it would otherwise be distracting to the reader.
- 3.
The only monograph on Holt’s work is Meighan (2007). Although this is a clear and helpful introduction, it does not move much beyond paraphrase.
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Dickerson, A. (2019). Only the Experts Shall Speak or Be Heard. In: John Holt. SpringerBriefs in Education(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18726-2_1
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