"Natural" learning and educational theories

[Little Green Leaves]

Hi everyone. I'm kind of procrastinating on a project today. My brain wants to be busy, so maybe this is the right time to post about these ideas I've been turning over in my mind.

I'm thinking about the John Holt and Charlotte Mason that I've read. Now, I love both of these writers. Different as they are, I've found them very very useful in my approach to teaching my kids. BUT I also find them a little bit off-putting, in the sense that they both insist on being the "natural" approach to education. Wondering if anyone has thoughts on this.

This is the crux of my irritation, I think -- both Holt and Mason seem to create this idea of what a typical child is like, and they base their educational theory around the idea of this typical child. The typical child in these books is kind of similar I think. They're bright, hands-on, and practical-minded. They're interested in exploring the natural world, they're bold, they like experiments and concrete learning. My kids do not fit this mold (I wouldn't have either) so I guess it's jarring to me.

When the kids were littler, I read Charlotte Mason's "Home Education" and I was totally distraught because my kids did not WANT to roam free and explore nature and come back to give me little narrations about the birds they'd seen just over the hill. They wanted me to come with them. They also weren't super interested in talking about what they saw -- they wanted to tell stories about fairies and dragons instead.  

Later, I read some John Holt and again, I didn't especially relate to the kids he described. Neither of my kids is especially interested in building things. Neither of them is all that interested in copying what the big kids are doing, so the kind of "natural" learning by attempting to copy, failing, and trying again doesn't really work. 

Where am I going with this? I am not sure. I find both Holt and Mason super useful in my life; I use their ideas and methods all the time. But the fact that they insist on being the "natural" approach makes me suspicious. I don't know if there can ever be a fully natural approach to education -- we all do our best, but there's always going to be things that aren't quite natural.

Any thoughts?

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I think that the core idea behind Charlotte Mason anyway is that we learn what we are excited about- what really grabs our attention. Beyond that, the best advice I was ever given was “teach the child you have “. 

[Little Green Leaves]

33 minutes ago, OKBud said:

Of the two, I think Mason is closer to having devised a scheme by which almost all children will naturally learn. 

 

How little? She'd definitely have the mother tromping about with the kids...what she wouldn't do is let the mother *interfere* with the connections the children made of their own accord in the out-of-doors. Under six, it would just be looking around outside together without even the aid of a journal.

I agree about Mason being closer to "natural."

If I'm remembering right, Home Education suggests that you take your kids (under age 6) out to the countryside, and then sit on a bench while they explore. She suggests sending them off to look at, say, a little cottage a ways away and having them come back periodically to report on what they've seen. 

I think I possibly took all of that too literally.

[8filltheheart]

I think you need to take the philosophies and find how to make them your own.  For me, modeling is a parenting method.  😉  For example, learning how to observe.  We love to hike. I want my children to learn how to observe.  So I take that goal and model it to my kids. Instead of pointing things out, I ask questions.  Asking them questions puts the onus of the actual observation on them and helps train them to observe.  To me that is natural teaching. 

I love older books that were written to children.  Instead of laying everything out as a list of facts, they were written as stories of observations.  

For example 

Quote

Look, children; see the dragon flies darting about like flashes of light in every direction. They are having such a good time. Whizz! One flashed right past Mollie's ear.

Pretty people, I wish one of you would come and sit by us a little while, so we could get a good look at you.

What is that, Ned? You have found a large one lying on the ground? Sure enough; it is a beauty too, with a green body and silver wings. Something seems to be wrong with it; it does not fly nor try to get away. What a big one it is! My! my! what eyes!

 What is that you say, Richard? "It catches mosquitoes and gnats and flies and other insects while flying." Yes, and that is why it has such big eyes. We should need big eyes ourselves if we were to spend our time chasing mosquitoes. Two eyes you have, little dragon fly, like the rest of us, but your eyes are not like ours. No, indeed!   Each of your big eyes is made up of a great many small eyes packed close together.

Do you know, children, that some of the largest of the dragon flies have as many as twenty thousand facets, or small eyes, in each large eye? Think of it! Forty thousand eyes in one little dragon fly head. It ought to see well. These facets are six-sided, excepting those along the edge, which are rounded on the outside. You cannot see their real shape without a microscope, they are so small. But here is a picture of some facets as they look under the microscope. Eyes like these, made up of many facets, we call compound eyes. All grown-up insects have compound eyes, though not many have as large ones as the dragon fly. Only insects that chase other insects or that need to see in the dark have very large eyes. 

 I use my kids' natural interests to guide their studies.  It does not mean "no expectations."  I expect my kids to work at their level of ability.  But, my goal is to parent my kids to have a desire to learn and then use desire to learn to nurture internal motivation. 

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Charlotte Mason couldn’t predict my little boy who was fascinated by all vehicles and electronics because she didn’t know of those things. The first cars were towards the end of her life and of course she could have never predicted computers!   But he explored those concepts and the principles of physics and electricity etc. He’s almost done with his Computer Science/Cyber Security degree so he obviously learned those lessons.  (He built his first computer at age 10.)
 

Charlotte Mason was also a single woman who never had any children of her own. She taught many children and many teachers how to teach children. But I do think that she had a slightly idealized view of children. I say this as someone who has been greatly influenced by her ideas. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Oh- and my son has also explored vehicles in a very hands on way by rebuilding two classic cars. 

[Little Green Leaves]

34 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Charlotte Mason couldn’t predict my little boy who was fascinated by all vehicles and electronics because she didn’t know of those things. The first cars were towards the end of her life and of course she could have never predicted computers!   But he explored those concepts and the principles of physics and electricity etc. He’s almost done with his Computer Science/Cyber Security degree so he obviously learned those lessons.  (He built his first computer at age 10.)
 

Charlotte Mason was also a single woman who never had any children of her own. She taught many children and many teachers how to teach children. But I do think that she had a slightly idealized view of children. I say this as someone who has been greatly influenced by her ideas. 

Your son sounds amazing : )

Yes -- I think the idealized view of children is what I was trying to get at. I'm wondering whether having an idealized, or simplified, view of children is inevitable when you're creating an educational theory. 

[Little Green Leaves]

38 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

I think you need to take the philosophies and find how to make them your own.  For me, modeling is a parenting method.  😉  For example, learning how to observe.  We love to hike. I want my children to learn how to observe.  So I take that goal and model it to my kids. Instead of pointing things out, I ask questions.  Asking them questions puts the onus of the actual observation on them and helps train them to observe.  To me that is natural teaching. 

I love older books that were written to children.  Instead of laying everything out as a list of facts, they were written as stories of observations.  

For example 

 I use my kids' natural interests to guide their studies.  It does not mean "no expectations."  I expect my kids to work at their level of ability.  But, my goal is to parent my kids to have a desire to learn and then use desire to learn to nurture internal motivation. 

 

I agree! Even "natural" learning involves a lot of teaching, modeling, and involvement on the parent's part. I mean, I'm not complaining -- that's what makes home education so much fun. But I feel like that gets overlooked sometimes in educational theories.

[Jean in Newcastle]

3 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Your son sounds amazing : )

Yes -- I think the idealized view of children is what I was trying to get at. I'm wondering whether having an idealized, or simplified, view of children is inevitable when you're creating an educational theory. 

She was railing against and trying to modify an even more idealized view of children.  The one where "children are seen and not heard" and only are seen by parents when their nannies bring them in for their goodnight kiss.  And where they had to sit ramrod straight and do their lessons.  (And of course this was only the wealthy children since poorer children had no education at all but had to work long hours in dangerous jobs.)  Our whole cultural view of childhood is so much more relaxed! 

[Little Green Leaves]

23 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

She was railing against and trying to modify an even more idealized view of children.  The one where "children are seen and not heard" and only are seen by parents when their nannies bring them in for their goodnight kiss.  And where they had to sit ramrod straight and do their lessons.  (And of course this was only the wealthy children since poorer children had no education at all but had to work long hours in dangerous jobs.)  Our whole cultural view of childhood is so much more relaxed! 

I had forgotten about this! She had to counter the old view by putting forward a new theory, then. 

[Little Green Leaves]

1 hour ago, mms said:

I would not equate Holt and Mason. CM, despite the nature studies etc is almost the opposite of unschooling. And it’s been a while since I’ve read her works but I don’t recall anything about “interest led” in cm either. If anything, it is very prescribed, but with short, efficient lessons. At least past kindergarten. I think CM has been far too idealized in home schooling circles and a lot of what counts as a CM education is not it. Personally, I am not a fan of CM if only because my children and I like to dive in with both feet and short ten minute lessons where one is forced to switch topics even if one is engaged do not cut it here. There are other reasons, but that is definitely at the top.

As for Holt, I am a bit more sympathetic though with major reservations. Eldest and I are reading “Study is Hard Work” together and the forward of the book defines formal education as accelerated learning. I really like that definition. I am a subscriber to idea that children and adults learn most easily that which interests them. And I do a fair bit of leaving my children alone so that they can learn as much as they can in a natural manner. But, I also believe that some things are worth studying even if they do not particularly engage the child’s interest. I believe in accelerated (focused, intentional, prescribed, whatever term one wants to use) learning of some subjects is superior to natural learning. This is because I do espouse tradition in education, which Holt outright rejected.
 

eta as well: I do not believe that modern radical unschoolers are representing Holt’s ideas very accurately. There is a lot to learn from his books even if one rejects unschooling.

I hear you!  and I agree that they are wildly different thinkers with wildly different ideas. I do think it's interesting that both of them find value in being "natural" and attuned to what they see as children's basic natures.

Charlotte Mason wasn't interest-led at all, I agree. But she did believe that her methods were in sync with children's natural approach to learning, and that her methods were simply building on children's natural tendencies and preferences. I don't always find that to be true, but I find it interesting that she really wanted to spell out that connection.

I found that John Holt did the same thing; he based a lot of his early ideas, at least, on his study of how very small children "naturally" learn, and wanted to find ways to extend that natural learning.

 

[Little Green Leaves]

2 hours ago, mms said:

Sorry about that! I read your post in a sleep deprived haze and these are things that I’ve been ruminating on lately as I determine which direction our homeschool will take. The result? Not reading carefully and jumping to conclusions about things you did not say!

Natural learning is interesting. I think all kids engage in natural learning, it is hard wired, but not necessarily about things that people consider life skills or school subjects. And natural learning can be very inefficient and choppy.  Eldest loves to bake and she is an avid gardener. She’s picked up all sorts of math along the way and it’s math she enjoys and doesn’t complain about. Yay, natural learning! But, as nice as that is, it would take her a dozen years at this rate to learn Just elementary mathematics. And when I suggested that we purposefully use gardening as a vehicle for learning math, she politely declined. She didn’t want to get soured on her love, lol.

i think any educational philosophy that someone creates out of abstract ideas of what children are like will be problematic to some extent.  Especially if it is not based on a tradition (which should at least in theory have experiential results). That’s one of the reasons I like the work of Ella Frances Lynch. It is not a new philosophy per say, but a way to apply a tradition in a home environment. And she limits herself to the ten and under crowd.    And at the end of the day her advice is always: don’t listen to me blindly, know your kid and circumstances and use your wisdom! Anyway, if you are into educational philosophy, well worth reading.

I've been there! (sleep deprived haze). I really like the way you describe the role of natural learning. I'd never heard of Ella Frances Lynch but will look for her, thanks.

[Little Green Leaves]

3 hours ago, mms said:

To get you started:

https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2014/08/ella-frances-lynch-minervas-maven-of-early-education.html

And her books are free!

https://archive.org/details/educatingchildat00lyncrich/page/n6/mode/2up

 

Thank you!

[Lecka]

I think they are responding to philosophical ideas about what children are like, from their time period.  Are children a blank slate?  Are children dependent on being taught?  Or are children superior because they haven't be polluted by having corrupt ideas forced on them, and existing in a more natural way?  

I am not into this stuff but it is discussed in Western Civilization classes and I have helped my husband study recently and seen things like this.  

I think they are probably following or reacting against a philosophy like this from their time, that is organizing some of their ideas into a framework, or would just be context for someone who was up on this stuff.  

I think too the word "natural" is a word that doesn't seem to mean just the same thing in older writing.  

[Lecka]

https://pakphilosophy.blogspot.com/2014/03/rousseau-and-his-contribution-to.html?m=1
 

Just a top hit on google for Rousseau.  

[Shoeless]

14 hours ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Yes -- I think the idealized view of children is what I was trying to get at. I'm wondering whether having an idealized, or simplified, view of children is inevitable when you're creating an educational theory. 

 

I've felt like this is the case no matter which education philosopher/expert/"enthusiast" I've read. Under it all is the concept that children have a "true" nature that will only be be fully realized by following the author's philosophy.  Peter Gray makes me nuts because he is very much about how kids need to spend time away from adults, otherwise they'll never learn how to be self-reliant.  I've got a kid that does not crave time away from adults.  He's always been an "old soul", and seems to prefer the predictable behavior of adults over the unpredictable behavior of other kids.  Anything that has a vibe of "All kids want abc, all kids like xyz.." usually doesn't fit my kid.   

I'm not sure what exactly is meant by "natural learning". "Natural", as in "go out in nature and take learning from there" or "natural" as in "learning from play and regular interactions with the world at large"? 

[8filltheheart]

8 hours ago, Lecka said:

I think too the word "natural" is a word that doesn't seem to mean just the same thing in older writing.  

This. Natural does not mean hands off unschooling. Natural is that it is inherent in human nature to learn. We are not animals who function purely on instinct. We interact with our surroundings and learn from those interactions.

What all educational philosophies boil down to is what is the best way to engage a human being to learn. In some respects it is a pointless question bc humans are hard-wired to learn. Pretty much most humans will learn something in any educational environment. In other ways, it encompasses everything bc how do you define being human, what is valued, and what are the objectives.

In reading through this thread, the biggest takeaway is that in a homeschooling environment, we are the primary teachers and the values and objectives are controlled by us. That is the essence of it all. Educational philosophy deserves serious contemplation vs just plunking whatever down and doing X bc modern society does it, my friend does it, or bc someone on the internet does it. 

It goes back to human nature (natural) and shows up in very early childhood....."Why? Why? Why?" Embracing that (natural childhood) word as an adult and educator prior to pursuing any goal or objective will go a long way.  Deliberation.

We can all do deliberate academically-focused endeavors differently (thankfully bc my personal views are radically different than most posters on these forums) and still end up with similar long-term outcomes (humans are hard-wired to learn.) The journey there will look vastly different. That 18+ long yr journey is the map you are creating. You only have 1 lifetime. What are you going to do with it? How do you want your children spending their days? Why?

Philosophy. Questioning and seeking answers.

Edited February 21, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[Little Green Leaves]

14 hours ago, MissLemon said:

 

I've felt like this is the case no matter which education philosopher/expert/"enthusiast" I've read. Under it all is the concept that children have a "true" nature that will only be be fully realized by following the author's philosophy.  Peter Gray makes me nuts because he is very much about how kids need to spend time away from adults, otherwise they'll never learn how to be self-reliant.  I've got a kid that does not crave time away from adults.  He's always been an "old soul", and seems to prefer the predictable behavior of adults over the unpredictable behavior of other kids.  Anything that has a vibe of "All kids want abc, all kids like xyz.." usually doesn't fit my kid.   

I'm not sure what exactly is meant by "natural learning". "Natural", as in "go out in nature and take learning from there" or "natural" as in "learning from play and regular interactions with the world at large"? 

Yes -- you put this better than I could have! And, I also have a kid who loves being around adults also.  

I am not sure I meant by "natural learning" either. I know I asked in my post whether "natural learning" is possible. I think I meant, is it ever possible for education to line up perfectly with a child's inborn talents and preferences? Or is there always going to be some level of discomfort, trying to fit a square peg into a round hole?

When I put it like that, it sounds a little silly. Of course there will always be some discomfort. 

[Little Green Leaves]

21 hours ago, square_25 said:

 

I think kids do have the natural drive to learn, and it's great to harness it. However, I'm absolutely not sold that natural learning is the way to learn the basics. 

First of all, lots of kids only enjoy a subject once they are at least decent at it. Unless you're particularly numerically oriented, it's not all that much fun to count everything on your fingers! My older daughter likes using math a lot, now that she has a plethora of memorized calculations and internalized tricks. She did NOT enjoy calculating while she was learning to do so. In fact, my older daughter is extremely motivated by mastery and mostly enjoys doing things she's already very good at. That does not lend itself to picking up new skills easily! 

Secondly, I haven't found kids to be good predictors of whether a learning experience is going to work for them. I've so far taught both of my kids to read between ages of 3 and 4. My older girl really didn't have any self-motivation, because she'd never seen a kid read before and figured I'd be there if she needed a story read :-P. I convinced her to give it a try with difficulty. About 25 lessons into the 100 Easy Lessons book, she decided reading was awesome, did a great job with the lessons, and has been an avid reader ever since. On the other hand, my younger girl BEGGED to be taught to read, so she could be like her sister. Because I do value internal motivation, we started on the lessons, even though she was having way more trouble with her letters than her older sister had been. And about 30 lessons in, we realized that this was much harder for her than for her sister, slowed down the lessons (which instead of getting more fun had become hopeless drudgery), and added lots of reading practice in books. After she felt successful again, she perked up and enjoyed them... but I can't say that either the fact that older girl was reluctant or younger girl was self-motivated made much of a difference in the learning experience. What mattered was whether it felt engaging and whether it felt too difficult in the process. I'm sure that as kids get older, their internal gauges of what they can and can't do become more accurate... but I'm not going to wait until my kids are past the age of 10 to teach them things! 

Paradoxically, my biggest attempt to harness natural motivation is to teach them young. Getting the basics out of the way reduces my stress levels and makes me feel like they should have lots of latitude in what they are doing. At least with my older girl, I did reading, writing and math very young, and that has enabled me to allow her to pick her own projects and in general to figure out what she wants to work on in a way I wouldn't have been able to if I'd been worrying about the 3R's. Because she can read at about a middle school level, I feel a lot less worried letting her read whatever she wants :-). Because she learned to add and multiply early, I didn't worry about letting her use binary to practice addition. Of course, she's a naturally accelerated kid, but I do think teaching her young was helpful for us... and strangely enough, made it possible for me to unschool her to an extent :-). 

It's funny what you say about early reading. My kids also learned to read early -- my son was I think three and a half, my daughter was a little past four. And it sounds so silly but the moment my son learned to read was the moment I first realized that no educational theory is one size fits all! I'd been reading about Waldorf, and about waiting until kids are 7 to start formal learning, and how the early years should be all about digging for worms and eating dirt...

I don't know why I thought that, since we live in an apartment and my whole family is very bookish. But there it is. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

For me, there are certain things that meet my natural learning style more than others. And I do think that there are educational approaches that are more appropriate for certain developmental stages. Because homeschooling isn’t constrained by  the needs of classroom bureaucracy and group dynamics, it’s easier to meet similar needs for our children.   That doesn’t mean that they enjoy every second of our school day. Or that learning doesn’t involve mental work. It just means that (hopefully) there aren’t artificial obstacles put in the way of learning. 

[Ellie]

On 2/20/2020 at 7:09 AM, Little Green Leaves said:

Later, I read some John Holt and again, I didn't especially relate to the kids he described. Neither of my kids is especially interested in building things. Neither of them is all that interested in copying what the big kids are doing, so the kind of "natural" learning by attempting to copy, failing, and trying again doesn't really work. 

Where am I going with this? I am not sure. I find both Holt and Mason super useful in my life; I use their ideas and methods all the time. But the fact that they insist on being the "natural" approach makes me suspicious. I don't know if there can ever be a fully natural approach to education -- we all do our best, but there's always going to be things that aren't quite natural.

Any thoughts?

 

John Holt was my inspiration. 🙂 I read all of his books in about two weeks, which led to my withdrawing my dd from her private school during Easter break of first grade. And his philosophies affected many things that I do in life, not just how I homeschooled.

I didn't read Holt and imagine that all children want to build things. I read Holt and understood that all children want to *learn," and that their learning doesn't have to look anything like school (although it may). I did more gentle guiding of my children's learning than Holt might have thought necessary, especially in parenting (he advocated almost an un-parenting style, and I definitely didn't un-parent, lol). I introduced my children to Camp Fire and 4-H and dance, and I decided where we'd go for field trips and so on; IOW, I didn't sit around and wait for them to be interested in something first. It is because of Holt that I don't refer to children by grade levels, or believe that there must be 12 years of school, or that I actually call my children "children" and not "students." OTOH, I taught them grammar whether they wanted it or not,  so there's that. 🙂

I think I might have liked Mason if I'd read her first.

[8filltheheart]

7 hours ago, Little Green Leaves said:

I am not sure I meant by "natural learning" either. I know I asked in my post whether "natural learning" is possible. I think I meant, is it ever possible for education to line up perfectly with a child's inborn talents and preferences? Or is there always going to be some level of discomfort, trying to fit a square peg into a round hole?

When I put it like that, it sounds a little silly. Of course there will always be some discomfort. 

Except for unschoolers, is there actually an educational philosophy that believes everything lines up perfectly with a child's interests and talents and the child experiences no discomfort? (I am not familiar with any that do bc I would reject the premise.)

I'm sort of lost on how that question relates to CM. I am not a CM follower, but one view I do agree with her on is that we are responsible for helping our children train their will. (CM spends a lot of time discussing habits and training of the will. It is an illogical leap to child preferences as being the source of her educational pedagogy. That is missing context.)

I am Catholic; my worldview is that man is fallen and our natures are inclined toward sin. It takes training our will to lead holy lives. That means we are all often discomfited bc we we have to turn away from what we want to do in order to do what we know we need to do. Free will requires self-control, not self-indulgence.

My perspective on embracing interest-led learning and meeting a child where they are is not that they are utopian approaches for children from Perfectville but that they acknowledge the full humanity of the individual--physical, spiritual, and mental. It is about embracing all 3 and nurturing the whole child accordingly, not ignoring 1 at the expense of the other.

Edited February 22, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[Emily ZL]

My husband has a perennial answer for this sort of thing: reformers are usually "right about what's wrong, but wrong about what's right." It's much easier to accurately critique what's wrong with the current system than to put forth a complete new theory that actually works and doesn't create new problems. John Holt is devastatingly on the mark about what's wrong with the school system, but when he puts forth his own theory, it's not clear that it's anything more than a guess, with potentially unintended consequences. For CM, she was clearly right about correcting a lot of wrongs in her own time -- but it's not at all clear how bound her ideas are to the Victorian era, and what books or subjects she might have covered today. (What would she have done with coding? With STEM kits? Would she have preferred Paddle to the Sea over an interactive globe? Her students also didn't have any screens to compete for their leisure time, ever; does that matter?) Again, these people are excellent guides to the problems they see in their own time and context -- but their positive theories are IMO much less reliable. If they work for you, great! But if not, I don't think that's surprising.

[ktgrok]

On 2/22/2020 at 1:13 AM, Ellie said:

John Holt was my inspiration. 🙂 I read all of his books in about two weeks, which led to my withdrawing my dd from her private school during Easter break of first grade. And his philosophies affected many things that I do in life, not just how I homeschooled.

I didn't read Holt and imagine that all children want to build things. I read Holt and understood that all children want to *learn," and that their learning doesn't have to look anything like school (although it may). I did more gentle guiding of my children's learning than Holt might have thought necessary, especially in parenting (he advocated almost an un-parenting style, and I definitely didn't un-parent, lol). I introduced my children to Camp Fire and 4-H and dance, and I decided where we'd go for field trips and so on; IOW, I didn't sit around and wait for them to be interested in something first. It is because of Holt that I don't refer to children by grade levels, or believe that there must be 12 years of school, or that I actually call my children "children" and not "students." OTOH, I taught them grammar whether they wanted it or not,  so there's that. 🙂

I think I might have liked Mason if I'd read her first.

Yes. For one child that learning might be look like the Robinson curriculum, nose in a book all day, and for another child it might look like taking apart machines and putting them together again and another child might become a baking fool, etc. 

I would not have been building. I would have been learning similar to the Sonlight method if it were up to me. But my kids are not me, and that means they don't learn that way, nose in a book, as much as I wish they did. 

[lewelma]

 I read Holt and understood that all children want to *learn," and that their learning doesn't have to look anything like school 

 

My older boy was a nose in a book kind of kid, but all he did was math.  It was actually through writing math proofs that he learned to write English papers.  Thesis, structure, support, conclusion etc. I had people at the time tell me that I should not let his math get so far ahead of his English (at one point it was 7 years different), that I should focus on his English and should restrict his math time. But it was the passion he had for math that motivated him to learn to write. School people just couldn't understand the idea of letting a passion run, while shoring up weaknesses.  They wanted me to focus on weaknesses and limit strengths, so that students went in lockstep through age-graded content. It was fine to have a globally gifted kid, 2 years ahead in everything, but a 7-year difference was a no go. But I think Holt would have appreciated our journey. I have always viewed Holt as focusing on a student's *engagement* in the learning process as the making of a great education. And I agree.