Learning to Become Stupid

Learning to Become Stupid

“How children learn…and fail” by John Holt

Reaction Paper

This paper for me is the type that makes me want to write a reaction paper on, even when I’m not required. Although I reflect on everything that I read, I find this one exceptional. I might say that it really strikes through me. I would like to become a teacher someday and I would want to make the most out of it, be the best of who I can be. Reading through this paper, I found myself recalling instances from my high school every time the author tries to bring up a point. I see them fit perfectly too. The essay speaks directly through me, and it surely made an impact. Not only do I understand how students, as I am, behave, but I also got key points on how I could become a better teacher.

The first phrase that really caught my attention was “school can be a ‘place where children learn to be stupid.’” I immediately thought about how school can make a student stupid. I then came to realize after a few sentences that the phrase stresses a good point. Children do become stupid because of school. School pressure, as I see it, is one of the greatest factors why children lose their enthusiasm in exploring things. Children either lose their curiosity, or develop fear of looking-like-they-are-a-failure that they do not ask. It’s such a shame that these usually develop through contact with the teacher… Students develop a habit of depending on the teacher on what right and wrong is; children tend to lose their own sense of choice.

As we all know, it is very common among teachers, or any other mentor, that they point out the students’ mistakes and correct them. This seems very likely for a mentor to do so since it is his/her job to teach and correct the students. The mistake here though, as Holt points out, is that it has an unlikely effect on the learner. Students tend to lose their sense of judgment, which eventually they cannot easily decide whether one thing is right or wrong, not even on their own work. Students just tend to do assignments because they are required but they don’t get the feeling of accomplishment. By a sense of accomplishment, I try to point out that students cannot convince themselves that what they did was right. Right and wrong all depends on the teacher. “Is my work done correctly?” a student will ask. That is simply how the system goes. The teacher lectures, the students do assignments and then it all goes back to the teacher. How then can we tell that the student really learned when they cannot tell by themselves if something is right or wrong? What happens here is that even without the teacher, they would keep relying on other resources such as books, to tell if something is correct. Or worse, they look for materials that could correct the mistakes they’ve made. The focus inclines to correcting mistakes, instead of learning what’s not.

Another great deal that’s worthy of taking notice of, is when Holt pointed out that students become scared half to death whenever they do not know how to answer a question a teacher points out to them. One thing I’ve noticed in the school system is that whenever such things happen, the teacher punishes the unknowledgeable in one way or another. He/She either commands the student to stand for a while, introduces a sermon on why students should study at home or do their assignments, or simply make the student feel that he/she has become a disappointment. From all of these, it can be concluded that the students lose their confidence. Most of the time, they are just afraid to speak up because they are not sure of themselves whether their answers are correct or not. These then all goes back to the case of teacher dependence. Can it be the teachers’ fault why students lose their sense of judgment?

In a later part of Holt’s essay, he raised the point that students make mistakes in written work because tension builds up. For some reason, I do not entirely agree with this. For of course, it’s not always the tension. It does affect a student’s thinking but not all students are anxious. This also goes back to teacher dependence. Students who tend to worry during examinations are those who cannot make up their minds whether they’ve made the right choice of answers or not. As Holt have quoted: “Worrying about whether you did the right thing…is less painful that worrying about the right thing to do.” Now, how does these two connect? Worrying about what the right thing to do builds up tension and when it does, the students tend to flunk at their examination papers.

From all of these, I can conclude that a teacher plays a big part on building up one child’s confidence. As a future teacher, I take it a good point that it is important that I learn how to build self-esteem in a child. After all, not only does a person need sense of judgment in school and exam papers, but also when he/she gets out in the real world.