John Holt Audio Lecture to Swedish Teachers about How Children Learn

This is a talk John Holt presented to Swedish Teachers in Gothenberg, Sweden on March 22, 1982. As John notes here, he was revising How Children Learn during the time he was doing his Scandinavian tour, so these are pretty fresh thoughts and ideas that John was working with in light of his connection to homeschoolers (I didn't hear him say unschooler at all in this talk, FYI). What else is noteworthy is how Sweden, in 2010, banned homeschooling on the grounds that a professional education was available from the state and families therefore had no need for homeschooling. As Holt notes forcefully on this tape, unasked for teaching actually impedes learning, particularly for young children, a lesson confirmed by research that Holt notes in 1982 and that is confirmed again by research cited in the Boston Globe (Front page, 3/29/11).

Like most of the audio tapes I have, this was recorded by John while he spoke, so the quality is a bit rough. I've removed as much hiss as I could, and the entire speech is here, though the final bit ends abruptly during the Q&A. However, you are able to grasp his final point, one he made often: schools should be more like public libraries, in spirit and in organization.