The Underachieving School is a collection of essays and articles written and compiled by Holt, each brimming with inspiration and ideas on how to teach children—taking into account the ways in which children actually learn. Through his original thinking, clear and thoughtful writing, and firsthand accounts of what does and doesn't work in education, this book shows us the difference between learning and schooling.

Very little comes easy in the West, not even murder. Here, Ed Bouchee, a small town private detective living on the northern high plains, is asked to investigate a gruesome murder. From that moment on nothing is as it seems. Up is down and white fades to black. Bouchee and his headstrong Springer spaniel companion, The Dog, wander the slightly mean, out-of-kilter streets of Biederbeck, and the lonesome, often terrifying, mountain backroads of central Montana in search of Mark Grace’s kille...

Natalie and the valley’s derelicts live in a wilderness paradise, but a gold mining company is about to savage a local mountain known as Jane’s Hill. Can they stop it? Probably not. But Natalie -- a woman whose attitude was sizably influenced by the life and writings of Gertrude Stein -- continues to work on the problem as she throws “sedate salons” at her Joint, a two-story lodge of rough-hewn logs, and fishes the clear streams for brookies. She knows the mine will kill the river. That’s ...

The author poses the rhetorical question: “So how did this book come to be? How did this collection of articles and stories wind up in one place in this book?” At a local bookstore in Livingston, Montana, a group of writers were talking about compilations of people’s work and do they have any merit. Yes, they do, was the conclusion – and thus John Holt has culled this marvelous collection of his articles and musings from a number of publications. It’s like a philosophical travelogue, fishi...

The West has been celebrated with songs, words and photographs for well over 100 years. This novel is about poet John Wesley Gill, who lives in the Sweet Grass Hills, and his struggle to come to grips with the changing West as he also decides to resurrect his writing career through good deeds and very dark ones including murder. The book is a reflection of his travels. Gill’s poems define his road experiences and this lyricism is reflected in the narrative that takes him along rough roads ...

Can men overcome their darkest nature and most compelling fears in this life, even if this struggle ultimately leads to their deaths? The wildly spectacular Arctic north of Canada is the setting for The Lost Patrol, a page from history Four men were led by Royal Northwest Mounted Police Inspector Francis J. Fitzgerald as they attempted to deliver annual reports and mail to the district office. The patrol left Ft. McPherson, Northwest Territories in late December 1910 headed for Dawson City...

The classic guide to teaching children at home for a new generation of homeschooling parentsIn 2019, there were more than two million children being homeschooled. That number doubled during the pandemic and is now likely to continue increasing as more parents worry that school might not be the best place for their children to learn and grow.Teach Your Own helped launch the homeschooling movement; now, its timeless and revolutionary message of recog...

Growing Without Schooling (GWS) is the first publication about learning outside of school, homeschooling, and unschooling founded by the late teacher and author John Holt. Published continuously from 1977 until 2001, the 143 issues of GWS are filled with practical, hands-on advice from parents and children who are living and learning in their homes and communities. Each issue also contains legal, educational, and social advice and commentary about self-directed education and how it can be ...

This is a reprint of John Holt's controversial book about the rights of children and how adults and children can live and learn together more enjoyably and transparently by rethinking their relationships. Under the guise of care and protection, children are kept in the walled garden of childhood, outside the world of human experience, for longer periods than ever before in human history. But for many children and parents, the walled garden of childhood is more like a prison, where authorit...

Many readers follow John Holt’s writing about the beauty and dangers and enjoyment of his life in the northwest … but fewer know the poetic side of this popular outdoors writer. Here he speaks with verse, extolling the wonders of the world around him. After declaring himself plain crazy, he rhapsodizes about the high country, lonely places, being streamside, medicine rocks, chilly creeks, and big fish. He extols being a kid in Montana, life at 3 a.m., Yellowstone, small towns, long gone fr...

John Holt's groundbreaking study examines the assimilation, transformation, and subordination of the Hindu deity Visnu within the contexts of Sri Lankan history and Sinhala Buddhist religious culture. Holt argues that political agendas and social forces, as much as doctrinal concerns, have shaped the shifting patterns of the veneration of Visnu in Sri Lanka.Holt begins with a comparative look at the assimilation of the Buddha in Hinduism. He then explores the role and rationale of ...

This enduring classic of educational thought offers teachers and parents deep, original insight into the nature of early learning. John Holt was the first to make clear that, for small children, "learning is as natural as breathing." In this delightful yet profound book, he looks at how we learn to talk, to read, to count, and to reason, and how we can nurture and encourage these natural abilities in our children.