Summary of John Holt's Discipline is a Great Teacher

Introduction

            John Holt is a famous educationalist.  He has written many books on modern education.  He is a great thinker.  This prose is an extract from his famous book Freedom and Beyond.  In this prose, he talks about three disciplines that would help a child learning things as it grows.

Discipline of Nature or Reality

            Discipline of nature or reality is the most important teacher for a child.  If a child is doing something wrong or if it is not able to do something right nature would teach it perfectly.  For example, if a child is trying to built a block it cannot build in a slanting surface.  It should keep one block upon another.  If it does not do nature and reality would teach the child.  While learning through this discipline the child would get immediate feedback.  Nature is a good teacher, which will not be partial and indifferent.

Discipline of Culture or Society

            Culture and society teach a lot to the children.  Children, as they grow, look at their parents’ behavior in public places.  A child might be adamant in its house but when taken to a church it stays quiet.  It looks around the stillness and decent behavior of the people and it calms down.  If a child’s parents are courteous, the child will also be courteous.

Discipline of the Superior Force

            This is the last form of discipline.  A child learns from its superiors a lot.  Elders teach the child from their experiences.  They stop a child from doing something harmful.  They do some kind of threatening to make them understand wrong doings.  This is one way of protecting the child.  At the beginning, the child thinks of not doing the bad thing to avoid the punishment but later he understands nature.  However, superior force is not always good for a child’s character.

Conclusion

            The author concludes this essay by saying that these three disciplines overlap each other at some point or the other.   A child cannot learn things by one single discipline.  For example, a ballet dance teacher may teach about child the nuances of the dance but there could be no perfect teacher, because ballet had been there for a long time.  A child learns and it becomes an expert but not perfect.  Similarly, many football players could play well even without a good coach.