School Is Bad for Children?

In “School is bad for children,” which is reported by John Holt, he indicated his personal opinion, which is that the society needs to end the formal education system. In his essay, John Holt displayed four different kinds of perspectives on why school is bad for children. Is abolishing education system beneficial for children? Exactly it will be not. There are several reasons for disagreeing with Holt’s point of view, such as his idea to abolish compulsory school attendance, get kids out of the school, meet more people, and do it themselves everything.
First of all, Holt displayed that compulsory school attendance should be abolished (Holt 60). However, if mandatory school attendance has not existed, all of human right also does not survive anywhere. Required school attendance, which is one of the standards of values in human life, demands that each child have to attend school all over the world. While attending school, they are able to learn a lot of things including basic knowledge, history, morality, and arithmetic. Whether these things are beneficial for children or not, they are able to learn their own judgment through participation in school regularly. Even for people does not need to attend school, personal relationship between teachers and peers in school is also a significant education in their childhood.
Moreover, the author asserted that senior people need to get kids out of the school buildings, and give them a chance to learn about the world at first hand (60). Going to libraries, museums, exhibits, courtrooms, business, TV stations, and laboratories are important curriculum. If then, suppose children get out of the school in order to learn about their world without a theory of a subject. It is evident that children will feel so confused about working study program with theoretical defects. For instance, if they learned some knowledge of Art before going to the art museum, it will be more useful experience than go up to there with no definite object in view. As everybody knows, all schools have plans to hold a sandwich course, which is an education course in which children have periods of study between periods of being at work. That is enough for children.
In addition, the writer declared that children need to meet more people who are not full-time teachers into the schools and into contact with the children (61). However, this idea is totally wrong because an one-sided conversation with external influences will bring some disorders to children. Most children who do not establish even their one’s values need to get more fundamental education. Since they are not fully grown to have an objective perspective, they need people who can guide them to think critically and act responsibly. Therefore, meeting novelists, poets, playwrights or practicing attorneys will be better for adolescents than children.
Also, Holt argued that adults should let children do it themselves (61). Objections. Basically, the fact that a kid learns to do all by him/her self is extremely dangerous without teachers. They are not completed with an objective standard. It means that they can depend on mass media to do something themselves such as action movies, comics or TV programs. Many curious children will start bad behavior earlier than other friends who are learning education with teachers. Because of mass media, they are exposed to adult behaviors, for example, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, which contain harmful poisons and addictive drugs.
To summarize, there are four opposing perspectives comparing to John Holt’s essay which have presented that school is bad for children; Children would not be beneficial for abolishing education system in school although not wanting to go to school. Rather than abolishing education system and letting students study outside, adults and teachers need to encourage students to engage in school actively.

Works Cited List
Holt, John. “School Is Bad for Children.” New Direction: Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking. Ed Peter S. Gardner. NewYork: Cambridge University Press. May 3, 2005.