So many times I wanted to reach into the book and stop Mr. Caldwell from making some terrible mistake! You'll marvel at his abilities and be awestruck by his errors.

I had the pleasure of meeting James Caldwell while sailing in the Caribbean in 1985. I couldn't help but buy my copy of "Desperate Voyage" from him after our conversation. I'm delighted to see that it's available from Amazon and that other sailors and adventurers have had the chance to read this tome.

I had to remind myself that if I'd been the same age as when he made this journey I might not have done as well.
One thing is clear - Never invite a SHARK to dinner!

Best regards,
Tom

John Caldwell was desperate to get back to the woman that war had seperated him from. Unable to find an easy way back home, the inexperienced sailor figures he could just sail home across the Pacific.
The first two thirds of the book will leave experienced sailors constantly shaking their heads at his often absurd decisions. All through the trip though, you find yourself getting closer and eventually cheering him on to succeed. When he finally succeeds (I'm not giving it away, after all, he lives to tell the story!) with the heartfelt generosity of people from a wonderfully innocent world, you can't help but feel joy and think "Wow, what a great story".

The most remarkable thing about this story is that it's true! John Caldwell became an adventurer by accident. He just wanted to get across the Pacific Ocean to his new wife, and tried to do it the easy way by ship. Unfortunately there were no ships going his way, so he bought his own - a small wooden yacht. His (mis)adventures start as soon as he sets foot on his boat and don't end until he almost dies in his attempt to reach his destination. Caldwell's courage in facing challenge was born out of naivete - he only had a vague notion of what he was taking on. This makes his achievements all the more extraordinary because his lack of experience only left him with a kind of animal resourcefulness to get him through. He blunders from hilarious escapade to life-threatening drama and back again in an amazing journey that packs more adventure into a few months than most of us get (or want) in a lifetime. His sense of humour and down-to-earth style make This book a delightful read. "Desperate Voyage" undoubtedly has appeal to yachties like myself. But I've lent it to several friends including some landlubbers, and all have thoroughly enjoyed it.

The book includes three common metaphors that rule, unconciously, the way educators think and act in schools. Understanding these three metaphors is a necessary step towards changing the education system.

In clear, direct language, Learning All the Time describes the crucial difference between learning (making sense of the world)and education (being forced to digest and regurgitate what someone else dictates). Without vitriol, John Holt exposes how our children are harmed more than helped by institutional schools. He shows how all children are natural and gifted learners and how educational systems frustrate and fracture their innate curiosity about the world. His insights, ideas, and experiences show how to support children as they teach themselves. I wish I'd had this book when my child was born.

Unschooling cannot be attained through recipes of course, since every child and family is different. But Holt thoughtfully and sensitively manages to share his devotions and insights about learning, children and life in general so clearly that even the most hesitant parent can gain confidence in hir and hir child's ability to unschool.

The book is a collection of essays about many facets of learning and educational subjects (the three R's, science, music). Holt's profound observations help not only to understand how children tackle these subjects but also to gain a better understanding of these subjects ourselves.

Highly recommended for anyone involved in education.

This is another of the greatest MAD books of all time! It's funny, and the idea of the book is unique! Tha book is riotous! Larry Siegel has pulled it off, with great illustrating by John Caldwell! Tha two are a perfect match for this great book that just keeps me laughing to this day!

MAD produced over 200 paperbacks and this one was one of the best. Larry Siegel hits the mark about dog ownership. Angelo Torres did the art for the original release for Warner books. John Caldwell steps in for this release and does a great job.

I thought this book was great!!! Very humorously written, whether your a dog or cat lover you will find much here to tickle your funny bone.

I have worn out my copy of this text. I sure wish it would be published again. Anyone know of the prospects of it coming into print again? Please email me with the facts. I cannot FAX without this book!

Everyone in the office wants to borrow it for their faxes!

Desperate Voyage takes the reader on a wonderful journey of discovery. This true life adventure takes place at the close of World War II and details the trials and tribulations of the author in his attempt to return to his wife in Austrailia. When he finds there is no transportation available, John decides to sail a small yacht the 8000 miles to Austrailia from Panama. Never mind that he has never sailed a boat before! His challenges are many and John learns many things the hard way. This book, which is hilarious at times and sad at times, keeps the reader always longing to turn the page and see what happens next.

Without even noticing it, we diminish children in somany ways. Holt perceptively points out these ways, and offerspractical ways to treat children more respectfully.

This is a book which has helped me develop an attitude for perceiving children. It and "The Continuum Concept" by Jean Leidloff, have both helped convince me how little of our unsolicited instructions children really need.

John Holt is one who takes 'freedom' to its limits, at least as far as children are concerned.

The change it brought in me: When I have the baby sitter's role with my kids, I try to do that which is of mutual interest to us (myself and the kids), or do something which I like while they're doing their stuff. However, I have an open door policy, and allow them to come up to me for any of their queries. Doing something which just interests my kid is defeating, as my frustration and resentment gets transferred through my tone or through my way of looking at them.

It would enable a person who always finds children to be messy, annoying, revolting and disobedient to see them as friendly, interesting, and transparent.

The message of this book, stated concisely, is that the world needs more and better scout troops, community music groups, Little League teams, karate academies, and other informal educational organizations. He would like to see such organizations grow to the point that they replace full-time schools with mandatory attendance. I'm not saying whether I agree or disagree, but I am saying that his opinion is worth thinking about.

If Holt never visited South Korea, I wish he could have. His dream is closer to realization here than it is in the United States. You can't walk a block without seeing a karate school, a music school, an art school, or a music school. Some of these schools hold class all day, some serve as after-school clubs, and some do both.

"No Disgrace To My Country" is the story of John C. Tidball, an Ohio farm boy
who, by good fortune, got into West Point in 1844 at the age of 19 and graduated in 1848 as the
Mexican War ended. He elected the artillery arm of the service, where his love of the big guns
kept him, to the detriment of his advancement in rank, until he retired as the Army's premier
artillerist in 1889 after 45 years of service. He was promoted after retiring to the rank of
brigadier general.

General Tidball was himself an excellent writer and this story is substantially based
on his journals and letters, excerpts from which are cogently interspersed.

Tidball was in or at practically every major engagement of the Army of the
Potomac from First Bull Run to Petersburg and his perspectives on the actions and the Union
commanders and officers are unfailingly interesting. He was, as were so many in that army, an
admirer of McClellan and suspicious of Lincoln and his administration and of the war aims of the
North. But on less traveled tracks and of particular interest are the pre-war stories of Tidball's
life as a plebe at West Point (where French almost did him in), his assignments in the Old Army,
including brushes with some of its notorious characters, postings to Savannah and Augusta,
participation in the 35th Parallel Pacific Railway Survey (to the report of which he contributed
several accomplished sketches), standing guard at Lincoln's inauguration, his first marriage and
widowerhood with two small sons (who were raised by his father while Tidball followed the flag).

Pensacola Harbor, in 1861, one of the best and most strategic ports on the Gulf
Coast between Florida and New Orleans, was guarded and controlled by Fort Pickens on Santa
Rosa Island. As the war began, Lincoln determined that Fort Sumter would have to be
surrendered but that Fort Pickens should be reinforced, defended and saved if possible.

Tidball was in charge of a battery of artillery that was part of the relief expedition dispatched in haste and
great secrecy in April 1861 from New York on the steamship "Atlantic" to save Fort Pickens. The
success of the effort denied the Confederacy the use of Pensacola Harbor and Naval Yard
throughout the war.

At the end of the war, while holding brevet ranks of brigadier general in the regular
service and major general of volunteers (in all he was breveted five times for gallant and
meritorious service), Tidball reverted to his permanent rank of captain. He had turned down
several opportunities for rapid advancement in the regular service during the war that would have
entailed his leaving the artillery service. The limited opportunities for advancement in the artillery
service, and what he perceived to be substantial defects in its organization, rankled and at times
depressed Tidball throughout his career. He, with, particularly, Henry Hunt and William Barry,
two of the great artillerymen who were Tidball's superiors, did have some success during the war
in restructuring the organization and use of artillery, including the creation of true horse artillery
units of which Tidball was one of the first commanders. Eventually, the insistence of these
officers and others that the artillery should be organized and commanded as a separate corps bore
fruit when Congress so provided in 1901.

Just as his activities before the war that were on ways less travelled are of
particular interest, so too are his activities during his 25 years of service after the war. In 1868,
the year after the purchase of Alaska, Tidball was sent there to set up and command the Military
District of Kenai, a principal element of the newly created Department of Alaska. In 1870, while
back in the states on leave, he married a younger woman (with whom he had five more children)
after a suit that was not wholly pleasing to her father, Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, an
1842 graduate of West Point who finished the war as a major general of volunteers and had
returned to civilian life. The newlyweds set up housekeeping in Kodiak which they departed
without regrets in the fall of 1871 when Tidball was given a new assignment. He served as an
aide-de-camp on General Sherman's staff from 1881 to the end of Sherman's term as general-in-
chief in 1883, and accompanied Sherman on the General's valedictory 11,000-mile tour of the
West with two Supreme Court justices in tow as the General's guests.

In 1879, Sherman had ordered the publication of Tidball's magnum opus the
"Manual Of Heavy Artillery Service." It was published in 1883 and for many years thereafter was
the definitive work on the management and use of artillery. Toward the end of 1883, Tidball took
over as commandant of the Artillery School and commandant of the post at Fort Monroe. He
held these commands until he retired from the Army on January 25, 1889, his sixty-fourth birthday.

Applying in 1842 to the Secretary of War to be admitted to West Point, Tidball
wrote that it had not been his good fortune to receive as liberal an education as he desired and
that he "embrace[d] this opportunity to if possible gain admission to that institution to gain a
better education, and be an honor to my friends and no disgrace to my country." He clearly
accomplished these aims summa cum laude. By any measure, his was an extraordinary and
remarkable life personifying the tenets of duty, honor, and country.

"No Disgrace to My Country," by a distant relative of General Tidball, is a valuable
contribution to understanding an obviously intelligent and highly motivated and performing
second-level Union commander in the Civil War. It adds substantially to our understanding and
appreciation of that extremely important species which supplies the backbone of armies. The
story is well told and is read with great pleasure as well as profit.

This book is so true. If you're looking for guidance on how to begin to teach your children this is the place to start. This will put you on the right track!!!!

Anyone who works with children or is interested in education and psychology will enjoy John's interesting ideas. Most of this book is anecdotes about John's experience with different young children and his thoughts about how children learn in different areas that are based on those experiences.

How Children Learn
By John Holt

5 stars

Holt didn't have children of his own, and his first opinions of children and learning came from being a schoolteacher in an elite private school, where he taught math to 5th graders. He was exposed to younger children and babies who were friends and relatives, and began forming different opinions about learning, which he shares in this book. Holt is fascinated by the notion that children accomplish so much before formal schooling begins and realizes that the way school is set up goes directly in opposition to what is natural and has worked for these children up to the point they are sent off to school.

The beginning of the book covers the age ranges from birth up through age 3 to 5, that is, before children go to school. Holt talks about a certain type of important learning that takes place up until the time a child enrolls in school at which point the experience of schooling changes their personality. The book starts off with how children succeed in learning many important things and huge feats such as speaking and with proper grammar and pronunciation and walking without formal schooling and that children accomplish much learning without an adult being the facilitator of it. In general the style of writing is that Holt describes a situation and then gives his opinions of the learning experience. Sometimes Holt does little experiments such as introducing a toy or a non-toy (such as a typewriter) to young children to see how they react to it and what they do with it. Holt observes with delight and amazement, these young children who are friends and relatives (they are not his students or participants in a research projects). It is clear that Holt enjoys these young children and he respects them and relishes the time he spends with them.

This revised edition makes clear which text is original then what was added-which is new perspective as he had spent more time around children and his theories matured and changed a bit. Seeing the two perspectives clearly was very interesting and educational.

Regarding the discussions about babies and toddlers there are good observations here and I appreciate them. As a stay at home parent, I have already witnessed much of this (and more) and for some of the chapters I felt I wasn't learning anything I hadn't already witnessed with my own two eyes. However, readers who are childless will definitely learn much about how learning happens from infancy and up. I highly recommend that anyone interested in going into the profession of teaching read this book, or any current teacher who is childless. Holt gives the children much-deserved respect for their innate ability to learn and figure out the world around them.

Later chapters get more analytical as Holt integrates his own observation of schooled children (about grade 5 and below) and compares and contrasts with other educators, scientists and child psychologists. (It doesn't seem to me that Holt is analyzing preteens or teenagers.) Here is where Holt exercises his ability to write clearly and concisely drive home his point in a convincing manner.

Again and again Holt shows how a child to is forced to "learn" things (such as in public and most private schools) is actually having their personality changed in the process. The act of being forced to do things and to prove oneself over and over via testing and not being trusted by adults changes their personality. Holt feels the schooling procedures have negative consequences on all children; albeit some children are more negatively affected than others. The child can develop anxiety, mistrust, and fear of all adults not to mention self-esteem problems or just killing their curiosity or interest in learning.

Great quotes from other books on education and learning are included here with Holt's reactions. A short list of books on school reform is included. The summary alone is almost worth the price of the book.

For more specific information about what goes on in school and how children learn to play the school game and how forced teaching is not always effective, read Holt's "How Children Fail".

This would make a great gift for expectant parents, I feel it would point out to them that babies deserve a lot of respect for being able to figure out the world around them. This notion of being in awe of and respectful of children starting at birth is seldom written about...so many of us were under the misguided notion that an adult must be the one to force learning onto babies and children (me included until I birthed my babies and saw firsthand how smart they are).