Holt sets out to describe, in plain language, his observations of what young children do in the classroom in response to our attempts to teach them. What comes out of this is the realization that too much of children's effort goes into either avoiding embarrassment or getting answers without understanding, and that in some ways we are encouraging this. Though Holt confines his descriptions exclusively to the education of young children, it becomes obvious that the behaviour he describes is carried by people through all of their lives. What starts out as a critical essay on primary education turns into a nearly universal commentary on how we think as adults and why we feel the way we do. An excellent book with a deceptively simple title.