Alfie Kohn Quotes - Page 2

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Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.

Alfie Kohn

Punishment, Moral Growth, Erode

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Do rewards motivate people? Absolutely. They motivate people to get rewards.

Alfie Kohn

Education, People, Intelligence

Alfie Kohn (1999). “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes”, p.83, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don't want them to grow up and resent you or, even worse, parent the way you parented them.

Alfie Kohn

Growing Up, Unconditional Love, Resent You

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Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being controlled— those who are not trusted, given explanations, encouraged to think for themselves, helped to develop and internalize good values, and so on. Control breeds the need for more control, which is used to justify the use of control.

Alfie Kohn

Running, Children, Thinking

Alfie Kohn (1999). “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes”, p.49, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior.

Alfie Kohn

Children, Book, Numbers

Alfie Kohn (2011). “Feel-bad Education: And Other Contrarian Essays on Children and Schooling”, p.110, Beacon Press

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Sometimes we have to put our foot down, ... but before we deliberately make children unhappy in order to get them to get into the car, or to do their homework or whatever, we need to weigh whether what we're doing to make it happen is worth the possible strain on our relationship with them.

Alfie Kohn

Children, Order, Feet

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What is wrong with encouraging students to put "how well they're doing" ahead of "what they're doing." An impressive and growing body of research suggests that this emphasis (1) undermines students' interest in learning, (2) makes failure seem overwhelming, (3) leads students to avoid challenging themselves, (4) reduces the quality of learning, and (5) invites students to think about how smart they are instead of how hard they tried.

Alfie Kohn

Smart, Thinking, Challenges

Alfie Kohn (2000). “The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"”, p.37, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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When test scores go up, we should worry, because of how poor a measure they are of what matters, and what you typically sacrifice in a desperate effort to raise scores.

Alfie Kohn

School, Sacrifice, What Matters

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Strip away all the assumptions about what competition is supposed to do, all the claims in its behalf that we accept and repeat reflexively. What you have left is the essence of the concept: mutually exclusive goal attainment (MEGA). One person succeeds only if another does not. From this uncluttered perspective, it seems clear right away that something is drastically wrong with such an arrangement. How can we do our best when we are spending our energies trying to make others lose--and fearing that they will make us lose?

Alfie Kohn

Essence, Goal, Perspective

Alfie Kohn (2013). “No Contest: The Case Against Competition”, p.19, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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A preoccupation with achievement is not only different from, but often detrimental to, a focus on learning. Thoughts and emotions while performing an action are more important in determining subsequent engagement than the actual outcome of that action.

Alfie Kohn

Focus, Achievement, Important

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Standardized testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole.

Alfie Kohn

School, Horror, Standardized Testing

Alfie Kohn (2004). “What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?: And More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies”, p.54, Beacon Press

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Most of us would protest that of course we love our children without any strings attached. But what counts is how things look from the perspective of the children

Alfie Kohn

Children, Strings Attached, Perspective

Alfie Kohn (2011). “Feel-bad Education: And Other Contrarian Essays on Children and Schooling”, p.159, Beacon Press

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Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.

Alfie Kohn

Moving, Punishment, Rewards

"Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason". Book by Alfie Kohn, March 28, 2006.

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Independence is useful, but caring attitudes and behaviors shrivel up in a culture where each person is responsible only for himself.

Alfie Kohn

Attitude, Caring, Independence

Alfie Kohn (1999). “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes”, p.259, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Trying to be number one and trying to do a task well are two different things.

Alfie Kohn

Two, Numbers, Trying

Alfie Kohn (2013). “No Contest: The Case Against Competition”, p.87, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Students should not only be trained to live in a democracy when they grow up; they should have the chance to live in one today.

Alfie Kohn

Growing Up, Should Have, Democracy

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Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.

Alfie Kohn

Educational, Done, Students

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Grades are a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.

Alfie Kohn

Evaluation, Rating, Grades

Alfie Kohn (2000). “The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"”, p.50, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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To feel controlled is to lose interest.

Alfie Kohn

Inspirational, Interest, Feels

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The overwhelming number of teachers ...are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do.

Alfie Kohn

Teacher, Teaching, Learning

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John Dewey reminded us that the value of what students do 'resides in its connection with a stimulation of greater thoughtfulness, not in the greater strain it imposes.

Alfie Kohn

Connections, Students, Thoughtfulness

Alfie Kohn (2007). “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing”, p.72, Da Capo Press

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In some suburban schools, the curriculum is chock-full of rigorous A.P. courses and the parking lot glitters with pricey SUVs, but one doesn't have to look hard to find students who are starving themselves, cutting themselves, or medicating themselves, as well students who are taking out their frustrations on those who sit lower on the social food chain.

Alfie Kohn

School, Cutting, Frustration

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How can we do our best when we are spending our energies trying to make others lose - and fearing that they will make us lose?

Alfie Kohn

Trying, Energy, Spending

Alfie Kohn (2013). “No Contest: The Case Against Competition”, p.19, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.

Alfie Kohn

Play, Risk, Trying

Alfie Kohn (1999). “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes”, p.154, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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In short, with each of the thousand-and-one problems that present themselves in family life, our choice is between controlling and teaching, between creating an atmosphere of distrust and one of trust, between setting an example of power and helping children to learn responsibility, between quick-fix parenting and the kind that's focused on long-term goals.

Alfie Kohn

Children, Teaching, Responsibility

Alfie Kohn (2006). “Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason”, p.174, Simon and Schuster

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Born: October 15, 1957
Occupation: Author
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