Alfie Kohn
Alfie Kohn
Alfie Kohnis an American author and lecturer in the areas of education, parenting, and human behavior. He is a proponent of progressive education and has offered critiques of many traditional aspects of parenting, managing, and American society more generally, drawing in each case from social science research...
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth15 October 1957
motivation punishment rewards
Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of behavior.
two excellence victory
Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Excellence and victory are conceptually distinct . . . and are experienced differently.
teacher teaching learning
The overwhelming number of teachers ...are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do.
years lasts last-time
When was the last time you spent the entire day with only 42 year olds?
team simple player
Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.
two numbers trying
Trying to be number one and trying to do a task well are two different things.
educational done students
Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
running children thinking
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.
issues doe pay
If rewards do not work, what does? I recommend that employers pay workers well and fairly and then do everything possible to help them forget about money. A preoccupation with money distracts everyone - employers and employees - from the issues that really matter.
evaluation grades rating
Grades are a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.
smart thinking challenges
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.
important quality needs
The late W. Edwards Deming, guru of Quality management, once declared, 'The most important things we need to manage can't be measured.' If that’s true of what we need to manage, it should be even more obvious that it’s true of what we need to teach.
school punishment two-sides
Punishments and rewards are two sides of the same coin and that coin doesn't buy you much.
people psychology rewards
Social psychology has found the more you reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward.