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
growing-up should-have democracy
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.
children strings-attached perspective
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
school horror testing
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.
achievement focus important
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.
punishment moral-growth erode
Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.
play risk trying
Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.
moving punishment rewards
Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
legacy behaviorism
The Legacy of Behaviorism: Do this and you'll get that.
children book numbers
The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior.
children tasks problem
If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.
mean desire ends
To be well-educated is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends.
school sacrifice what-matters
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.
growing-up unconditional-love resent-you
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.
attitude caring independence
Independence is useful, but caring attitudes and behaviors shrivel up in a culture where each person is responsible only for himself.