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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 -
What can we surmise about the likelihood of someone's being caring and generous, loving and helpful, just from knowing that they are a believer? Virtually nothing, say psychologists, sociologists, and others who have studied that question for decade.
Alfie Kohn
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When we do things that are controlling, whether intentional or not, we are not going to get those long-term outcomes.
Alfie Kohn -
There are different kinds of motivation, and the kind matters more than the amount.
Alfie Kohn -
If I offered you a thousand dollars to take off your shoes, you'd very likely accept--and then I could triumphantly announce that 'rewards work.' But as with punishments, they can never help someone develop a *commitment* to a task or action, a reason to keep doing it when there's no longer a payoff.
Alfie Kohn -
Each time I visit such a classroom, where the teacher is more interested in creating a democratic community than in maintaining her position of authority, I’m convinced all over again that moving away from consequences and rewards isn’t just realistic - it’s the best way to help kids grow into good learners and good people.
Alfie Kohn -
Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Excellence and victory are conceptually distinct . . . and are experienced differently.
Alfie Kohn -
The difference between a good educator and a great educator is that the former figures out how to work within the constraints of traditional policies and accepted assumptions, whereas the latter figures out how to change whatever gets in the way of doing right by kids. 'But we've always...', 'But the parents will never...', 'But we can't be the only school in the area to...' - all such protestations are unpersuasive to great educators. If research and common sense argue for doing things differently, then the question isn't whether to change course but how to make it happen.
Alfie Kohn
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If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.
Alfie Kohn -
Contrary to what you think, your company will be a lot more productive if you refuse to tolerate competition among your employees.
Alfie Kohn -
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 -
To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
Alfie Kohn -
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 -
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
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Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.
Alfie Kohn -
Educational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.
Alfie Kohn -
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 -
The legendary statistical consultant W. Edwards Deming, . . . has called the system by which merit is appraised and rewarded 'the most powerful inhibitor to quality and productivity in the Western world' . . . it is simply unfair to the extent that employees are held responsible for what are, in reality, systemic factors that are beyond their control.
Alfie Kohn -
Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
Alfie Kohn -
Trying to be number one and trying to do a task well are two different things.
Alfie Kohn
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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 -
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 -
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 -
Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of behavior.
Alfie Kohn