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Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.

Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Decision
Learn
Making
Children
Make
Directions
Good
Decisions
Following
Learning

More quotes by Alfie Kohn

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Don't let anyone tell you that standardized tests are not accurate measures. The truth of the matter is they offer a remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered.
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If unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn't necessary. If they're absent, praise won't help.
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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.
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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
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To feel controlled is to lose interest.
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The Legacy of Behaviorism: Do this and you'll get that.
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To be well-educated is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends.
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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.
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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.
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In outstanding classrooms, teachers do more listening than talking, and students do more talking than listening. Terrific teachers often have teeth marks on their tongues.
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We learn most readily, most naturally, most effectively, when we start with the big picture - precisely when the basics don't come first.
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In a word, learning is decontextualized. We break ideas down into tiny pieces that bear no relation to the whole. We give students a brick of information, followed by another brick, followed by another brick, until they are graduated, at which point we assume they have a house. What they have is a pile of bricks, and they don't have it for long.
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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
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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
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Educational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.
Alfie Kohn
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Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches it’s what the learner learns.
Alfie Kohn
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Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.
Alfie Kohn
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Grades are a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.
Alfie Kohn
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Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.
Alfie Kohn
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Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.
Alfie Kohn