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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

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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Worry
Desperate
Effort
Raise
Poor
Test
School
Measure
Matter
Raises
Tests
Scores
Matters
Typically
Sacrifice
Score

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If faculty would relax their emphasis on grades, this might serve not to lower standards but to encourage an orientation toward learning.
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The Legacy of Behaviorism: Do this and you'll get that.
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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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To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
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Someone who thinks well of himself is said to have a healthy self-concept and is envied. Someone who thinks well of his country is called a patriot and is applauded. But someone who thinks well of his species is regarded as hopelessly naïve and is dismissed.
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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.
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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
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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?
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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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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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Whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question never looked carefully at a standardized test.
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Trying to be number one and trying to do a task well are two different things.
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Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.
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Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
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Punishments and rewards are two sides of the same coin and that coin doesn't buy you much.
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Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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In education, parody is obsolete.
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
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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