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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
Matter
Raises
Tests
Scores
Matters
Typically
Sacrifice
Score
Worry
Desperate
Effort
Raise
Poor
Test
School
Measure

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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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Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
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How we feel about our kids isn't as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them.
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The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior.
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Saying you taught it but the student didn't learn it is like saying you sold it but the customer didn't buy it.
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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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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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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.
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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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Punishments and rewards are two sides of the same coin and that coin doesn't buy you much.
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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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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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To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
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Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.
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Those who know they're valued irrespective of their accomplishments often end up accomplishing quite a lot. It's the experience of being accepted without conditions that helps people develop a healthy confidence in themselves, a belief that it's safe to take risks and try new things.
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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
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If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.
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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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Independence is useful, but caring attitudes and behaviors shrivel up in a culture where each person is responsible only for himself.
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