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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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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Teaching
Theory
Teacher
Underlies
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Unable
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Overwhelming
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More quotes by Alfie Kohn

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If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.
Alfie Kohn
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The late W. Edwards Deming, guru of Quality management, once declared, 'The most important things we need to manage can't be measured.' If that’s true of what we need to manage, it should be even more obvious that it’s true of what we need to teach.
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To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
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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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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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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
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
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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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We have so much to cover and so little time to cover it. Howard Gardner refers to curriculum coverage as the single greatest enemy of understanding. Think instead about ideas to be discovered.
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Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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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To feel controlled is to lose interest.
Alfie Kohn
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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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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.
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
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