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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
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Names
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Overwhelming

More quotes by 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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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
Alfie Kohn
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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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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.
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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.
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.
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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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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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If unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn't necessary. If they're absent, praise won't help.
Alfie Kohn
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Grades are a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.
Alfie Kohn
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Punishments and rewards are two sides of the same coin and that coin doesn't buy you much.
Alfie Kohn
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To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
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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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.
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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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
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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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Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
Alfie Kohn