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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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Teachers
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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
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There are different kinds of motivation, and the kind matters more than the amount.
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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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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.
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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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Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.
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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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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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We can't value only what is easy to measure measurable outcomes may be the least important results of learning.
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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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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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People will typically be more enthusiastic where they feel a sense of belonging and see themselves as part of a community than they will in a workplace in which each person is left to his own devices
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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.
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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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To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
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The race to win turns us all into losers.
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Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Excellence and victory are conceptually distinct . . . and are experienced differently.
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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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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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Whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question never looked carefully at a standardized test.
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