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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.

Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Teach
Learners
Educator
Learns
Counts
Classroom
Remind
Teaches
Learner
Teacher
Educators

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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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If unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn't necessary. If they're absent, praise won't help.
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Do rewards motivate people? Absolutely. They motivate people to get rewards.
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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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John Dewey reminded us that the value of what students do 'resides in its connection with a stimulation of greater thoughtfulness, not in the greater strain it imposes.
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Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.
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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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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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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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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
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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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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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Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.
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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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Children, after all, are not just adults-in-the-making. They are people whose current needs and rights and experiences must be taken seriously.
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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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If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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Learning is something students do, NOT something done to 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.
Alfie Kohn