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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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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Punishment
Model
Rewards
Basically
Conceives
Models
Proceed
Motivation
Manipulation
Behavior
Reward
Nothing
Psychological

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To feel controlled is to lose interest.
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Contrary to what you think, your company will be a lot more productive if you refuse to tolerate competition among your employees.
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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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Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.
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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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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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To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
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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.
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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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Trying to be number one and trying to do a task well are two different things.
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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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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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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
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When we do things that are controlling, whether intentional or not, we are not going to get those long-term outcomes.
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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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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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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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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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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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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