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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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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Movies
Standardized
Point
Threatens
School
Swallow
Whole
Testing
Like
Creature
Schools
Horror
Mutated
Creatures
Swelled

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Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.
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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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Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of behavior.
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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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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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Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.
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To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
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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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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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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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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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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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Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
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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 unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn't necessary. If they're absent, praise won't help.
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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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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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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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Educational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.
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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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