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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.

Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Best
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Convinced
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Grows
Consequence
Learners
Good
Community
Democratic
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Classroom
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Consequences
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More quotes by Alfie Kohn

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Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.
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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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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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Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.
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Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
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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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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.
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In education, parody is obsolete.
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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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The Legacy of Behaviorism: Do this and you'll get that.
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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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Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.
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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.
Alfie Kohn