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Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.

Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Risk
Dangerous
Incentive
Individual
Incentives
Play
Individuals
Trying
Bunch
Things
Management
Driven
Safe

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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
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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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Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
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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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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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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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Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.
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Educational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.
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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.
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Do rewards motivate people? Absolutely. They motivate people to get rewards.
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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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The overwhelming number of teachers ...are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do.
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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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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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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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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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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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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 can't value only what is easy to measure measurable outcomes may be the least important results of learning.
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