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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.
Alfie Kohn
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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Tell
Tests
Measurement
Truth
Size
Measures
School
Method
Precise
Gauging
Matter
Offers
Houses
Standardization
Teacher
Accurate
Standardized
Education
Near
Administered
Anyone
Test
Gauges
House
Offer
Remarkably
More quotes by Alfie Kohn
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
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.
Alfie Kohn
Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
Alfie Kohn
When was the last time you spent the entire day with only 42 year olds?
Alfie Kohn
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.
Alfie Kohn
If faculty would relax their emphasis on grades, this might serve not to lower standards but to encourage an orientation toward learning.
Alfie Kohn
If unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn't necessary. If they're absent, praise won't help.
Alfie Kohn
We can't value only what is easy to measure measurable outcomes may be the least important results of learning.
Alfie Kohn
The race to win turns us all into losers.
Alfie Kohn
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
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?
Alfie Kohn
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
If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.
Alfie Kohn
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.
Alfie Kohn
In education, parody is obsolete.
Alfie Kohn
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.
Alfie Kohn
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.
Alfie Kohn
Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.
Alfie Kohn
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.
Alfie Kohn
Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.
Alfie Kohn
