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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
Truth
Size
Measures
School
Method
Precise
Gauging
Matter
Offers
Houses
Standardization
Teacher
Accurate
Standardized
Education
Near
Administered
Anyone
Test
Gauges
House
Offer
Remarkably
Tell
Tests
Measurement

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Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.
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Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.
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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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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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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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What can we surmise about the likelihood of someone's being caring and generous, loving and helpful, just from knowing that they are a believer? Virtually nothing, say psychologists, sociologists, and others who have studied that question for decade
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The race to win turns us all into losers.
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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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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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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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Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
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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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If unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn't necessary. If they're absent, praise won't help.
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There are different kinds of motivation, and the kind matters more than the amount.
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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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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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Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.
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Educational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.
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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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