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Trying to be number one and trying to do a task well are two different things.

Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Different
Trying
Task
Things
Tasks
Number
Numbers
Two
Wells
Well

More quotes by Alfie Kohn

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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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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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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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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.
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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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If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.
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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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Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.
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The race to win turns us all into losers.
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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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Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.
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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.
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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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In outstanding classrooms, teachers do more listening than talking, and students do more talking than listening. Terrific teachers often have teeth marks on their tongues.
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Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Excellence and victory are conceptually distinct . . . and are experienced differently.
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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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Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.
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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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If faculty would relax their emphasis on grades, this might serve not to lower standards but to encourage an orientation toward learning.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn