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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.

Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Teacher
Terrific
Talking
Classroom
Often
Teachers
Teeth
Tongue
Classrooms
Mark
Tongues
Students
Marks
Listening
Outstanding

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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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We can't value only what is easy to measure measurable outcomes may be the least important results of learning.
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Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
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Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.
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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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Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other 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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Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
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The race to win turns us all into losers.
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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.
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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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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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Grades are a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.
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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.
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To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.
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The Legacy of Behaviorism: Do this and you'll get that.
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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.
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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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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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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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