Quote

Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Excellence and victory are conceptually distinct . . . and are experienced differently.

Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Different
Excellence
Trying
Beat
Things
Beats
Victory
Others
Conceptually
Two
Distinct
Wells
Differently
Well
Experienced

More quotes by Alfie Kohn

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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.
Alfie Kohn
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Grades are a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.
Alfie Kohn
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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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To feel controlled is to lose interest.
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.
Alfie Kohn
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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
Alfie Kohn
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Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.
Alfie Kohn
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Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.
Alfie Kohn
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The overwhelming number of teachers ...are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do.
Alfie Kohn
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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
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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Whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question never looked carefully at a standardized test.
Alfie Kohn
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When was the last time you spent the entire day with only 42 year olds?
Alfie Kohn