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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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Alfie Kohn
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: October 15
Author
Teacher
Writer
Miami Beach
Florida
Would
Faculty
Lower
Relax
Serve
Standards
Orientation
Toward
Emphasis
Learning
Grades
Might
Encourage

More quotes by Alfie Kohn

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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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Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches it’s what the learner learns.
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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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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.
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Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.
Alfie Kohn
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Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.
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Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.
Alfie Kohn
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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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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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Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
Alfie Kohn
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Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.
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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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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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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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Punishments and rewards are two sides of the same coin and that coin doesn't buy you much.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
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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If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.
Alfie Kohn
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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.
Alfie Kohn
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Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
Alfie Kohn