Alfie Kohn Quotes

44 quotes in 765 categories

• Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.
• 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…
• When we do things that are controlling, whether intentional or not, we are not going to get those long-term outcomes.
• Punishments and rewards are two sides of the same coin and that coin doesn't buy you much.
• The overwhelming number of teachers ...are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do.
• 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…
• 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…
• Children, after all, are not just adults-in-the-making. They are people whose current needs and rights and experiences must be taken seriously.
• 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…
• Independence is useful, but caring attitudes and behaviors shrivel up in a culture where each person is responsible only for himself.
• 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.
• Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches; it’s what the learner learns.
• Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of behavior.
• The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior.
• When was the last time you spent the entire day with only 42 year olds?
• The race to win turns us all into losers.
• 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.
• 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…
• 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…
• 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…

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