Alfie Kohn

In education, parody is obsolete.

— Alfie Kohn

Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.

— Alfie Kohn

“Nostalgia is only amnesia turned around,”

— Alfie Kohn

Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.

— Alfie Kohn

To feel controlled is to lose interest.

— Alfie Kohn

The race to win turns us all into losers.

— Alfie Kohn

The Legacy of Behaviorism: Do this and you'll get that.

— Alfie Kohn

The overwhelming number of teachers ...are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do.

— Alfie Kohn

If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.

— Alfie Kohn

Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason

— Alfie Kohn

To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.

— Alfie Kohn

We can't value only what is easy to measure; measurable outcomes may be the least important results of learning.

— Alfie Kohn

Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.

— Alfie Kohn

If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.

— Alfie Kohn

There are different kinds of motivation, and the kind matters more than the amount.

— Alfie Kohn

“Many of our elected officials have virtually handed the keys to our schools over to corporate interests. Presidential commissions on education are…

— Alfie Kohn

If faculty would relax their emphasis on grades, this might serve not to lower standards but to encourage an orientation toward learning.

— Alfie Kohn

Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of…

— Alfie Kohn

What can we surmise about the likelihood of someone's being caring and generous, loving and helpful, just from knowing that they are…

— Alfie Kohn

In outstanding classrooms, teachers do more listening than talking, and students do more talking than listening. Terrific teachers often have teeth marks…

— Alfie Kohn

You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don't…

— Alfie Kohn

Someone who thinks well of himself is said to have a healthy self-concept and is envied. Someone who thinks well of his…

— Alfie Kohn

Independence is useful, but caring attitudes and behaviors shrivel up in a culture where each person is responsible only for himself.

— Alfie Kohn

If I offered you a thousand dollars to take off your shoes, you'd very likely accept--and then I could triumphantly announce that…

— Alfie Kohn

Each time I visit such a classroom, where the teacher is more interested in creating a democratic community than in maintaining her…

— Alfie Kohn

Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom…

— Alfie Kohn

Non-cooperative approaches, by contrast, almost always involve duplication of effort, since someone working independently must spend time and skills on problems that…

— Alfie Kohn

In some suburban schools, the curriculum is chock-full of rigorous A.P. courses and the parking lot glitters with pricey SUVs, but one…

— Alfie Kohn

The legendary statistical consultant W. Edwards Deming, . . . has called the system by which merit is appraised and rewarded 'the…

— Alfie Kohn

“The more we want our children to be (1) lifelong learners, genuinely excited about words and numbers and ideas, (2) avoid sticking…

— Alfie Kohn

Those who know they're valued irrespective of their accomplishments often end up accomplishing quite a lot. It's the experience of being accepted…

— Alfie Kohn

The difference between a good educator and a great educator is that the former figures out how to work within the constraints…

— Alfie Kohn

“In my experience, most parents sincerely want their children to be assertive, independent thinkers who are unafraid to stand their ground .…

— Alfie Kohn

“Even before i had children, I knew that being a parent was going to be challenging as well as rewarding. But I…

— Alfie Kohn

“It’s been said that the personal is political, and there’s no doubt that parenting is intensely personal. To argue against traditional ways…

— Alfie Kohn

Strip away all the assumptions about what competition is supposed to do, all the claims in its behalf that we accept and…

— Alfie Kohn

“So what, exactly, is the positive reinforcement that’s being suspended when a child is given a time-out? Sometimes he’s doing something fun…

— Alfie Kohn

To be well-educated is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends.

— Alfie Kohn

Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.

— Alfie Kohn

Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students.

— Alfie Kohn