Alfie Kohn Quotes

38 Sourced Quotes

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

Alfie Kohn
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
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
Trying to be number one and trying to do a task well are two different things.

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
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
What is wrong with encouraging students to put "how well they're doing" ahead of "what they're doing." An impressive and growing body of research suggests that this emphasis (1) undermines students' interest in learning, (2) makes failure seem overwhelming, (3) leads students to avoid challenging themselves, (4) reduces the quality of learning, and (5) invites students to think about how smart they are instead of how hard they tried.

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

Alfie Kohn
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
The legendary statistical consultant W. Edwards Deming,... has called the system by which merit is appraised and rewarded 'the most powerful inhibitor to quality and productivity in the Western world'... it is simply unfair to the extent that employees are held responsible for what are, in reality, systemic factors that are beyond their control.

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
Most of us would protest that of course we love our children without any strings attached. But what counts is how things look from the perspective of the children

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

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

Alfie Kohn
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
In some suburban schools, the curriculum is chock-full of rigorous A.P. courses and the parking lot glitters with pricey SUVs, but one doesn't have to look hard to find students who are starving themselves, cutting themselves, or medicating themselves, as well students who are taking out their frustrations on those who sit lower on the social food chain.

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

Alfie Kohn
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?

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

Alfie Kohn
Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches; it's what the learner learns.

Alfie Kohn
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
In short, with each of the thousand-and-one problems that present themselves in family life, our choice is between controlling and teaching, between creating an atmosphere of distrust and one of trust, between setting an example of power and helping children to learn responsibility, between quick-fix parenting and the kind that's focused on long-term goals.

Alfie Kohn
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
Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions

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 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
Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being controlled— those who are not trusted, given explanations, encouraged to think for themselves, helped to develop and internalize good values, and so on. Control breeds the need for more control, which is used to justify the use of control.

Alfie Kohn
Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.

Alfie Kohn
Do rewards motivate people? Absolutely. They motivate people to get rewards.

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 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
It doesn't matter how motivated students are; what matters is how students are motivated

Alfie Kohn