Alfie Kohn quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Alfie Kohn on Wise Famous Quotes.

Saying you taught it but the student didn't learn it is like saying you sold it but the customer didn't buy it.

The research suggests that praise may have [a negative, unintended] effect, directing attention away from the task [at hand] and toward your reaction.

We learn most readily, most naturally, most effectively, when we start with the big picture - precisely when the basics don't come first.

Children, after all, are not just adults-in-the-making. They are people whose current needs and rights and experiences must be taken seriously.

Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.

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

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

How well you do things should be incidental, not integral, to the way you regard yourself.

Grades are a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.

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

Rewards usually improve performance only at extremely simple - indeed, mindless - tasks, and even then they improve only quantitative performance.

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

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.

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

Nostalgia is only amnesia turned around, said the poet Adrienne Rich.

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.

Where did this disposition come from? And what are our long-term goals for people - particularly children - with respect to motivation?

The race to win turns us all into losers.

By contrast, training and goal-setting programs had a far greater impact on productivity than did anything involving payment.32

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

To feel controlled is to lose interest.

All rewards have the same effect," one writer declares. "They dilute the pure joy that comes from success itself.

The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior.

What matters is not just how motivated someone is but the source and nature of that motivation.13

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

Children don't just need to be loved; they need to know that nothing they do will change the fact that they're loved.

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.

Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children's happiness than for their success.

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

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

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

When was the last time you spent the entire day with only 42 year olds?

The point isn't just whether children know what to expect; it's whether what they've come to expect makes sense.

When unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are always present, "Good job!" isn't necessary; when they're absent, "Good job!" won't help.

Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.

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

The way kids learn to make good decisions is by making decisions, not by following directions.

If unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn't necessary. If they're absent, praise won't help.

For the anthropomorphic view of the rat, American psychology substituted a rattomorphic view of man. - Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation

Control is an unavoidable feature of human relationships; all that actually varies is the subtlety of the system of reinforcement.

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

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

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

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

Like any other tool for facilitating the completion of a questionable task, rewards offer a "how" answer to what is really a "why" question.

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

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

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

Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.

Educational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.

Whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question never looked carefully at a standardized test.

In education, parody is obsolete.

Sometimes the alternative to black and white isn't gray; it's, say, orange.

Contrary to what you think, your company will be a lot more productive if you refuse to tolerate competition among your employees.