Alfie Kohn Quotes
Top 55 wise famous quotes and sayings 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.
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.
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.
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?
By contrast, training and goal-setting programs had a far greater impact on productivity than did anything involving payment.32
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.
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.
Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children's happiness than for their success.
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.
If faculty would relax their emphasis on grades, this might serve not to lower standards but to encourage an orientation toward learning.
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.
Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.
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.