USA TODAY May 21, 2009 Cash Incentives Won’t Make Us Healthier By Alfie Kohn [This is an expanded version of the published article. Click here for a 1-hour audio presentation by Kohn on this topic.] In its first salvo at reforming health care, Congress is reportedly considering legislation that would do two things: help employers to set up wellness programs and encourage … Read More
More Evidence That Incentives Fail
May 2009 More Evidence That Incentives Fail By Alfie Kohn Punished by Rewards is surely the only book from which excerpts were simultaneously published in Parents magazine and the Harvard Business Review – evidence of how pervasive is our culture’s embrace of pop-behaviorism. In the family, the workplace, and the classroom, more-powerful people try to control less-powerful people by dangling some sort of reward … Read More
When “21st-Century Schooling” Just Isn’t Good Enough: A Modest Proposal (#)
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION February 2009 When “21st-Century Schooling” Just Isn’t Good Enough: A Modest Proposal By Alfie Kohn Many school administrators, and even more people who aren’t educators but are kind enough to offer their advice about how our field can be improved, have emphasized the need for “21st-century schools” that teach “21st-century skills.” But is this really enough, particularly now … Read More
Beware of School “Reformers”
THE NATION December 29, 2008 Beware of School “Reformers” By Alfie Kohn “If we taught babies to talk as most skills are taught in school, they would memorize lists of sounds in a predetermined order and practice them alone in a closet.” — Linda Darling-Hammond Political progressives are in short supply on the president-elect’s list of cabinet nominees. When he … Read More
Por Qué Está Sobrevalorada La Autodisciplina
PHI DELTA KAPPAN Noviembre 2008 Por qué está sobrevalorada la autodisciplina La (inquietante) teoría y práctica del control desde dentro Por Alfie Kohn Si hay un rasgo del carácter por cuyos beneficios hayan abogado tanto los educadores tradicionales como los progresistas, bien pudiera ser la autodisciplina. Casi todo el mundo quiere que los estudiantes hagan caso omiso de sus impulsos … Read More
Why Self-Discipline Is Overrated (#)
PHI DELTA KAPPAN November 2008 Why Self-Discipline Is Overrated: The (Troubling) Theory and Practice of Control from Within By Alfie Kohn Para leer este artículo en Español, haga clic aquí Pour lire cet article en français, cliquer ici. For an extended and updated discussion of this topic, please see chapter 7 of the book The Myth of the Spoiled Child. If there is … Read More
It’s Not What We Teach; It’s What They Learn (#)
EDUCATION WEEK September 10, 2008 It’s Not What We Teach; It’s What They Learn By Alfie Kohn I never understood all the fuss about that old riddle – “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear, does it still make a sound?” Isn’t it just a question of how we choose to define the … Read More
Teachers Who Have Stopped Assigning Homework
September 2008 Teachers Who Have Stopped Assigning Homework By Alfie Kohn Is it really possible to completely eliminate homework – or at least to assign it rarely, only when it’s truly needed – even in high school? We keep hearing from educators who say it’s not only possible but preferable to do so. Some of these folks were influenced by … Read More
Early Childhood Education: The Case Against Direct Instruction of Academic Skills (#)
From Appendix A: “The Hard Evidence” in The Schools Our Children Deserve (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999) Early Childhood Education: The Case Against Direct Instruction of Academic Skills By Alfie Kohn “The earlier [that schools try] to inculcate so-called ‘academic’ skills, the deeper the damage and the more permanent the ‘achievement’ gap.” — Deborah Meier Some of the most ambitious and expensive educational … Read More
Teachers Who Refuse to Hand Out the Tests
May 2008 Teachers Who Refuse to Hand Out the Tests By Alfie Kohn What if they gave a test and nobody came? Or what if all the students came, but the teachers refused to give them a test? The civil rights movement succeeded not only because good laws were eventually passed (mandating desegregation) but because ordinary people refused to obey … Read More