April 7, 2015 Evidence? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Evidence! By Alfie Kohn Have you ever suspected that much of what you do for a living is an extended exercise in missing the point? I’ve spent many years challenging claims about the benefits of rewarding or praising children (when they act the way we want) and punishing them (when they … Read More
Four Reasons to Worry About “Personalized Learning”
February 23, 2015 Four Reasons to Worry About “Personalized Learning” By Alfie Kohn Tocqueville’s observations about the curious version of democracy that Americans were cultivating in the 1830s have served as a touchstone for social scientists ever since. One sociologist writes about the continued relevance of what Tocqueville noticed way back then, particularly the odd fact that we cherish our … Read More
Progressive Labels for Regressive Practices
January 31, 2015 Progressive Labels for Regressive Practices How Key Terms in Education Have Been Co-opted By Alfie Kohn “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” — Lewis Caroll, Through the Looking Glass “Whole language” (WL), a collaborative, meaning-based approach … Read More
Introduction to “More Than a Score”
Introduction to More Than a Score 2014 Introduction More than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Tests, edited by J. Hagopian (Haymarket Books, 2014) By Alfie Kohn In early March of 1999, on a chilly Sunday morning in San Francisco, more than a thousand educators packed into a huge convention center space during ASCD’s annual conference. They were … Read More
Rethinking Homework Surveys
Rethinking Homework Surveys It’s not uncommon for schools to distribute surveys to parents in an effort to learn more about families’ experiences with homework. While it might be even more helpful to ask the students themselves, it’s always commendable when someone wants to check out how a policy is affecting those on the receiving end. Unfortunately, what’s most striking about … Read More
Incentives and Health Promotion
Incentives and Health Promotion: What Do the Data Really Say? by Alfie Kohn For a comprehensive review of research showing that rewards in general tend to diminish intrinsic interest as well as quality of performance, please see Punished by Rewards. The two specific issues on which most research in the field of health promotion has been conducted are effects on smoking … Read More
Grade Inflation Sources
Grade Inflation Sources ARE GRADES ACTUALLY GOING UP? College — Clifford Adelman, “A’s Aren’t That Easy,” New York Times, May 17, 1995, p. A19 – describes a five-year study of “the records of 21,000 students from more than 3,000 universities, community colleges, and trade schools” that found “grades actually declined slightly in the last two decades.” Original source: The New College Course … Read More
Possible Purposes of Schools
Possible Purposes of Schools From Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) Copyright © 1999 by Alfie Kohn
Why the Best Teachers Don’t Give Tests (##)
October 30, 2014 Why the Best Teachers Don’t Give Tests By Alfie Kohn Frankly, I’m baffled by the number of educators who are adamantly opposed to standardized testing yet raise no objection to other practices that share important features with such testing. For starters, consider those lists of specific, prescriptive curriculum standards to which the tests are yoked. Here we … Read More
References and Resources
References and Resources The “five fatal flaws” of the Tougher Standards movement are adapted from Alfie Kohn’s book THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE, from which a shorter book called THE CASE AGAINST STANDARDIZED TESTING has been spun off. You may also be interested in a list of his essays about standards and testing. Other resources: Books about testing by various writers: — Daniel … Read More