Turning Learning Into A Business: Concerns About ‘Quality Management’ at School (*)

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP September 1993 Turning Learning Into A Business Concerns About “Quality Management” at School By Alfie Kohn Every few years a new idea captures the imagination of educators and suddenly seems to be everywhere at once.  The journals are filled with breathless accounts of its importance, a cadre of consultants materializes to offer workshops and trainings, and a new … Read More

Choices for Children: Why and How to Let Students Decide (*)

PHI DELTA KAPPAN September 1993 Choices for Children Why and How to Let Students Decide By Alfie Kohn The essence of the demand for freedom is the need of conditions which will enable an individual to make his own special contribution to a group interest, and to partake of its activities in such ways that social guidance shall be a … Read More

Why We Should Avoid Rewards Even for Boring Tasks

From Chapter 5: “Cutting the Interest Rate” of Punished by Rewards (Houghton Mifflin, 1993/2018) Why We Should Avoid Rewards Even for Boring Tasks By Alfie Kohn   . . . . “If we’re worried about reducing intrinsic motivation, then what’s the problem with giving people rewards for doing things they don’t find interesting?” It is true that rewards are most likely … Read More

Changing Education from the Inside Out

May 1993 Changing Education from the Inside Out Four Books from the 1990s Illuminate Progressive Schooling By Alfie Kohn [NOTE:  This review-essay was never published. You may judge for yourself whether it – and the books under review – are still relevant several decades later.]   EDUCATION AS ADVENTURE: Lessons from the Second Grade. By John G. Nicholls and Susan … Read More

School Choice Myths (*)

BOSTON GLOBE April 24, 1993 School Choice Myths By Alfie Kohn Most critics of school choice proposals, in which students shop for an education and school districts must compete for their business, have emphasized the inequity of such plans, contending that they are recipes for making the rich districts richer and the poor poorer. This argument needs to be taken … Read More

Back to Nurture

AMERICAN HEALTH April 1993 Back to Nurture By Alfie Kohn Neckties narrow and then widen again as the years go by; today’s hot hairstyle will soon be painfully passe. Chances are such phases do not faze you. But in the field of science, including the study of human behavior, you may prefer to think there are no passing fads, no … Read More

Competition vs. Excellence

NEW YORK TIMES April 26, 1991 Competition vs. Excellence By Alfie Kohn Even before we examine each provision of President Bush’s new proposal to make our educational system more competitive, we should challenge the premise of his plan. The trouble with our schools is that they are already much too competitive. The very word “competitiveness,” lately a favorite of educators, economists, … Read More

Value Human Life, Not American Power

BOSTON GLOBE March 16, 1991 Value Human Life, Not American Power By Alfie Kohn Stop the next ten people you see and ask them how many lives were lost in the Vietnam War. Chances are you’ll get answers of about 50,000. This, however, is just the number of Americans who died during the decade-long invasion of that country. Nearly two … Read More

Group Grade Grubbing versus Cooperative LEARNING

  EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP March 1991 Group Grade Grubbing versus Cooperative Learning By Alfie Kohn Even before the recent surge of interest in cooperative learning (CL), researchers and practitioners were already staking out positions on precisely what the term denotes and how the idea should be implemented.  Constructive controversies (or, less charitably, factional disputes) have arisen with respect to almost every aspect … Read More