From the Appendix (“Parenting Styles: The Relevance of Culture, Class, and Race”) to Unconditional Parenting (Atria Books, 2005) Copyright © 2005 by Alfie Kohn Parental Discipline and Race By Alfie Kohn ….Needless to say, differences in discipline styles occur not only across cultures but among groups within a single culture, particularly when we’re talking about a complex modern society such … Read More
A Different View
GREATER GOOD Spring-Summer 2005 A Different View Helping Children to See the World from Another’s Perspective By Alfie Kohn [This article is adapted from the book Unconditional Parenting] Franz Kafka once described war as a “monstrous failure of imagination.” In order to kill, one must cease to see individual human beings and instead reduce them to an abstraction: … Read More
Pseudochoice
From Chapter 9: “Choices for Children” in Unconditional Parenting (Atria Books, 2005) Pseudochoice By Alfie Kohn Some parents and teachers talk about “choice” not in the context of allowing kids to have more say but rather as a way of blaming them for deliberately deciding to do something bad. A sentence such as “You chose to break the rule” amounts … Read More
Challenging Students . . . And How to Have More of Them (#)
PHI DELTA KAPPAN November 2004 Challenging Students . . . And How to Have More of Them By Alfie Kohn Learning by doing, a common shorthand for the idea that active participation helps students to understand ideas or acquire skills, is an established principle of progressive education. Much less attention, however, has been paid to the complementary possibility that teachers … Read More
Feel-Bad Education: The Cult of Rigor and the Loss of Joy (#)
EDUCATION WEEK September 15, 2004 Feel-Bad Education The Cult of Rigor and the Loss of Joy By Alfie Kohn “Why are our schools not places of joy?” This question, posed by John Goodlad exactly 20 years ago, was both a summary of his landmark study of American classrooms and a plea for his readers to realize that a place called … Read More
Safety from the Inside Out (#)
EDUCATIONAL HORIZONS Fall 2004 Safety from the Inside Out Rethinking Traditional Approaches By Alfie Kohn For many people, the idea of safety in an educational context brings to mind the problem of school violence, and specifically the string of shootings at schools across the country in recent years. Let’s begin, then, by noting that the coverage of these events has … Read More
A Promise Unfulfilled: 150 Words on Brown v. Board
NASSP NewsLeader May 2004 A Promise Unfulfilled By Alfie Kohn Brown v. Board is a promise unfulfilled, a vision of racial justice unrealized. Segregation continues even as our society has become more diverse; disparities persist in the allocation of resources and the quality of education. Minority students are still more likely to get older books, larger classes, burnt-out teachers, and factory-style … Read More
Test Today, Privatize Tomorrow
PHI DELTA KAPPAN April 2004 Test Today, Privatize Tomorrow Using Accountability to “Reform” Public Schools to Death By Alfie Kohn I just about fell off my desk chair the other day when I came across my own name in an essay by a conservative economist who specializes in educational issues. The reason for my astonishment is that I was described … Read More
Rethinking Character Education: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Camp and Kids
CAMPING MAGAZINE September/October 2003 Rethinking Character Education: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Camping & Kids By Alfie Kohn A substantial number of people believe that camps can do more than provide an opportunity to have fun: They can also promote children’s social and moral growth. This explains the growing interest among American Camping Association members in the movement known as … Read More
The Folly of Merit Pay (**)
EDUCATION WEEK September 17, 2003 The Folly of Merit Pay By Alfie Kohn There’s no end to the possible uses for that nifty little Latin phrase Cui bono?, which means: Who benefits? Whose interests are served? It’s the right question to ask about a testing regimen guaranteed to make most public schools look as though they’re failing. Or about the assumption … Read More