How to Sell Conservatism: Lesson 1 — Pretend You’re a Reformer (##)

October 20, 2010 How to Sell Conservatism Lesson 1 — Pretend You’re a Reformer By Alfie Kohn If you somehow neglected to renew your subscription to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, you may have missed a couple of interesting articles last year. A series of studies conducted by two independent groups of researchers (published in the September and November 2009 issues, respectively) added … Read More

School Would Be Great If It Weren’t for the Damn Kids

September 17, 2010 School Would Be Great If It Weren’t for the Damn Kids By Alfie Kohn Robert J. Samuelson, an economics writer, published a column about school reform in both the Washington Post and Newsweek that had me imagining a conversation as it would play out in a sitcom. We hear Samuelson saying, “Few subjects inspire more intellectual dishonesty and political puffery … Read More

How to Create Nonreaders (#)

  ENGLISH JOURNAL Fall 2010 — vol. 100, no. 1 How to Create Nonreaders Reflections on Motivation, Learning, and Sharing Power By Alfie Kohn Autonomy-supportive teachers seek a student’s initiative…whereas controlling teachers seek a student’s compliance.                                                                                                        — J. Reeve, E. Bolt, & Y. Cai Not that you asked, but my favorite Spanish proverb, attributed to the poet Juan Ramón … Read More

Bad Signs (#)

KAPPA DELTA PI RECORD Fall 2010 Bad Signs By Alfie Kohn You can tell quite a lot about what goes on in a classroom or a school even if you visit after everyone has gone home.  Just by looking at the walls – or, more precisely, what’s on the walls — it’s possible to get a feel for the educational … Read More

So What SHOULD Parents Do?

April 2010 So What SHOULD Parents Do? By Alfie Kohn “If rewards and punishments just make things worse, what should parents do?”  The question is perfectly reasonable yet very difficult to answer in a simple and satisfying way. That’s true, first, because everything depends on how the question ends: What should parents do . . . to make kids do whatever we tell … Read More

Getting Rid of Grades: Case Studies

January 2010 Getting Rid of Grades Case Studies By Alfie Kohn Given that most schools still send home report cards with letter or number grades, and most teachers still put these letters or numbers on students’ individual assignments, you would never guess that most studies of the effects of grades find that they’re destructive in multiple ways. For nearly a … Read More

Parental Love with Strings Attached (#)

NEW YORK TIMES September 15, 2009 Parental Love with Strings Attached By Alfie Kohn [This is a slightly expanded version of the published article, which was titled “When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say.’” For a more detailed treatment of the topic discussed here, please see the book or DVD entitled Unconditional Parenting.] Para leer este artículo en Español, haga clic aquí. … Read More

Cash Incentives Won’t Make Us Healthier (#)

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