Alfie Kohn Quotes - Page 3

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• If rewards do not work, what does? I recommend that employers pay workers well and fairly and then do everything possible to help them forget about money. A preoccupation with money distracts everyone - employers and employees - from the issues that really matter.

  Alfie Kohn

  Issues, Doe, Pay

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• Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.

  Alfie Kohn

  Assessment, Expectations, Students

  Alfie Kohn (2000). “The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "tougher Standards"”, p.198, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In short, with each of the thousand-and-one problems that present themselves in family life, our choice is between controlling and teaching, between creating an atmosphere of distrust and one of trust, between setting an example of power and helping children to learn responsibility, between quick-fix parenting and the kind that's focused on long-term goals.

  Alfie Kohn

  Children, Teaching, Responsibility

  Alfie Kohn (2006). “Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason”, p.174, Simon and Schuster

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• If faculty would relax their emphasis on grades, this might serve not to lower standards but to encourage an orientation toward learning.

  Alfie Kohn

  Relax, Might, Faculty

  Alfie Kohn (1999). “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes”, p.221, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Excellence and victory are conceptually distinct . . . and are experienced differently.

  Alfie Kohn

  Two, Excellence, Victory

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• The Legacy of Behaviorism: Do this and you'll get that.

  Alfie Kohn

  Legacy, Behaviorism

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• Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.

  Alfie Kohn

  Team, Simple, Player

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• It's not just that humiliating people, of any age, is a nasty and disrespectful way of treating them. It's that humiliation, like other forms of punishment, is counterproducti ve. 'Doing to' strategies - as opposed to those that might be described as 'working with' - can never achieve any result beyond temporary compliance, and it does so at a disturbing cost.

  Alfie Kohn

  Punishment, People, Age

  "Humiliating Children In Public: A New Parenting Trend?" by Lisa Belkin, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 18, 2012.

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• We learn most readily, most naturally, most effectively, when we start with the big picture - precisely when the basics don't come first.

  Alfie Kohn

  Firsts, Bigs, Basics

  Alfie Kohn (2000). “The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"”, p.62, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Contrary to what you think, your company will be a lot more productive if you refuse to tolerate competition among your employees.

  Alfie Kohn

  Thinking, Competition, Employee

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• To control students is to force them to accommodate to a preestablished curriculum.

  Alfie Kohn

  Curriculum, Students, Force

  Alfie Kohn (1999). “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes”, p.165, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Grades dilute the pleasure that a student experiences on successfully completing a task.

  Alfie Kohn

  Tasks, Students, Pleasure

  Alfie Kohn (1999). “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes”, p.220, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Non-cooperative approaches, by contrast, almost always involve duplication of effort, since someone working independently must spend time and skills on problems that already have been encountered and overcome by someone else. A technical hitch, for example, is more likely to be solved quickly and imaginatively if scientists (including scientists from different countries) pool their talents rather than compete against one another.

  Alfie Kohn

  Country, Skills, Effort

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• Maximum difficulty isn't the same as optimal difficulty.

  Alfie Kohn

  Difficulty, Optimal, Maximum

  Alfie Kohn (2000). “The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"”, p.118, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• When we do things that are controlling, whether intentional or not, we are not going to get those long-term outcomes.

  Alfie Kohn

  School, Long, Outcomes

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• What can we surmise about the likelihood of someone's being caring and generous, loving and helpful, just from knowing that they are a believer? Virtually nothing, say psychologists, sociologists, and others who have studied that question for decade

  Alfie Kohn

  Caring, Knowing, Helpful

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• When was the last time you spent the entire day with only 42 year olds?

  Alfie Kohn

  Years, Lasts, Last Time

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• The legendary statistical consultant W. Edwards Deming, . . . has called the system by which merit is appraised and rewarded 'the most powerful inhibitor to quality and productivity in the Western world' . . . it is simply unfair to the extent that employees are held responsible for what are, in reality, systemic factors that are beyond their control.

  Alfie Kohn

  Powerful, Reality, Quality

  Alfie Kohn (1999). “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes”, p.145, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In education, parody is obsolete.

  Alfie Kohn

  Obsolete, Parody

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• There are different kinds of motivation, and the kind matters more than the amount.

  Alfie Kohn

  Motivation, Different, Matter

  Alfie Kohn (2000). “The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"”, p.106, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Someone who thinks well of himself is said to have a healthy self-concept and is envied. Someone who thinks well of his country is called a patriot and is applauded. But someone who thinks well of his species is regarded as hopelessly naïve and is dismissed.

  Alfie Kohn

  Country, Thinking, Self

  Alfie Kohn (2008). “The Brighter Side of Human Nature: Altruism and Empathy in Everyday Life”, p.3, Basic Books

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