April 18, 2017 What Student Test-Takers Share with Ejected Airline Passengers By Alfie Kohn Social media exploded in early April after a video was posted of a doctor being dragged off a United flight for which he had a ticket. The outrage continued to build for days not just because we could watch what this man experienced but because the ... Read More
Blog Posts
June 24, 2017 Don’t Lecture Me! By Alfie Kohn [Lecturing is the] best way to get information from teacher’s notebook to student’s notebook without touching the student’s mind. — George Leonard Of Gary Larsen’s delightfully deranged “Far Side” cartoons from the 1980s and ’90s, my favorite features a bunch of cows contentedly grazing in a meadow. Suddenly one cow ... Read More
September 25, 2017 Transformation by Degrees By Alfie Kohn Three concepts emerged independently in different fields: quantum leaps (in particle physics), punctuated equilibrium (in evolutionary biology), and paradigm shifts (in the history of science). All of these converge on the revelation that change doesn’t always take place incrementally. Sometimes things stay pretty much the same for a long time, and ... Read More
December 18, 2017 Do We Perform Better Under Pressure? Unexpected Complications and Hidden Value Judgments Lurk Behind a Common Question By Alfie Kohn Someone recently wrote to ask me whether it was true that pressure makes people more productive. Might stress actually be good for us? Notwithstanding the cliche about how diamonds are made, such a sweeping generalization is hard ... Read More
March 7, 2018 When “Big Data” Goes to School By Alfie Kohn Here’s a rule of thumb for you: An individual’s enthusiasm about the employment of “data” in education is directly proportional to his or her distance from actual students. Policy makers and economists commonly refer to children in the aggregate, apparently viewing them mostly as a source of numbers ... Read More
March 21, 2018 “. . . And I Turned Out Just Fine!” By Alfie Kohn If you’re going to question people’s thinking, it’s helpful to give them a couple of options: a gentle challenge in case they’re easily unsettled and a more pointed challenge for those who don’t mind really digging into their assumptions. Consider, for example, an announcement that ... Read More
June 4, 2018 Who You Are Does Not Show Up on a Brain Scan By Alfie Kohn Kids who are taken on expensive skiing vacations are more likely than their peers to attend selective colleges. This, however, doesn’t mean these students are accepted by Ivy League schools because of the lift tickets they’ve collected. One of the first principles taught ... Read More
July 11, 2018 The Overselling of Gratitude By Alfie Kohn Being told that all of us should regularly take time to list the things we’re grateful for sets my teeth on edge. It took me a while to figure out why. I realize that anyone who criticizes gratitude (really? gratitude??) risks being labeled not merely a contrarian but a curmudgeon, ... Read More
August 23, 2018 Oprah and I By Alfie Kohn My book Punished by Rewards was recently published in a 25th-anniversary edition — which must mean that I wrote the original version when I was in fourth grade. The new edition has a 30-page Afterword (not counting approximately 9,250 footnotes) featuring research on the topic that was published since my previous ... Read More
November 26, 2018 The Why Axis By Alfie Kohn It shouldn’t be surprising that progressive teachers are often called upon to defend what they’re doing. Sometimes they’re asked reasonable questions by open-minded parents who simply don’t understand: “Why don’t you give tests?” “Why are the kids spending so much time in groups?” And sometimes they’re challenged by people on a ... Read More