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Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn Quotes

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Alfie Kohn is a renowned author and educational critic, known for his research on educational psychology and human behavior. His work often explores the power dynamics in education, evaluation systems, and how to create more meaningful learning environments. Born on October 15, 1957, Kohn's career includes educational research and writing, and his books, such as 'Punishment by Myth' and 'The Case Against Reward', have had a profound impact on educational practice and theory.

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All Ifs Children Students School Rewards People Wells Helping Parenting Punishment Should Trying Different Needs Teacher Thinking Way Education Feels Grows

Famous Alfie Kohn Quotes

“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.”

Ifs Wells Doe Matter Helping Forget Pay Issues Rewards Workers Financial Employee Employers Preoccupation

Author:Alfie Kohn

“Strip away all the assumptions about what competition is supposed to do, all the claims in its behalf that we accept and repeat reflexively. What you have left is the essence of the concept: mutually exclusive goal attainment (MEGA). One person succeeds only if another does not. From this uncluttered perspective, it seems clear right away that something is drastically wrong with such an arrangement. How can we do our best when we are spending our energies trying to make others lose--and fearing that they will make us lose?”

Source: No Contest: The Case Against Competition

“If unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn't necessary. If they're absent, praise won't help.”

Ifs Helping Praise Genuine Enthusiasm Unconditional Love Unconditional Absent

Author:Alfie Kohn

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

Ifs Thinking Company Competition Refuse Contrary Employee Productive Tolerate

Author:Alfie Kohn

“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.”

Ifs Has Beens Different Country Problem Effort Talent Example Skills Approach Scientist Overcoming Including Pool Contrast End Times Spend Time Cooperatives Different Countries Duplication

Author:Alfie Kohn

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

Ifs Might Standards Grades Relax Faculty Emphasis Orientation

Book:Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes

Source: Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes

“If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.”

Ifs Feels Children Feelings Asks Grows Mistake Risk Share Safe Making Mistakes

Book:Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes

Source: Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes

“Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being controlled— those who are not trusted, given explanations, encouraged to think for themselves, helped to develop and internalize good values, and so on. Control breeds the need for more control, which is used to justify the use of control.”

Source: Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes

“You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don't want them to grow up and resent you or, even worse, parent the way you parented them.”

Ifs Knows Way Want Needs Giving Grows Parent Growing Up Unconditional Love Screws Unconditional Resent Screw Ups Resent You

Author:Alfie Kohn

“The late W. Edwards Deming, guru of Quality management, once declared, 'The most important things we need to manage can't be measured.' If that’s true of what we need to manage, it should be even more obvious that it’s true of what we need to teach.”

Ifs Needs Should Important Quality Teach Late Management Important Things Obvious Manage Guru Quality Management

Author:Alfie Kohn

“If I offered you a thousand dollars to take off your shoes, you'd very likely accept--and then I could triumphantly announce that 'rewards work.' But as with punishments, they can never help someone develop a *commitment* to a task or action, a reason to keep doing it when there's no longer a payoff.”

Ifs Reason Helping Action Accepting Thousand Commitment Tasks Dollars Rewards Shoes Punishment Payoff

Book:Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason

Source: Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason

“The difference between a good educator and a great educator is that the former figures out how to work within the constraints of traditional policies and accepted assumptions, whereas the latter figures out how to change whatever gets in the way of doing right by kids. 'But we've always...', 'But the parents will never...', 'But we can't be the only school in the area to...' - all such protestations are unpersuasive to great educators. If research and common sense argue for doing things differently, then the question isn't whether to change course but how to make it happen.”

“If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.”

Ifs Children Problem Tasks

Author:Alfie Kohn