BOSTON GLOBE October 28, 2007 The Difference myth By Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett We shouldn’t believe the increasingly popular claims that boys and girls think differently, learn differently, and need to be treated differently WOMEN ARE THE chatty sex, using three times as many words each day as men. They are society’s great communicators. The verbal parts of … Read More
One-Size-Fits-All Education Doesn’t Work
BOSTON GLOBE June 10, 2001 One-Size-Fits-All Education Doesn’t Work By Alfie Kohn People who call for national education standards may have either of two ideas in mind. Both are intuitively appealing, but neither survives closer scrutiny. The first meaning of standards has to do with outcomes: Here’s how well we expect students to do. Of course, all students deserve a … Read More
Turning the Tables
BOSTON GLOBE November 14, 1999 Turning the tables: What if students and parents designed a test for the Board of Education? By Tim Wise With the release last week of the latest scores on the MCAS tests, or Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, we are once again being bombarded with warnings about “failing schools.” The stakes are high; these statewide standardized … Read More
School Choice Myths (*)
BOSTON GLOBE April 24, 1993 School Choice Myths By Alfie Kohn Most critics of school choice proposals, in which students shop for an education and school districts must compete for their business, have emphasized the inequity of such plans, contending that they are recipes for making the rich districts richer and the poor poorer. This argument needs to be taken … Read More
Value Human Life, Not American Power
BOSTON GLOBE March 16, 1991 Value Human Life, Not American Power By Alfie Kohn Stop the next ten people you see and ask them how many lives were lost in the Vietnam War. Chances are you’ll get answers of about 50,000. This, however, is just the number of Americans who died during the decade-long invasion of that country. Nearly two … Read More
Paris Slide Show
BOSTON GLOBE June 19, 1988 Paris Slide Show By Alfie Kohn Somebody want to get the lights, please? OK. This first one was taken on the Air France 747 that conveyed me and my two carry-on bags across the Atlantic. That elderly woman on my left (your right) spent most of the journey rapidly clicking her knitting needles and chattering … Read More
Attorney Relishes Unpopular Cases
BOSTON GLOBE April 13, 1987 Attorney Relishes Unpopular Cases By Alfie Kohn Leonard Weinglass, who represented Abbie Hoffman and three others at the Chicago 8 trial in 1969-70, is now defending Hoffman, Amy Carter [the former President’s daughter], and 13 other protesters who challenged the CIA’s presence at the University of Massachusetts last November. Weinglass took the case only because … Read More
Struggling Toward Literacy
BOSTON GLOBE MAGAZINE September 1, 1985 Struggling Toward Literacy By Alfie Kohn Priscilla is buying food without much sugar these days. Neither her tastes nor her attitude has suddenly changed. It’s just that until recently she couldn’t read the labels in the supermarket. Her diet has improved because she is, at the age of 47, finally struggling toward literacy. One … Read More