Is The Homework Myth Popular with Students? Well, Sure. What’s Your Point?

December 2006 Is The Homework Myth Popular with Students?  Well, Sure.  What’s Your Point? By Alfie Kohn “Boy, I’ll bet you’re real popular with kids!” is one of the more common responses I’ve heard from reporters after having done more than 90 TV, radio, and print interviews to discuss The Homework Myth.  I begin by admitting that he has indeed received … Read More

Students Don’t “Work”–They Learn (*)

EDUCATION WEEK September 3, 1997   Students Don’t “Work”–They Learn By Alfie Kohn September is a new beginning, a time for fresh starts. Consider, then, a resolution that you and your colleagues might make for this school year: From now on, we will stop referring to what students do in school as “work.” Importing the nomenclature of the workplace is … Read More

Choices for Children: Why and How to Let Students Decide (*)

PHI DELTA KAPPAN September 1993 Choices for Children Why and How to Let Students Decide By Alfie Kohn The essence of the demand for freedom is the need of conditions which will enable an individual to make his own special contribution to a group interest, and to partake of its activities in such ways that social guidance shall be a … Read More