COOPERATIVE LEARNING MAGAZINE 1993 – vol. 13, no. 3 Is Competition Ever Appropriate in a Cooperative Classroom? By Alfie Kohn Of the numerous benefits of cooperative learning (CL), the one that first appealed to many of us was its status as an alternative to competition. Some combination of observation, personal experience, and research has made it painfully clear that setting … Read More
A Closer Look at Reading Incentive Programs
Excerpts from Punished by Rewards (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993/1999/2018) A Closer Look at Reading Incentive Programs By Alfie Kohn All those reading incentive campaigns inflicted on elementary school children across the country provide sobering evidence of just how many parents and educators are trapped by Skinnerian thinking. They also illustrate the consequences of extrinsic motivators more generally. Asked about the likely … Read More
The Case Against Gold Stars
PARENTS MAGAZINE October 1993 The Case Against Gold Stars By Alfie Kohn Call it the “gold-star syndrome.” Sometimes we paste stars on a chart. At other times we offer toys or extra TV, candy or cash, pizza or special privileges. We reward kids for doing what we want instead of punishing them for disobeying. Pull out a child-care book at … Read More
For Best Results, Forget the Bonus
NEW YORK TIMES October 17, 1993 For Best Results, Forget the Bonus By Alfie Kohn “Do this and you’ll get that.” These six words sum up the most popular way in which American business strives to improve performance in the workplace. And it is very popular. At least three of four American corporations rely on some sort of incentive program. … Read More
Turning Learning Into A Business: Concerns About ‘Quality Management’ at School (*)
EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP September 1993 Turning Learning Into A Business Concerns About “Quality Management” at School By Alfie Kohn Every few years a new idea captures the imagination of educators and suddenly seems to be everywhere at once. The journals are filled with breathless accounts of its importance, a cadre of consultants materializes to offer workshops and trainings, and a new … 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
Group Grade Grubbing versus Cooperative LEARNING
EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP March 1991 Group Grade Grubbing versus Cooperative Learning By Alfie Kohn Even before the recent surge of interest in cooperative learning (CL), researchers and practitioners were already staking out positions on precisely what the term denotes and how the idea should be implemented. Constructive controversies (or, less charitably, factional disputes) have arisen with respect to almost every aspect … Read More
Caring Kids: The Role of the Schools (*)
PHI DELTA KAPPAN March 1991 Caring Kids The Role of the Schools By Alfie Kohn “Education worthy of the name is essentially education of character,” the philosopher Martin Buber told a gathering of teachers in 1939.(1) In saying this, he presented a challenge more radical and unsettling than his audience may have realized. He did not mean that schools should … Read More
Altruism Within Egoism (Book Review)
THE NATION May 29, 1989 Altruism Within Egoism By Alfie Kohn Review of: PASSIONS WITHIN REASON: The Strategic Role of the Emotions By Robert H. Frank. Norton. 304 pp. Also discussed in this review: ECONOMICS FOR A CIVILIZED SOCIETY. By Greg Davidson and Paul Davidson. Norton. 213 pp. THE MORAL DIMENSION: Toward a New Economics. By Amitai Etzioni. Free Press. … Read More