ERIC Digest Diciembre 1994 ERIC Identifier: ED376990 El Riesgo de las Recompensas Por Alfie Kohn Muchos educadores están acertadamente concientes de que los castigos y amenazas son contraproducentes. Haciendo sufrir a los niños para alterar su comportamiento futuro se puede muchas veces obtener complicidad temporal, pero esta estrategia no los ayuda a convertirse en personas que tomen sus decisiones en … Read More
The Risks of Rewards
ERIC Digest December 1994 ERIC Identifier: ED376990 The Risks of Rewards By Alfie Kohn Para leer este artículo en Español, haga clic aquí. Many educators are acutely aware that punishment and threats are counterproductive. Making children suffer in order to alter their future behavior can often elicit temporary compliance, but this strategy is unlikely to help children become ethical, compassionate decision … Read More
The Truth About Self-Esteem (*)
PHI DELTA KAPPAN December 1994 The Truth About Self-Esteem By Alfie Kohn [For an updated and expanded review of the research on this topic, please see chapter 6 (“The Attack on Self-Esteem”) of The Myth of the Spoiled Child, published in 2014.] The very act of “debating” a controversial issue tends to reduce the number of possible positions to … Read More
Grading: The Issue Is Not How but Why (*)
EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP OCTOBER 1994 Grading The Issue Is Not How but Why By Alfie Kohn Why are we concerned with evaluating how well students are doing? The question of motive, as opposed to method, can lead us to rethink basic tenets of teaching and learning and to evaluate what students have done in a manner more consistent with our ultimate … 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
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
Why We Should Avoid Rewards Even for Boring Tasks
From Chapter 5: “Cutting the Interest Rate” of Punished by Rewards (Houghton Mifflin, 1993/2018) Why We Should Avoid Rewards Even for Boring Tasks By Alfie Kohn . . . . “If we’re worried about reducing intrinsic motivation, then what’s the problem with giving people rewards for doing things they don’t find interesting?” It is true that rewards are most likely … Read More
Changing Education from the Inside Out
May 1993 Changing Education from the Inside Out Four Books from the 1990s Illuminate Progressive Schooling By Alfie Kohn [NOTE: This review-essay was never published. You may judge for yourself whether it – and the books under review – are still relevant several decades later.] EDUCATION AS ADVENTURE: Lessons from the Second Grade. By John G. Nicholls and Susan … Read More