How Not to Teach Values: A Critical Look at Character Education (*)

PHI DELTA KAPPAN February 1997 How Not to Teach Values A Critical Look at Character Education By Alfie Kohn Teachers and schools tend to mistake good behavior for good character. What they prize is docility, suggestibility; the child who will do what he is told; or even better, the child who will do what is wanted without even having to … 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