“In a word, learning is decontextualized. We break ideas down into tiny pieces that bear no relation to the whole. We give students a brick of information, followed by another brick, followed by another brick, until they are graduated, at which point we assume they have a house. What they have is a pile of bricks, and they don't have it for long.”
― Alfie Kohn
“People will typically be more enthusiastic where they feel a sense of belonging and see themselves as part of a community than they will in a workplace in which each person is left to his own devices”
― Alfie Kohn
“The way kids learn to make good decisions is by making decisions, not by following directions.”
― Alfie Kohn
“Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children’s happiness than for their success.”
― Alfie Kohn
“Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches; it’s what the learner learns.”
― Alfie Kohn
“The more we want our children to be (1) lifelong learners, genuinely excited about words and numbers and ideas, (2) avoid sticking with what’s easy and safe, and (3) become sophisticated thinkers, the more we should do everything possible to help them forget about grades.”
― Alfie Kohn
“From deep contentment comes the courage to achieve.”
― Alfie Kohn
"If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow."
― Alfie Kohn
"Children, after all, are not just adults-in-the-making. They are people whose current needs and rights and experiences must be taken seriously."
― Alfie Kohn
"Saying you taught it but the student didn't learn it is like saying you sold it but the customer didn't buy it."
― Alfie Kohn
"We can't value only what is easy to measure; measurable outcomes may be the least important results of learning."
― Alfie Kohn
"Whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question never looked carefully at a standardized test."
― Alfie Kohn
"We have so much to cover and so little time to cover it. Howard Gardner refers to curriculum coverage as the single greatest enemy of understanding. Think instead about ideas to be discovered."
― Alfie Kohn
"To be well-educated is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends."
― Alfie Kohn
"Learning is something students do, NOT something done to students."
― Alfie Kohn
"Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Excellence and victory are conceptually distinct . . . and are experienced differently."
— Alfie Kohn
"If faculty would relax their emphasis on grades, this might serve not to lower standards but to encourage an orientation toward learning."
— Alfie Kohn
"An individual’s enthusiasm about the employment of “data” in education is directly proportional to his or her distance from actual students."
— Alfie Kohn