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What to Look for in a Classroom: ...and Other Essays
"Alfie Kohn has a knack for bursting the bubbles that surround just about every school topic imaginable, from putting kids into uniforms to make them behave better to raising kids' self-esteem by rewarding them with stickers and pizza for reading books and doing homework. This collection of previously published essays reminds us that many schools have veered off course in their day-to-day business. And it's a primer that, if taken seriously, can put schools back on the right track."
--Educational LeadershipThrough his writings and speeches, Alfie Kohn has been stirring up controversy for years, demonstrating how the conventional wisdom about education often isn't supported by the available research, and illuminating gaps between our long-term goals for students and what actually goes on in schools. Now What to Look for in a Classroom brings together his most popular articles from Educational Leadership, Phi Delta Kappan, and Education Week--and also from The Atlantic Monthly, the Boston Globe, and other publications.
From self-esteem to school uniforms, from grade inflation to character education, Kohn raises a series of provocative questions about the status quo in this collection of incisive essays. He challenges us to reconsider some of our most basic assumptions about children and education. Can good values really be instilled
in students? What, if anything, lies behind the label of attention deficit disorder? Are there solid data to support our skepticism about watching TV? Might such allegedly enlightened practices as authentic assessment,
logical consequences,
and Total Quality education
turn out to be detrimental? Whether he is explaining why cooperative learning can be so threatening or why detracking is so fiercely opposed, Kohn offers a fresh, informed, and frequently disconcerting perspective on the major issues in education.
In the And, his critical examination of current practice is complemented by a vision of what schooling ought to be. Kohn argues for giving children more opportunity to participate in their own schooling, for transforming classrooms into caring communities, and for providing the kind of education that taps and nourishes children's curiosity. Through all these essays, Kohn calls us back to our own ideals, showing us how we can be more effective at helping students to become good learners and good people.
--Educational LeadershipThrough his writings and speeches, Alfie Kohn has been stirring up controversy for years, demonstrating how the conventional wisdom about education often isn't supported by the available research, and illuminating gaps between our long-term goals for students and what actually goes on in schools. Now What to Look for in a Classroom brings together his most popular articles from Educational Leadership, Phi Delta Kappan, and Education Week--and also from The Atlantic Monthly, the Boston Globe, and other publications.
From self-esteem to school uniforms, from grade inflation to character education, Kohn raises a series of provocative questions about the status quo in this collection of incisive essays. He challenges us to reconsider some of our most basic assumptions about children and education. Can good values really be instilled
in students? What, if anything, lies behind the label of attention deficit disorder? Are there solid data to support our skepticism about watching TV? Might such allegedly enlightened practices as authentic assessment,
logical consequences,
and Total Quality education
turn out to be detrimental? Whether he is explaining why cooperative learning can be so threatening or why detracking is so fiercely opposed, Kohn offers a fresh, informed, and frequently disconcerting perspective on the major issues in education.
In the And, his critical examination of current practice is complemented by a vision of what schooling ought to be. Kohn argues for giving children more opportunity to participate in their own schooling, for transforming classrooms into caring communities, and for providing the kind of education that taps and nourishes children's curiosity. Through all these essays, Kohn calls us back to our own ideals, showing us how we can be more effective at helping students to become good learners and good people.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
5 people are currently reading
289 people want to read
About the author
Alfie Kohn
50 books539 followers Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The author of fourteen books and scores of articles, he lectures at education conferences and universities as well as to parent groups and corporations.
Kohn's criticisms of competition and rewards have been widely discussed and debated, and he has been described in Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores."
Kohn lives (actually) in the Boston area with his wife and two children, and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org.
Kohn's criticisms of competition and rewards have been widely discussed and debated, and he has been described in Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores."
Kohn lives (actually) in the Boston area with his wife and two children, and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 26, 2015
Whenever I read anything by Alfie Kohn, I think, "Of COURSE! He is SO RIGHT!" Then I forget his reasoning and find myself stumbling over why we should not be implementing AR as reading support in our advisory classes, or why incentive charts are a lousy idea. Which just goes to show how counter-cultural he is. (Or how tiny my brain is, but that's another issue altogether.)
Some quotes:
regarding the problem with awards
"When some children are singled out as 'winners,' the central message every child learns is this: 'Other people are potential obstacles to my success.'" (pg. 20)
regarding motivation:
"Instead of helping children to ask 'What kind of person do I want to be?' or 'What kind of community do we want to have?' a child in such a school [PBIS or other "catch them being good" program] is led to ask, 'What do they want me to do, and what do I get for doing it?'" (pg. 71)
specifically addressing the "schools are their job, so it's okay to "pay" kids to learn:
"Our concern is with helping students not only to read but to want to read, to become lifelong learners and decent people. Even if incentives were effective with employees, this would offer no justification whatsoever for using them to reach a different set of goals with a developmentally different group of people." (pg. 72)
In the chapter on cooperative learning, he mentions that most groupwork asks students to either come to a consensus or officially debate an issue. "Far preferable is a third alternative: inviting disagreement but nesting it in a framework of positive interdependence...people who are cooperating are working together to learn someting-encouraging an ddepending on one another but not necessarily seeing eye to eye." (pg. 50) This made me think of the department meetings I've been at this year, which are stressful, engaging, and productive more often than not. What kind of work could my students be doing that would allow them to practice the skills needed for this kind of real cooperative work? Good food for thought.
I marked this "skimmed" because I really only read the chapters directly related to issues I'm thinking about in my own teaching right now. His interests are pretty far-reaching, and I'm running out of time for my summer reflections!
Some quotes:
regarding the problem with awards
"When some children are singled out as 'winners,' the central message every child learns is this: 'Other people are potential obstacles to my success.'" (pg. 20)
regarding motivation:
"Instead of helping children to ask 'What kind of person do I want to be?' or 'What kind of community do we want to have?' a child in such a school [PBIS or other "catch them being good" program] is led to ask, 'What do they want me to do, and what do I get for doing it?'" (pg. 71)
specifically addressing the "schools are their job, so it's okay to "pay" kids to learn:
"Our concern is with helping students not only to read but to want to read, to become lifelong learners and decent people. Even if incentives were effective with employees, this would offer no justification whatsoever for using them to reach a different set of goals with a developmentally different group of people." (pg. 72)
In the chapter on cooperative learning, he mentions that most groupwork asks students to either come to a consensus or officially debate an issue. "Far preferable is a third alternative: inviting disagreement but nesting it in a framework of positive interdependence...people who are cooperating are working together to learn someting-encouraging an ddepending on one another but not necessarily seeing eye to eye." (pg. 50) This made me think of the department meetings I've been at this year, which are stressful, engaging, and productive more often than not. What kind of work could my students be doing that would allow them to practice the skills needed for this kind of real cooperative work? Good food for thought.
I marked this "skimmed" because I really only read the chapters directly related to issues I'm thinking about in my own teaching right now. His interests are pretty far-reaching, and I'm running out of time for my summer reflections!
March 29, 2013
This is the usual stuff from Alfie Kohn, but the usual stuff is always fresh and thought-provoking. He has several great essays on why "character education" and structured "discipline" programs are counterprodutive: "Students are far less likely to act aggressively, intrusively, or obnoxiously in places where the teacher is not concerned with being in charge -- and, indeed, is not particularly interested in classroom-management techniques. I realized that the discipline problems I had experienced with some of my own classes were not a function of children who were insufficiently controlled but of a curriculum that was insufficiently engaging." (14) About the difficulty with character education as currently practiced: "The point is to drill students in specific behaviors rather than to engage them in deep, critical reflection about certain ways of being." He points out that most character education programs seek to encourage students to do what they're told, and provide extrinsic motivations for doing so. A nice alternative: Deborah Meier and Paul Schwarz suggest to core values for schools: empathy and skepticism. Instead of trying to get students to "control" themselves, we might encourage autonomy: "give students the chance to participate in making decisions about their learning and about how they want their classroom to be."
I was most interested in the essay "Only for My Kid: How privileged parents undermine school reform." In it, he explains how attempts to provide deep, rich, inquiry-based models for all children in a school are often resisted by middle-class parents, who are concerned that the "gifted/enriched" curriculum their own children are receiving will be compromised, either by decreasing resources or simply by the fact that they are now available to others as well.
He has a fascinating essay about ADHD and how the diagnostic criteria seem to shift and move, to the point where it's questionable whether they can be said to describe a coherent "disease."
Eric was glad I read, "Television and Children," which basically says, "the conclusion that arises from a review of more than a hundred empirical studies: there is very little about television viewing, per se, that is cause for alarm." (168).
Jonathan Kozol: "The best reason to give a child a good school . . . is so that child will have a happy childhood." (189)
I was most interested in the essay "Only for My Kid: How privileged parents undermine school reform." In it, he explains how attempts to provide deep, rich, inquiry-based models for all children in a school are often resisted by middle-class parents, who are concerned that the "gifted/enriched" curriculum their own children are receiving will be compromised, either by decreasing resources or simply by the fact that they are now available to others as well.
He has a fascinating essay about ADHD and how the diagnostic criteria seem to shift and move, to the point where it's questionable whether they can be said to describe a coherent "disease."
Eric was glad I read, "Television and Children," which basically says, "the conclusion that arises from a review of more than a hundred empirical studies: there is very little about television viewing, per se, that is cause for alarm." (168).
Jonathan Kozol: "The best reason to give a child a good school . . . is so that child will have a happy childhood." (189)
July 4, 2018
I guess I always come back to Kohn when I feel unsteady. This one is old (1998!), but we (by "we" I think I mean "I") continue to fight the same fights, make similar mistakes, and lose focus in the face of pressure from people outside education who claim to have "just the thing." It was a good reminder of where I come from (pedagogically) and where I think I'm headed. Always a positive place to start thinking about the new cycle.
June 18, 2015
Collection of essays about pedagogy and classrooms. I skipped a few because the topics weren't interesting to me. Because it's a bunch of essays all published together, there is more than a little repetition. His insights:
1. Autocratic classrooms are ineffective. Students need respect, responsibility, and agency to improve their behavior (this probably goes double in a homeschool setting, actually). If they misbehave it's because you're mishandling them or the curriculum isn't engaging enough (how does this work with 20 kids?).
2. Stop infantilizing children or demanding unquestioned authority in the classroom. Kids will goad you because you annoy them with these demands.
3. Don't replace intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation (gold stars, awards, etc) or kids will hate doing things.
4. Competition hurts learning. Competitive grading hurts learning because kids will work for the grades, not for understanding or long-term mastery of the material.
5. Rich (or really middle-class) parents are opposed to school reform in general, because raising the achievement level of the kids on the bottom makes the kids at the top more mediocre in comparison. Even "liberals" threaten white-flight if their children's schools abolish tracking or letter grades.
6. Gifted enrichment programs benefit all children enrolled in them, not just "academically gifted" ones.
7. Kohn doesn't like school choice programs, mainly for reasons previously listed.
He never really touches on the issue of students/parents who have no motivation, either intrinsic or extrinsic. Or how to engage a group of students with wildly different needs and ability levels. Or those who would rather not be there at all. Some of the ideas are good in theory but wouldn't work in a class of 25 kids, several with behavioral or learning delays. Kohn is far more optimistic than I am. A lot of his suggestions might work in a private or home school, but I'd be doubtful of using them in a traditional public school setting.
1. Autocratic classrooms are ineffective. Students need respect, responsibility, and agency to improve their behavior (this probably goes double in a homeschool setting, actually). If they misbehave it's because you're mishandling them or the curriculum isn't engaging enough (how does this work with 20 kids?).
2. Stop infantilizing children or demanding unquestioned authority in the classroom. Kids will goad you because you annoy them with these demands.
3. Don't replace intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation (gold stars, awards, etc) or kids will hate doing things.
4. Competition hurts learning. Competitive grading hurts learning because kids will work for the grades, not for understanding or long-term mastery of the material.
5. Rich (or really middle-class) parents are opposed to school reform in general, because raising the achievement level of the kids on the bottom makes the kids at the top more mediocre in comparison. Even "liberals" threaten white-flight if their children's schools abolish tracking or letter grades.
6. Gifted enrichment programs benefit all children enrolled in them, not just "academically gifted" ones.
7. Kohn doesn't like school choice programs, mainly for reasons previously listed.
He never really touches on the issue of students/parents who have no motivation, either intrinsic or extrinsic. Or how to engage a group of students with wildly different needs and ability levels. Or those who would rather not be there at all. Some of the ideas are good in theory but wouldn't work in a class of 25 kids, several with behavioral or learning delays. Kohn is far more optimistic than I am. A lot of his suggestions might work in a private or home school, but I'd be doubtful of using them in a traditional public school setting.
May 17, 2016
A good collection of essays that very quickly and clearly get to the heart of contemporary educational models and why they do more harm than good, and the sort of model we ought to be aiming for. Kohn emphasizes educational democracy, where the classroom becomes a democratic, cooperative collaboration between teacher and students. This will cause those who emphasize educational authoritarianism to get heart palpatations, but there is nothing for it; the science is firmly on Kohn's side. Kids learn better when their motivations for learning is intrinsic, that is they help figure out ways to make the material compelling to them. Kohn describes classrooms of third graders he has visited where they call their own class meetings even if the teacher is not there, in order to resolve differences or conflicts between kids. This is no utopian vision; it already exists, and works extraordinarily well, if only we had the collective will to adopt it on a wider scale.
July 16, 2009
What I read of this was really interesting and totally turns how we look at education on its head. I'd love to talk to educators in the frontlines right now about how they feel about some of his solutions however. In theory everything he suggests sounds great about students having more control of the classroom and reduction in authoritarianism...but I also know there are some rough schools out there with kids who don't give a hoot about their eduction and their parents don't either, so I'm not sure how letting them have input on the classroom would work exactly. I'm sure Kohn would say giving kids some power would make them more invested in their education, but it's a catch-22 situation for sure.
Someday maybe I'll check it out of the library again and read more.
Someday maybe I'll check it out of the library again and read more.
July 6, 2010
The author got a lot of good points. He argues against reward system, a.k.a. behaviorism. "Instead of helping children to ask, what kind of person do I want to be? what kind of community do we want to have?, a child in such a school is led to ask, what do they want me to do and what do I get for doing it?" Also, in chapter 15, students don't "work" -they learn really got me thinking. Do my kids think of themselves as workers or learners?? Are they pressured to succeed because it is their "job" to produce and perform??
Very mind-opening book on education. There are some easy read, but majority made me think and reflect on my parenting and teaching.
Very mind-opening book on education. There are some easy read, but majority made me think and reflect on my parenting and teaching.
Currently reading
March 18, 2008I've read some of these essays online, but I need to finish it up in paper. I love Alfie Kohn's ideas -- he's very challenging in his perspectives on parenting and education, but then you realize, well duh, why doesn't everyone see this? So it's also a little frustrating, but, hey, change has to start somewhere.
January 5, 2011
Kohn's theories and short essays address many important, hot topics that are controversial in education today. I love how he attempts to transform the way adults view, control, and work with kids. Teachers and parents alike should read his work, particularly when he writes about our society's punishment and reward system in place.
October 10, 2011
I don't agree with everything Alfie Kohn says, but I like his alternative perspective on educational philosophies. I particularly enjoyed his essays on external rewards, and how they tend to hinder intrinsic motivation. His essay on the complexity of self-esteem programs was also really thought provoking. I like that he will often take a middle ground in debates.
August 10, 2008
I like taking this book in pieces. Thankfully, I am young and have never been exposed to "old school" teaching methods....I hope. This man is smart and his ideas are always creative and well justified.
January 9, 2008
I love Mr. Kohn. Some of the essays did not speak to me personally, but others had me absolutely mesmerized.
August 28, 2010
I'd read Unconditional Parenting, by the same writer. It articulates Kohn's assumptions a little more cohesively than this collection. Still good, though.
April 28, 2012
Chuck full of even more information on how to best help children learn.
Read
February 12, 2015Tried to read it but didn't get very far. Seemed like a bunch of hogwash. Maybe my head just wasn't into it at teh time though and I should try it again later.
July 13, 2011
Great read for anyone who critically examines education standards and practice.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews