Talk:Alfie Kohn

Unsourced

• If You Want to Kill Innovation, Reward It!

• Many of the familiar principles of Quality management amount to an elaboration of this simple truth: an innovative, healthy organization requires that we work with people rather than do things to them.

• Most parents want to know what they can do to make their children do as they're told.

• Punishments and rewards are two sides of the same coin and that coin doesn't buy you much.

• Sometimes we have to put our foot down, ... but before we deliberately make children unhappy in order to get them to get into the car, or to do their homework or whatever, we need to weigh whether what we're doing to make it happen is worth the possible strain on our relationship with them.

• Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things.

• We think of ways that we can control them, whether it be with a spanking or a gold sticker or a parent constantly saying, 'Good job, good job, good job.'

• What can we surmise about the likelihood of someone's being caring and generous, loving and helpful, just from knowing that they are a believer? Virtually nothing, say psychologists, sociologists, and others who have studied that question for decade

• What is equally striking to me is this ... there isn't a sense of a community solving problems together, rather there's punishment for aberrant individuals.

• When test scores go up, we should worry, because of how poor a measure they are of what matters, and what you typically sacrifice in a desperate effort to raise scores.

• When we do things that are controlling, whether intentional or not, we are not going to get those long-term outcomes.

• You have to welcome their arguing with you, not to the point of disrespect, but if they are going to stand up for themselves, they need to learn to argue effectively.