Control, whether by threats
or bribes, amounts to doing things to children rather than working
with them. This ultimately frays relationships
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The Risks of Rewards - 54 views
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The alternative to bribes and threats is to work toward creating a caring community whose members solve problems collaboratively and decide together how they want their classroom to be
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grades in particular have been found to have a detrimental effect on creative thinking, long-term retention, interest in learning, and preference for challenging tasks
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good values have to be grown from the inside out. Attempts to short-circuit this process by dangling rewards in front of children are at best ineffective, and at worst counterproductive
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Children are likely to become enthusiastic, lifelong learners as a result of being provided with an engaging curriculum; a safe, caring community in which to discover and create; and a significant degree of choice about what (and how and why) they are learning
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Unfortunately, carrots turn out to be no more effective than sticks at helping children to become caring, responsible people or lifelong, self-directed learners
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"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 makers. Punishment, even if referred to euphemistically as "consequences," tends to generate anger, defiance, and a desire for revenge. Moreover, it models the use of power rather than reason and ruptures the important relationship between adult and child."
The Wejr Board » They Need Teaching… Not Punishment - 3 views
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School Would Be Great If It Weren't for the Damn Kids - 95 views
www.alfiekohn.org/...damnkids.htm
school alfie kohn students edreform education interest current commentary
shared by Jason Schmidt on 17 Nov 10
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It simply doesn’t make sense to try to “purge ‘ineffective’ teachers and principals.” His listener, almost giddy with gratitude now, prepares to chime in, as Samuelson, without pausing, delivers the punch line: That’s right, it’s time to stop blaming teachers and start . . . blaming students!
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His focus is not on students’ achievements (the intellectual accomplishments of individual kids) but only on “student achievement” (the aggregate results of standardized tests)
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As I’ve noted elsewhere, we have reason to worry when schooling is discussed primarily in the context of “global competitiveness” rather than in terms of what children need or what contributes to a democratic culture
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Upon hearing someone castigate students for being insufficiently motivated, a noneconomist might be inclined to ask two questions. The first is: “Motivated to do what, exactly”? Anything they’re told, no matter how unengaging, inappropriate, or, well, demotivating?
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Whenever I see students made to cram facts into their short-term memories for a test, practice a series of decontextualized skills on yet another worksheet, listen passively to a lecture, or inch their way through the insipid prose of a corporate-produced textbook, I find myself thinking of a comment made by Frederick Herzberg, a critic of traditional workplace management: “Idleness, indifference, and irresponsibility,” he said, “are healthy responses to absurd work.”
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The more you reward people for doing something, or for doing it well, the less interest they typically come to have in whatever they had to do to get the reward.
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People who blame students for not being “motivated” tend to think educational success mean little more than higher scores on bad tests and they’re apt to see education itself as a means to making sure our corporations will beat their corporations. The sort of schooling that results is the type almost guaranteed to . . . kill students’ motivation.
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one thing that’s happened is a concatenation of rewards and punishments, including grades, which teach students that learning is just a means to an end.
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inner-city kids get the worst of the sort of schooling that’s not about exploring and discovering and questioning but only about working hard (often at rote tasks) and being nice (read: obedient).
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“Motivation is weak because more students…don't like school, don't work hard and don't do well.” But why don’t they like school (which is the key to understanding why, assuming his premise is correct, they don’t succeed)? What has happened to their desire to figure out how things work, the hunger to make sense of things, with which all children start out?
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if you want to see (intrinsically) motivated kids, you need to visit classrooms or schools that take a nontraditional approach to education, places where students are more likely to be absorbed and frequently delighted, where what they’re doing is not merely “rigorous” (a word often applied to very difficult busywork) but meaningful.
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Alfie Kohn's commentary on an article written by Robert J. Samuelson. Samuelson argues in his article that the problem with education reform is not the usual suspects like ineffective teachers, but kids who are lazy and unmotivated. Interesting read with thoughtful information about student motivation.
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How to Create Nonreaders - 58 views
www.alfiekohn.org/...nonreaders.htm
reading motivation writing literacy education AlfieKohn learning
shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 12 Nov 13
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"In fact, it's not really possible to motivate anyone, except perhaps yourself. If you have enough power, sure, you can make people, including students, do things. That's what rewards (e.g., grades) and punishments (e.g., grades) are for. But you can't make them do those things well ... The more you rely on coercion and extrinsic inducements, as a matter of fact, the less interest students are likely to have in whatever they were induced to do."
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PIPEDREAMS - Seeing with New Eyes - International Perspectives on Trust and Regulation ... - 16 views
pipedreams-education.ca/...st-and-regulation-in-education
education inspiration @zbpipe Israel conference 201205 international trust regulation
shared by Peter Beens on 01 Jun 12
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This year, I was asked to attend as a Canadian Teacher Representative, along with Ontario Ministry Officer, Colette Ruduck and our Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, George Zegarac.
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Our regulations are meant to encourage equality and diversity, choice, opportunity, innovation – fundamental values in our society.
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In contrast to many of the other countries represented, our Canadian context was unique in that the regulations (organizations, federations, policies, curriculum) imposed actually tie in Trust and Relationship building and partnerships as key factors to increase capacity building with a wide range of stakeholders.
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We need our profession to be respected, which includes paying us well, treating us fairly, supporting us with resources, nurturing our learning and leadership opportunities
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We need to feel safe to make mistakes because we too are learners, especially in a profession that is changing so drastically in the 21st Century
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We need to feel trusted and with that, we want our skills, our education, our talents and our passions to be respected so we -together – can become the creators of our own pedagogies
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these passionate and experienced leaders agreed that such tests don’t work when used to rate, or punish teachers
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I wonder if there is a correlation between that supportive, trusting principal and the fact that we have incredibly dynamic teachers here, at Van Leer from all over the globe
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By sharing and reflecting our learning openly and even by sometimes being vulnerable and asking for help and challenging the status quo
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we need to recognize that our learning environments are changing and are very different from how we were once trained and educated
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We need to remind our leaders that we are not just teachers of academics but we teach the whole person
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Many of us struggle, without supports – to help impoverished families, students with mental health disabilities, learning disabilities, students that speak a different language, large class sizes, violence, inequalities
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The conference in Jerusalem, Israel that Van Leer hosts each year is intended to encourage professional dialogue among educators, academics, representatives of the Third Sector, and policymakers from diverse areas and places in Israel and abroad. This year, I was asked to attend as a Canadian Teacher Representative, along with Ontario Ministry Officer, Colette Ruduck and our Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, George Zegarac. With the theme of "Trust and Regulation" at the center of our discussions, it did not take long to realize that my context, as a Canadian Educator, a parent, and a student - was one of privilege and opportunity.
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The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries - NYTimes.com - 59 views
www.nytimes.com/...01eggers.html
education teacher salary teaching nytimes teachertraining schoolfunding
shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 01 Jan 14
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The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates. This will take some doing
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We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.
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eople talk about accountability, measurements, tenure, test scores and pay for performance. These questions are worthy of debate, but are secondary to recruiting and training teachers and treating them fairly.
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most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment.
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CBI: Change is possible - but we must be clearer about what we ask schools to develop i... - 1 views
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In Finland, the goals of education are explicitly linked to competitiveness, research and innovation.
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This lack of a comprehensive statement of the achievement we are looking for schools to deliver is a key failing.
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One such school leader told us they had taken a conscious decision with one group of young people to focus on five key subjects and some life skills, knowing that the accountability system would score them down for it, as it expected eight qualifications from all students at that time.
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Our system should reward schools making brave decisions which focus on boosting long-term outcomes for pupils, not punish them.
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It should be able to survive changes of government and provide the test against which policy changes and school actions are judged
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shine the light on whether the system is truly addressing the needs of all students, rather than just the few required to meet a government target.
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thos and culture that build the social skills also essential to progress in life and work, and allow them time to focus on this
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Have a school accountability and assessment framework that supports these goals rather than defining them.
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An exclusive focus on subjects for study would fail to equip young people with these, though rigour in the curriculum does help
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Behaviours can only be developed over time, through the entire path of a young person’s life and their progress through the school system.
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Development of a clear, widely-owned and stable statement of the outcome that all schools are asked to deliver.
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resourcing these bodies to develop an approach based on a wider range of measures and assessments than are currently in use,