Alfie Kohn Interview with Dr. Ross Greene

Here is a fantastic interview with Alfie Kohn.

Some highlights:

• There is a big difference between working with kids and doing things to kids.
• Punishing and rewarding are not only ineffective but they are also counter-productive in raising children.
• We get lost in finding new techniques to gain compliance from children, when we really need to be clear of our ultimate goal - help children become ethical, caring people.
• Kids who get rewards and praise tend to be less generous than their peers. Self-interest trumps caring for others.
• No kid ever benefits from punishment.
• There is a big difference between control and structure. Highly structured learning environments need not be controlled from the top-down. Students need to play an active and democratic role in forming the structure of the classroom.
• The more we focus on just compliance, the more we will shuffle through an endless product line of gimmicks and tricks that will never achieve our ultimate goals.
• Time-outs, or more accurately Forcibly Isolated, classrooms no longer feel safe. These classrooms become conditional and we all lose from these kinds of traditional, punitive interventions.
• Not much learning takes place in a classroom that is too quiet.
• Our classroom management techniques can be quite effective, but we must ask "effective at what?"
• Kids make good decisions by making decisions not following directions.
• Unconditional acceptance is at the heart of any good classroom.
• The best teachers are those who make the curriculum worth learning.
• Punishment by any name, even consequences, ruptures the safe and caring alliance that must be nourished between teacher and student.
• Punishment is less about solving problems and more about revenge and inflicting pain and suffering.