The Curious Engineer

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Alfie Kohn

alfiekohn.org

The Work Of Alfie Kohn

Society / politics / economyEssays / personal

’90’95’00’05’10’15’20’25
Posts
373 from 25 Jun 1990 to 20 Oct 2026
Posting
weekly (26 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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2026 22

  1. Why Students Hide Themselves from Us
  2. Aggressive Nostalgia
  3. Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools
  4. Caution: Contents Under Pressure
  5. How Not to Deal with Bullying
  6. Teaching Kindness
  7. The Pseudoscience of Reading
  8. The Remarkable Benefits of Diversity
  9. Raising Reflective Rebels
  10. Fun Without Winning or Losing
  11. “Progressive High School” Is Not an Oxymoron
  12. Grade Inflation Is Not the Problem
  13. Beneath the What and the How Is the Why
  14. The Best Classroom Discussions, Hands Down
  15. The Assault on Public Education
  16. Friendly Excursions into Disequilibrium
  17. Who’s Cheating Whom?
  18. “Spiritual but Not Religious”? Are You Sure?
  19. The Whole Point Is That There’s No Point
  20. Beyond “Electronic Flashcards”
  21. How to Kill Kids’ Interest in Reading
  22. Who Gets to Decide? – Part 2

2025 18

  1. Who Gets to Decide? – Part 1
  2. The Curious Case of the Incurious Children
  3. It’s Not Just You
  4. Making Kids Work a Second Shift
  5. Seeing What Isn’t Out There
  6. A.I., as in Anti-Intellectual
  7. Death by Civics
  8. The Chatbot in the Classroom, the Forklift at the Gym
  9. The Failure of Failure
  10. Bad Signs
  11. Education for What?
  12. Confusing Harder with Better
  13. Number Sense and Nonsense
  14. Skip the Sugarcoating
  15. Little Ed Koches
  16. The Back-to-School-Night Speech We’d Like to Hear (Ep. 1)
  17. The *&%$!#! Baseball Study
  18. Heterogenius: Why & How to Stop Dividing People into Us & Them

2024 3

  1. Less and Less Curious
  2. The Siren Song of “Evidence-Based” Instruction
  3. Cognitive Load Theory: An Unpersuasive Attempt to Justify Direct Instruction

2023 5

  1. Aggressive Nostalgia
  2. The Sneaky Conservativism of Ed Tech
  3. Pay Attention, Class: Here Come More Facts for You to Forget
  4. The Caring Subversion of Nel Noddings: An Appreciation
  5. How to Prevent Social Change: A Handy Guide for Educators and Parents

2022 8

  1. The Times Deeply Regrets These Errors
  2. “Eduspeak” Reconsidered
  3. Is It Enough for Learners to Be “Engaged”?
  4. Why Feedback Often Doesn’t Help
  5. When the Myth of Progress Unravels
  6. Last Time, the Religious Right Told Us Not Only What We Can Teach but How
  7. Cooperative Games: Discovering How Much Fun Competition ISN’T
  8. Second Thoughts About Community and “Empathy”

2021 7

  1. Indoctrination
  2. What Makes a True Skeptic?
  3. The Case Against Classroom Management . . . a Quarter-Century Later
  4. When Racism Isn’t the Only Problem
  5. The Progressive Teacher’s Role in the Classroom
  6. Dewey, Piaget, and Frosted Mini Wheats
  7. Foreword to Ungrading

2020 7

  1. The Tests Are Lousy, So How Could the Scores Be Meaningful?
  2. Fame Is the Name of the Game
  3. All of Us Are Smarter Than Any of Us
  4. Is Learning “Lost” When Kids Are Out of School?
  5. The Pandemic Pivot
  6. Out of Control
  7. Autism and Behaviorism

2019 7

  1. How Not to Get a Standing Ovation at a Teachers’ Conference
  2. It’s Time to Rethink Education Policy
  3. The Crucial Steps Are the Ones We May Have Skipped
  4. GENER(aliz)ATIONS
  5. Can Everyone Be Excellent?
  6. The Trouble(s) with College
  7. Deconstructing “Scaffolding”

2018 9

  1. Civics Education — The Safe Kind and the Subversive Kind
  2. The Why Axis
  3. Rewards Are Still Bad News 25 Years Later
  4. It’s Not About Behavior
  5. Oprah and I
  6. The Overselling of Gratitude
  7. Who You Are Does Not Show Up on a Brain Scan
  8. “…And I Turned Out Just Fine!”
  9. When “Big Data” Goes to School

2017 8

  1. Do We Perform Better Under Pressure?
  2. Transformation by Degrees
  3. Cooperative Conflict: Neither Concurrence Nor Debate
  4. Raising an UnTrump
  5. Don’t Lecture Me!
  6. What Student Test-Takers Share with Ejected Airline Passengers
  7. Is Trump a Conservative Only by Accident?
  8. “Free-Range Kids”? It Depends…

2016 13

  1. The Case for Abolishing Class Rank
  2. Narcissist-in-Chief
  3. The Bonus Effect
  4. On Punishment for Bullying — and Punishment AS Bullying
  5. Do Our Expectations of Kids Aim Too High or Too Low?
  6. Choice
  7. The Failure of Failure
  8. Why Lots of Love (or Motivation) Isn’t Enough
  9. Men Are Still Paying for Women on Dates?
  10. Trumped
  11. The Overselling of Ed Tech
  12. “Your Hand’s Not Raised? Too Bad: I’m Calling on You Anyway”
  13. Clicking for Love

2015 17

  1. What ‘No Child Left Behind’ Left Behind
  2. All Aboard the LeaderShip
  3. To Change What We Do, Consider What We Believe
  4. The Back-to-School-Night Speech We’d Like to Hear
  5. Do This and You’ll Get That: A Bad Way to Defend Good Programs
  6. “Helicopter Parenting” Hysteria
  7. Who’s Asking?
  8. The “Mindset” Mindset
  9. Cheerful to a Fault: “Positive” Practices with Negative Implications
  10. What’s the Real Purpose of Classroom Management?
  11. Learning as a Sandwich: Revisiting the Ingenuity (and Radicalism) of K-W-L
  12. The Wrong Way to Get People to Do the Right Thing
  13. Book translations
  14. The Grass Moment
  15. Evidence? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Evidence!
  16. Four Reasons to Worry About “Personalized Learning”
  17. Progressive Labels for Regressive Practices

2014 41

  1. Introduction to “More Than a Score”
  2. Rethinking Homework Surveys
  3. Incentives and Health Promotion
  4. Grade Inflation Sources
  5. Possible Purposes of Schools
  6. Why the Best Teachers Don’t Give Tests
  7. References and Resources
  8. Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education (CARE)
  9. Practical Strategies to Save Our Schools
  10. Florida’s A+ Plus Plan for Education
  11. The Case Against “Tougher Standards”
  12. Grit: A Skeptical Look at the Latest Educational Fad (##)
  13. Unconditional Parenting – (Lecture Topic)
  14. The Homework Myth – (Lecture Topic)
  15. Pushed Too Hard – (Lecture Topic)
  16. Fear Of Spoiling – (Lecture Topic)
  17. Raising Rebels – (Lecture Topic)
  18. Beyond Bribes And Threats- (Lecture Topic)
  19. The Deadly Effects Of “Tougher Standards” – (Lecture Topic)
  20. Motivation From The Inside Out – (Lecture Topic)
  21. Challenging Students… And How To Have More Of Them – (Lecture Topic)
  22. The (Progressive) Schools Our Children Deserve – (Lecture Topic)
  23. Teaching Children To Care – (Lecture Topic)
  24. The Case Against Competition – (Lecture Topic)
  25. From Degrading To De-Grading – (Lecture Topic)
  26. Choices For Children – (Lecture Topic)
  27. ON BRIBING STUDENTS TO LEARN – (Lecture Topic)
  28. Overhauling the Transmission Model – (Lecture Topic)
  29. Performance Vs. Learning – (Lecture Topic)
  30. The Deadly Effects Of “Tougher Standards”: Challenging High-Stakes Testing and Other Impediments to Learning – (Lecture Topic)
  31. The Illusion of Discovery
  32. What Waiting for a Second Marshmallow Doesn’t Prove (##)
  33. Common Misconception
  34. Perfect, It Turns Out, Is What Practice Doesn’t Make
  35. Just Another Brick in the Wall: How Education Researchers Ignore the Ends to Tweak the Means
  36. Trophy Fury: What’s Behind Claims that Kids Are Coddled and Overcelebrated?
  37. The Downside of “Grit” (Commentary)
  38. Why I Write
  39. This Time It’s Different … Again
  40. The Trouble With Calls For Universal “High-Quality” Pre-K
  41. The Attack on Self-Esteem

2013 8

  1. The Roots of Grades-and-Tests
  2. A Dozen Essential Guidelines for Educators
  3. Encouraging Courage (##)
  4. Five Bad Education Assumptions the Media Keeps Recycling
  5. “We’re Number Umpteenth!”: The Myth Of Lagging U.S. Schools
  6. Is Parent Involvement In School Really Useful?
  7. Why Do We Punish Children?
  8. Change by Decree (##)

2012 9

  1. Whom We Admit, What We Deny
  2. Homework: An Unnecessary Evil? … Surprising Findings From New Research
  3. The Case Against Homework
  4. What Do Kids Really Learn from Failure?
  5. Schooling Beyond Measure (##)
  6. Lowering the Temperature on Claims of “Summer Learning Loss”
  7. What Makes a Terrific Parent?
  8. Criticizing (Common Criticisms of) Praise
  9. The Risks and Potential of Required Community Service

2011 15

  1. Five Not-So-Obvious Propositions About Play
  2. The Case Against Grades (##)
  3. Corridor Wit: Talking Back to Our Teachers
  4. Whoever Said There’s No Such Thing As a Stupid Question Never Looked Carefully at a Standardized Test
  5. Teaching Strategies That Work! (Just Don’t Ask “Work to Do What?”)
  6. Why Are Some People Always Late? And Other Human Puzzles
  7. How to Write an Article About Current Parenting Styles
  8. What Parents Aren’t Asked in School Surveys — and Why
  9. Poor Teaching for Poor Children … in the Name of Reform (##)
  10. “Well, Duh!” — 10 Obvious Truths That We Shouldn’t Be Ignoring
  11. Studies Support Rewards, Homework, and Traditional Teaching. Or Do They?
  12. “But I Need to Assign Homework! Look at All I Have to Cover!”
  13. STEM Sell: Do Math and Science Matter More Than Other Subjects?
  14. Do Tests Help Students Learn or Was a New Study Misreported?
  15. “Politically Correct”: The Lazy Bully’s Label of Choice

2010 14

  1. Remember When We Had High Standards? Neither Do I
  2. “Ready to Learn” = Easier to Educate
  3. Operation Discourage Bright People from Wanting to Teach
  4. How to Sell Conservatism: Lesson 1 — Pretend You’re a Reformer
  5. School Would Be Great If It Weren’t for the Damn Kids
  6. Debunking the Case for National Standards (#)
  7. What Passes for School Reform: “Value-Added” Teacher Evaluation and Other School Reform Absurdities
  8. How to Create Nonreaders (#)
  9. Turning Children into Data (##)
  10. Competitiveness vs. Excellence: The Education Crisis That Isn’t
  11. Bad Signs (#)
  12. Spoiled Rotten — A Timeless Complaint (commentary)
  13. So What SHOULD Parents Do?
  14. Getting Rid of Grades: Case Studies

2009 11

  1. Teachers Describe the Harms of Test-Driven School Reform
  2. Reflections on the School Librarians’ “Standards for the 21st-Century Learner”
  3. Ted Sizer and Jerry Bracey: An Appreciation
  4. Amor Parental Con Limitaciones
  5. Parental Love with Strings Attached (#)
  6. The Value of Negative Learning (#)
  7. Twenty-first Century Skills? It Depends What You Mean…
  8. Bushobama
  9. Cash Incentives Won’t Make Us Healthier (#)
  10. More Evidence That Incentives Fail
  11. When “21st-Century Schooling” Just Isn’t Good Enough: A Modest Proposal (#)

2008 9

  1. Beware of School “Reformers”
  2. Por Qué Está Sobrevalorada La Autodisciplina
  3. Why Self-Discipline Is Overrated (#)
  4. It’s Not What We Teach; It’s What They Learn (#)
  5. Teachers Who Have Stopped Assigning Homework
  6. Early Childhood Education: The Case Against Direct Instruction of Academic Skills (#)
  7. Teachers Who Refuse to Hand Out the Tests
  8. Gleanings #3: Test Boycotts, Death to the Syllabus, and Why Secretaries of Education Are Never Educators
  9. Progressive Education (#)

2007 10

  1. Are Fewer Young People Reading for Pleasure?
  2. The Difference Myth
  3. Who’s Cheating Whom? (#)
  4. Against “Competitiveness” (#)
  5. Gleanings #2: Fresh Writings on the Achievement Gap
  6. Changing the Homework Default
  7. Parrot Math
  8. Gleanings #1: Resources on Inclusion, Gender, Classroom Management, and Assignments That Require No Thinking
  9. Close the Book on ‘Book It!’
  10. Rethinking Homework

2006 6

  1. Is The Homework Myth Popular with Students? Well, Sure. What’s Your Point?
  2. Kids May Be Right After All: Homework Stinks
  3. The Truth About Homework
  4. Abusing Research: The Study of Homework and Other Examples
  5. Kohn et al. v. Massachusetts DOE
  6. The Trouble with Rubrics (#)

2005 10

  1. Reindeer Ruminations
  2. Punitive Damages
  3. Getting Hit on the Head Lessons (#)
  4. The Trouble with Pure Freedom: A Case for Active Adult Involvement in Progressive Education
  5. The (Progressive) Schools Our Children Deserve
  6. Unconditional Teaching (#)
  7. Atrocious Advice from “Supernanny” (#)
  8. Parental Discipline and Race
  9. A Different View
  10. Pseudochoice

2004 6

  1. Challenging Students . . . And How to Have More of Them (#)
  2. Falls Church School Won’t Teach to the Test
  3. Feel-Bad Education: The Cult of Rigor and the Loss of Joy (#)
  4. Safety from the Inside Out (#)
  5. A Promise Unfulfilled: 150 Words on Brown v. Board
  6. Test Today, Privatize Tomorrow

2003 6

  1. Rethinking Character Education: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Camp and Kids
  2. The Folly of Merit Pay (**)
  3. Professors Who Profess (**)
  4. State-Mandated Testing: Why We Opt Out
  5. What Does It Mean to Be Well-Educated? (**)
  6. Almost There, But Not Quite (**)

2002 9

  1. How Not to Get Into College: The Preoccupation with Preparation
  2. Another Look At Workplace Incentives
  3. The 500-Pound Gorilla (**)
  4. Education’s Rotten Apples (**)
  5. The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation (**)
  6. The Worst Kind of Cheating
  7. Standardized Testing: Separating Wheat Children from Chaff Children
  8. Requesting Testing
  9. Fighting the Toxic Status Quo

2001 10

  1. September 11 (**)
  2. Beware of the Standards, Not Just the Tests (**)
  3. Accelerated Direct Success
  4. Five Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job!” (**)
  5. Emphasis on Testing Leads to Sacrifices in Other Areas (**)
  6. One-Size-Fits-All Education Doesn’t Work
  7. Two Cheers for an End to the SAT (**)
  8. Teacher Won’t Administer CSAP Tests
  9. Education’s Different Drummer
  10. Fighting the Tests: A Practical Guide to Rescuing Our Schools

2000 7

  1. Sample Letter
  2. Standardized Testing and Its Victims (**)
  3. The Insanity of Testing Mania
  4. Opposing View (editorials)
  5. The Case for Sondheim as Existentialist
  6. Poor Teaching for Poor Students: More Reasons to Boycott the MCAS Tests
  7. Sell Schools, Not Test Scores

1999 17

  1. Tests That Cheat Students
  2. Turning the Tables
  3. In Defense of the Progressive School
  4. The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement (**)
  5. On Teaching Reading, Spelling, and Related Subjects
  6. What Works Better than Traditional Math Instruction
  7. Moving Beyond Facts, Skills, and Right Answers
  8. First Lesson: Unlearn How We Learned (commentary)
  9. Tougher Tests = Lower Standards
  10. Confusing Harder With Better (**)
  11. The Trouble With “Back-to-Basics” and “Tougher Standards”
  12. A Look at Maslow’s “Basic Propositions”
  13. Why Students Lose When Tougher Standards Win: A Conversation with Alfie Kohn
  14. Constant Frustration and Occasional Violence: The Legacy of American High Schools (**)
  15. How Wisconsin Parents Worked to Roll Back High Stakes Testing
  16. From Degrading to De-Grading
  17. In Pursuit of Affluence, at a High Price

1998 5

  1. Addendum to “Suffer the Restless Children”
  2. Television and Children: ReViewing the Evidence
  3. Introduction to What to Look for in a Classroom … and Other Essays
  4. Only for My Kid: How Privileged Parents Undermine School Reform (*)
  5. Challenging Behaviorist Dogma

1997 3

  1. Students Don’t “Work”–They Learn (*)
  2. The Limits of Teaching Skills (*)
  3. How Not to Teach Values: A Critical Look at Character Education (*)

1996 3

  1. Beyond Discipline (*)
  2. The Trouble with School Uniforms (*)
  3. What to Look for in a Classroom (*)

1995 3

  1. Discipline Is The Problem — Not The Solution
  2. Punished by Rewards?: A Conversation with Alfie Kohn
  3. Newt Gingrich’s Reading Plan (*)

1994 4

  1. El Riesgo de las Recompensas
  2. The Risks of Rewards
  3. The Truth About Self-Esteem (*)
  4. Grading: The Issue Is Not How but Why (*)

1993 10

  1. Is Competition Ever Appropriate in a Cooperative Classroom?
  2. A Closer Look at Reading Incentive Programs
  3. The Case Against Gold Stars
  4. For Best Results, Forget the Bonus
  5. Turning Learning Into A Business: Concerns About ‘Quality Management’ at School (*)
  6. Choices for Children: Why and How to Let Students Decide (*)
  7. Why We Should Avoid Rewards Even for Boring Tasks
  8. Changing Education from the Inside Out
  9. School Choice Myths (*)
  10. Back to Nurture

1992 1

  1. Resistance to Cooperative Learning: Making Sense of Its Deletion and Dilution (*)

1991 4

  1. Competition vs. Excellence
  2. Value Human Life, Not American Power
  3. Group Grade Grubbing versus Cooperative LEARNING
  4. Caring Kids: The Role of the Schools (*)

1990 4

  1. Hiroshima
  2. The Humanity of Humans
  3. Fun & Fitness Without Competition
  4. Getting a Grip on Schizophrenia

Undated 24

  1. Do Religious People Help More? Not So You’d Notice
  2. Altruism Within Egoism (Book Review)
  3. Beyond Selfishness
  4. Paris Slide Show
  5. Are Humans Innately Aggressive?
  6. Mind Over Matter: Inside the Christian Science Church
  7. No Contest
  8. The Case Against Competition
  9. Attorney Relishes Unpopular Cases
  10. We Interrupt This Tour…
  11. Risking the Wind
  12. To Forget Is Human; To Forgive, Tragic
  13. Stop!: An Analysis of Boston Driving
  14. Struggling Toward Literacy
  15. Dialing for Dollars
  16. What’s Up, Doc?
  17. Existentialism Here and Now
  18. B. F. Skinner: Reinforced by Life
  19. Lottery Lies
  20. Rich Man, Poor Man
  21. Growth Potential
  22. Existential Quizzes
  23. How to Make the Least of Your College Years
  24. Rodents and the Barometry of Tension