In this installment of the Reimagining Education Series, Lauren is joined by prolific author and lecturer, Alfie Kohn, described in Time magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.” Some of Alfie’s most popular books include Punished by Rewards, Unconditional Parenting, Beyond Discipline, and The Myth of the Spoiled Child.
Join us as Alfie and Lauren discuss what it means to be a reflective rebel and how we can make trouble by questioning the false dichotomies and assumptions that are so prevalent in education.
In this episode we talk about:
- The false dichotomy of punishment and reward and other common false assumptions in education.
- What’s wrong with education’s focus on tests, grades, and homework.
- What is deep modeling and how educators and parents can embody it.
- Why it’s important to see children as having autonomous desires.
- That if our goal is to raise generous, caring, curious, creative, and compassionate life long learners, then our education system must change.
Links so you can explore more:
For more on Alfie and his spectacular works, visit www.alfiekohn.org
If you have any questions about this episode’s topic feel free to email Lauren at lauren@soulpathparenting.com or join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram!
For more episodes like this one, check out our Reimagining Education Series at https://www.soulpathparenting.com/reimagining-education-series
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amy (00:04):
We believe life can be a journey toward wholeness, toward
reconnecting with who we areauthentically meant to be. We
walk this path of growth anddiscovery with our children,
with our partners withinourselves. These are the stories
of what's possible. These arethe conversations that light the
(00:28):
way. Welcome to soul pathparenting.
Lauren (00:33):
I'm so excited to share this conversation with all of
you today. Alfie Cohn, who Iwill be speaking to, in just a
few moments, is a brilliant,funny, prolific speaker and
writer that so beautifullyteases apart ideas, and
identifies what is most true,and of highest value to us as
(00:56):
parents and educators, seekingto do our best by giving our
children what is truly best forthem as they learn and grow. He
has written many books,including punished by rewards,
unconditional parenting, and themyth of the spoiled child. And I
highly recommend all of those.
You can also find him at Alfiecohn.org, which includes
(01:20):
information about his manybooks, articles, and also his
blog as well as other things.
I'm so grateful that he took thetime to talk with me about
reimagining education in orderto create learning environments
for our children that supportauthentic, autonomous growth and
(01:43):
learning. I hope you enjoy thisconversation as much as I did.
Hello, and I'm so excited to bejoined today by author and
speaker Alfie Cohn, who writesand teaches extensively on the
topics of parenting, andeducation. Thank you so much for
(02:05):
joining me today as we continueour reimagining education
series. Nice to be here. Wechose the word reimagining
rather than reforming educationbecause we feel like reform runs
the risk of still sticking withthe false assumptions the
original system was built on.
And we want to reimagine whateducation might be like once we
(02:27):
get clear on what is truly bestfor children. And why
you are one of the mostoutspoken critics of the false
assumptions upon which bothtraditional education and some
of the alternative forms ofeducation that could be
described as a reaction againsttraditional education are based
(02:51):
on Could you talk a little bitabout what those false
assumptions are?
Alfie Kohn (02:57):
Oh, where to begin?
Lauren (03:00):
Right? That's an easy question to start with.
Alfie Kohn (03:03):
Well, I suppose we would have to distinguish
between those I could actuallyargue based on empirical
evidence are false. And thosewith which I simply disagree,
because I'm proceeding from adifferent set of values or
goals.
Education Reform, as that termis usually used, comes from a
(03:25):
whole mindset that politiciansand corporate executives use
where they see education as justa way of training future
employers who will be adequatelyskilled and have the right
attitudes toadd to the profitability of
corporations, they'll work forone day. And that's consistent
(03:47):
with the whole top down heavyhanded,
standards driven, test orientedapproach to education, which
assumes that to be well educatedis just to have a bunch of
facts, committed to memory thatcan be spit out on command and a
(04:09):
test, or a series of, ofparticular academic skills that
make you a good taker ofstandardized tests. And I
challenge all of that stuff. Butmy work in general also
challenges the idea based andthis is based on the best theory
and research we have aboutcognitive development and, and
(04:33):
learning. The I challenge theidea that kids are basically
empty receptacles into whichknowledge can be poured. We know
that kids in fact are activemeaning makers, who are
constantly re construing theirbeliefs about how the world
works, and consistent with thatfact about how people do learn.
(04:57):
The best classrooms are thoseWhere there's very little going
on in the way of lecturing,textbooks, worksheets, tests and
quizzes, homework, grades, andso on. And instead of vibrant,
collaborative, activeenvironment where kids with and
with each other, are makingsense of ideas from the inside,
(05:21):
out.
And in, in that kind ofenvironment that's about deep
understanding,putting kids at the center of
making choices about what theylearn, because the curriculum is
largely based on their ownquestions about the world. A lot
of the other sort of peripheraltraditional practices like
(05:45):
homework, grades, tests, and soon, tend to fall by the wayside
because they tend to be remnantof a less effective approach to
teaching and learning that's notreally about honoring what kids
want to know, and helping themto become critical, creative
thinkers. Beautiful, and I lovehow you modeled for me in the
(06:10):
way that you responded to myquestion, because I set up the
premise with what are the falseassumptions? And you tease that
apart by saying, well, there arefalse assumptions that we could
critique based on scientificresearch and evidence. And then
there are values. And perhaps wecould even use a word like
(06:32):
preferences. How do you feelabout I'm language person and so
values preferences? Um, is therea difference between those two
words for you? Oh, interesting.
Um,yes, the word preferences may
imply by itself, that it there,there's no good argument behind
(06:58):
it. Like I like vanilla, youlike chocolate, it's just my
preference and of discussion.
But a stronger word, perhaps orthat word understood
differently, might imply thatthere are good defensible
reasons for wanting x over y.
And that, in turn, can be basedon values on what is empirically
(07:20):
true, or some combination ofboth. I'll give you an example.
I wrote a book some years agocalled punished by rewards, yes.
Which argues that when youdangle goodies in front of
people, whether it's parentsdoing it with your children,
teachers, with their students,or employers, with their
(07:43):
workers, do this, and you'll getthat,
I argue in that book, that theargument against doing it is
based both on solid researchshowing that rewards like
punishments, are not merelyineffective, but
counterproductive. They actuallydo damage. But also, in addition
(08:07):
to that evidence about what istrue about what the effects of
rewards actually are, I believethere are good value reasons for
not treating human beings likepets, by giving them the
equivalent of a doggy biscuitsor jumping through Europa. So I
think I've got it covered onboth the value side and the
(08:27):
empirical side, which add up tosomething stronger than just a
mere whimsical preference.
Lauren (08:34):
Yes, beautiful. I love that distinction.
There are so many questions, Iwant to ask you, as I think
about your work andthe importance of getting clear
on both what is empiricallyevidentially true, and what our
(08:54):
values are, and then how tocreate environments for our
children that embody both ofthose things. And I'm, and I,
this is our reimaginingeducation series. But we also
talk a lot about parenting. It'sa parenting podcast, and we're
both parenting coaches. And wefind a lot of situations in
(09:19):
which people feel stuck betweentwo choices, and they aren't
aware of additional options. Andthey also might not even be
aware that those that falsebinary that they feel stuck in
Yep, is based on something thatthey might not even know if it's
empirically true, or it mightnot align with their values or
(09:41):
both. Can you talk a little bitabout that false binary issue?
Well, I use that conceptual, youknow, apparatus to critique a
whole lot of stuff in schoolsand with parenting. So there are
many examples where that's true.
So
Alfie Kohn (10:00):
I mentioned one with respect to parenting, which is
the choice betweena punitive, autocratic, top down
do it my way, you know, you'reunder my roof, you'll live by my
rules or else approach or apermissive hands off laissez
faire, you know, do whatever youwant, I wouldn't dare interfere
(10:24):
with you approach. Now. Now, Ibelieve the first thing I'll
say, though, is thatthe vast majority of people
writing andadvising about parenting, spend
most of their ammunitiontrying to defeat permissiveness,
(10:46):
which I think is a real mistake.
Because, in fact, I think thereal danger, at least in this
culture, is it's not parents whoare too permissive, but parents
who are so afraid of beingfought permissive, that they
overcompensate by being toocontrolling.
(11:07):
And there's various ways inwhich that control happens,
which itself opens the door tothinking about other false
dichotomies that I'll get to ina minute. But having said that,
I'm not arguing for punitive misor permissiveness, but for
challenging the assumption thatthose are our only options. We
don't have to choose betweendoing things to children to make
(11:31):
them obey, or just sitting backwhile they raised themselves.
The third alternative is aworking with children, or in the
case of classrooms with studentsto support and complicate the
process by which they come tothink about challenging ideas,
(11:53):
and solve problems. And that's alot harder than either doing
nothing or just giving orders.
That's part of the reason why weresist seeing it as a false
dichotomy. Because then we haveto learn what it means to work
with kids, you know, to helpthem make choices. So another
false dichotomy that I hinted ata minute ago, is how we go about
(12:16):
doing too. So another falsedichotomy is, well, you can, you
can use punishments with kidswhen they don't do what you
want. And that's such anunpleasant word. So we prefer to
feel better about what we'redoing by using euphemisms, like
consequences, you know,because, you know, or call them
(12:37):
logical consequences, becausethen I can feel better about
making kids feel terrible. Orinstead of calling it forcible
isolation of little kids whenthey need us most, we call it
timeout. Yes. Because Doesn'tthat sound innocuous? You know,
despite the cruelty inherent init? So we think, well, I, if I'm
not punishing kids, if I'm notcriticizing them and threatening
(13:02):
them, I guess I should rewardthem. You know, instead of
saying, do this, or here's whatI'm going to do to you. We say,
do this, and you'll get that.
And the reality is thatpunishments and rewards are two
sides of the same coin. And thatcoin doesn't buy very much
(13:23):
punishment and rewards. And ruleone rewards to By the way, we
dress up with euphemisms, likepositive reinforcement, even
though we're basically treatingkids like pips. But it's a false
dichotomy, because punishmentsand rewards are both ways of
doing things to kids instead ofworking with them. So there's
two examples more on theparenting side of how we, how we
(13:47):
tend to be limited by thinkingin black and white terms. And
incidentally, the alternative toblack and why it isn't always
gray, that is something in themiddle of that continuum. It
might be, you know, orange,something that rejects the right
that continuum, to look at, youknow, a possibility that's
(14:09):
outside of the whole way thatthe issue has been framed.
Lauren (14:13):
Absolutely in in my own parenting and seeking to make
decisions about educating mychildren. And in my past career
as a high school teacher, I feellike my experiences moved from
me blindly obeying andconforming to what I had been
(14:35):
taught and repeating it toreacting and rebelling against
it and going in the oppositedirection without realizing that
I was still being merely guidedby the original premises to now
exploring and so appreciatingyour work because you so
(14:57):
beautifully and eloquentlydescribe these Things to now
exploring what does it mean toquestion the original premises?
And how do I learn to work withchildren, both as a parent and
an educator in ways that feel tome to be completely different
than what I thought my choiceswere and what I had been
(15:19):
offered. And one of thequestions I want to ask you is,
is that a common developmentalprogression? what I just
described my experiences asbeing just does that make sense?
Alfie Kohn (15:31):
It does, indeed, I'd like to say it's a common
progression, except I'm not surehow many people get to the end
point. There are some people whoare still I mean, like, I always
think of the paradigmatic casehere is, is like, young adults,
you know, in their early 20s,saying, you know, I used to have
to do exactly what my parentssay, Now, I do exactly the
(15:54):
opposite of what they say. SoI'm free of them. Yes, exactly.
And of course, the irony here ispainful, you're just as unfree
as you were before, because it'sa knee jerk, you know, and
thesis to anti thesisantithesis. Yeah, eventually,
you want to be able to takewhat's useful from our own
(16:15):
parents and teachers and leavebehind what isn't, and begin to
develop criteria for knowing thedifference. And that takes that
takes psychological health, akind of mental flexibility, and
also a kind of emotionalintegration that a lot of
people, frankly, don't have, orlet's put that more
(16:38):
optimistically, are stillworking toward. And the criteria
by which they make thosedistinctions themselves have to
be developed, and you need theskills to be able to do that.
That's why I'm a critic, notonly of traditional discipline,
but if the idea of selfdiscipline, or getting kids to
(17:00):
internalize good values, as manyteachers and parents say, by
which they mean, our values,then they have swallowed whole
or intro jected. So now theydon't need us, you know,
standing over them with acharacteristic, they'll do what
we want without our being in theroom. And that, of course, is
(17:21):
hardly an advanced or, you know,sophisticated stage of
development. Because we haven'tprogressed to the point that
we're willing to acknowledgethat our kids may want things
and believe in things other thanthan than what we do, there has
to be a fully integrated sense.
That goes beyond mereinternalization, self discipline
(17:43):
is just a clever, scariertechnique by which people with
power, get relatively powerlesspeople to obey them more often
and more thoroughly. You know,in education circles, the word
engagement as an engagedstudents used to mean something,
I think desirable. And now it'sbeen engaged means really
(18:08):
compliant, if you look at theway that that plays out, so um,
yeah, I think where we want toend up in a place where we're
willing to have thatflexibility. And by the way,
give it to students as well. Sowe're not merely telling them
here are the here are thestandard, the goals or the
(18:28):
standards, but maybe we'll giveyou a little a little discretion
and how you meet them, asopposed to the kind of teacher
who's willing to let kids notjust individually but as a
community, reflect on and decideon? What the standards and the
goals are? Where do we want toend up as a classroom? What kind
(18:51):
of classroom do we want to haveis very different from I'm going
to tell you, you know, what ourclassroom management outcomes
will be and you can tell me howwe should punish people who
disobey you know, in general,what I do with all the issues
that I write about for parentsand teachers, is to ask the
(19:13):
radical questions, which I thinkis what you're getting at
without using that word radicalcomes from the Latin for root.
So, you know, I don't fiddlearound with little tweaks in the
status quo, like, you know,should we put grades online? Or
should we do standards basedassessment, which is a term that
really helps you understand thephrase, putting lipstick on a
(19:37):
pig?
But to ask, why would we begiving students grades at all,
given what the evidence showsabout the despair destructive
effect on quality of thinkingand interest in learning? The
same thing is true with respectto you know, do we do multiple
choice tests or fill in theblank? Wait, why are we doing
(19:59):
tests? Well, you skip the step.
And we go down the line with allof this, you know, should? How
much homework should should kidsget given? If they're in fourth
grade? Wait, no evidence hasever found any benefit of any
kind of homework at least belowhigh school? Why should kids
have to work a second shift ofacademics, when they get home
(20:20):
from a full day in school? Askthe radical question, defend
doing this at all. Don't skip tothe step of how should we do it?
Or even less impressively? Howmuch of it should we do?
Lauren (20:36):
Exactly? And and why, in your opinion, and experience?
And what does the researchsuggest about why we so often
see this skipping of thefoundational step, because I was
guilty of that as well. And I'mnow learning from guides, like
(20:57):
you who offer the kind of deepmodeling and I would love to
make sure we include yourconcept of deep modeling before
we wrap up today, because that'sone of my favorite things that
you talk about. Um, with thehelp of the deep modeling of
guides, like you, I am learningto ask those radical route based
questions. But that was not mydefault. And that seems very
(21:20):
common. Can you speak a littlebit to why that might be?
Alfie Kohn (21:24):
Yeah, I think there are psychological explanations,
and there are structural orsystemic explanations, and we
should pay some attention toboth. Psychologically, it's
scarier than ask the bigquestions, you have to have a
much higher tolerance for risk,you know, because it's
terrifying to implicitly raisethe question that the people who
(21:46):
raised and taught to you mightnot have done so in the way you
would have hoped. You know,there's just confronting that
possibility. You know, AliceMiller, the psychoanalyst talks
a lot about that, how wedesperately and on an
unconscious level, need tobelieve that, that what our
parents did was for our own goodand out of love. And so we will
(22:07):
mindlessly reproduce that stuff,even though it's often terribly
harmful. Because that helps usto, you know, wave away the
possibility that that might notalways be true. So and there's
other psychological, you know,you have to, you know, if you
are a really good teacher, inthe United States, in American
(22:30):
Public Schools, you have to be arebel, because of so much of
what's built in is bad for kids,and was never designed to help
them be creative, critical,curious people who love learning
and challenge the status quo. Ithas other, it has other goals in
mind. And that's tough forpeople, it's a lot easier to
(22:51):
just choose the path of leastresistance, you know, because if
you raise their test scores andkeep a quiet classroom, you'll
be celebrated as a greatteacher, even though that's not
really a great teaching, atleast not by my lights. Anyway,
those are the sort of cyclethere could we could go on at
length, I'm sure you cancontribute a lot of other
explanations, answers to yourown question. But at the same
(23:15):
time, it's not just aboutpeople's own histories, and
fears. It's also about what is,I guess, this is implicit in
what I'm saying about whichteachers we celebrate. It's also
about structural constraints.
You know, there are, there areteachers who are challenged, who
(23:35):
are slapped down for doing greatteaching, while they watch their
mediocre colleagues beingcongratulated for raising scores
on horrible tests. Yes, youknow, and so, so you, you have
to there has to be structuralchange, changing the system at
(23:58):
the same time that we reflect onour own barriers, and byesies.
And when we move on both tracksat once, we are better able to
do what, what, what, what, whatbenefits children?
Lauren (24:21):
Yes. And one of the things that you talk about that
I see immense benefits forchildren and for myself as I
keep growing and learning isyour concept of deep modeling.
Can you explain what that is?
Alfie Kohn (24:34):
Yeah, I'm delighted to found that I wrote that a
long time ago in one article,it's not something I that's sort
of part of my regular sort ofroutine. So I'm delighted to be
asked to recall it. Yeah,modeling means you use regular
modeling means you show kids youknow what it means to, to to
(24:54):
write and rewrite if you're saya writing teacher or two how to
approach a math problem ascientific experiment or for
that matter, an ethicalchallenge. If you're a parent,
you know, they don't, you don'tjust tell them you, you
demonstrate, and kids learn tobe caring people, we have a lot
of research on this by watchingadults who are genuinely
(25:18):
concerned about other people,even people who don't, they
don't like or look like. And youknow, when you see a very
different message, and you beginto smell the odor of hypocrisy
when that when the adult says dothis, but meanwhile, the adult
is doing something else, youknow, like, you know, no, you
(25:41):
can't play your video games, youknow, get out in the real world,
while the adult is on her phoneall the time, or whatever. But
merely modeling in itself isjust about the behavior, which
is being watched. And it doesn'talways provide a kind of
underpinning a substrate of thereasons for the behavior, which
(26:03):
ultimately counts much more thanthe action itself. And so the
idea that I called Deep modelingis about providing that
rationale and narrating what'sgoing on. And again, that can
happen when you teach kids andshow kids writing, you don't
just do it, but you, you sort ofthere's a running commentary of
(26:24):
here, no, that's not really theright word. That's not the word
I wanted, let's cross that out.
And try again, maybe the wholesentence has to be flipped. Or
Same thing with actually doingmath, which rarely happens in
math classrooms, is huge. It'susually about just step by step,
mindlessly mimic the approvedalgorithm, or strategy, which
(26:47):
doesn't teach kids to thinkmathematically at all, but
merely to memorize procedures,when they have no understanding
of what that's really about.
Which is possibly an adequateway to raise test scores, but
not a good way of helping kidsto be math learners. You know,
(27:07):
and so it goes for other thingsthat we parents do, as well. So
it's basically a fancy way ofsaying, showing and telling. But
in, in both cases, doing it in areally thoughtful, sophisticated
way, that brings kids in on theprocess, so that there's a back
and forth, there's a dialogue,and ultimately gives them more
(27:28):
say about what's going on,whether that's, you know, how to
balance being compassionate,with being honest, which is a
really tough balance to strikein real life, you know, or
whether it's about how to set upa scientific experiment, it's
about, you know, the I tellteachers and parents, kids learn
(27:51):
how to make good decisions, bymaking decisions, not by
following directions. And soeven with four, maybe,
especially with this concept ofdeep modeling, we have to do a
lot more asking them telling oreven showing.
Lauren (28:10):
Absolutely, and I think one of the mistakes I have made
both as a parent and an educatorhas been to feel like I have
gone through this process, Ihave discerned I have
questioned, I have my reasons. Ilike how I'm behaving. And then
I just want to get my children,my students to do what I do. And
(28:32):
I'm making that huge mistake ofskipping the process of
supporting and facilitatingtheir experience. They're
getting to experience what I'veexperienced.
Alfie Kohn (28:45):
Yep, yep, absolutely. And there are a lot
of teachers who pride themselveson, like peripheral aspects of
choice or respect shown forstudents. But I wrote an article
of some years ago called almostthere, but not quite, which is
about in various ways, includingthis issue of autonomy support,
but other stuff to where, youknow, we're sort of there, you
(29:09):
know, like in math, I'm so proudthat I give kids you know,
problem has to do, ormanipulatives, or something like
that. And yet, when you stepback and look at it, it's still
not about constructingmathematical ideas. It's still
about approved procedures justthrough a cuter way of doing it.
Or we give, we let kids make,make some choices. Which of
(29:35):
these topics Would you like towrite about? Pick one out of
three? Well, if you're reallygoing to support kids autonomy,
they can't just be aboutselection from your menu. It has
to be about their being able toconstruct possibilities, and to
do so in a way that's alsointeractive, not not just doing
(29:57):
it individually. So wherevery'all On the continuum of being
really thoughtful about thisstuff, you can probably go a
little, you know, a little alittle further. We can we all
can do that, as parents, nobodyhas made it, we all can try to
reflect and say, you know, Iknow teachers who like basically
(30:18):
conk themselves on a foreheaddriving home from school saying,
oh, why did I decide this?
Whatever this is like, wherewe're going to take our field
trip, or how long the classmeeting should last or whatever,
when I could have brought thekids into doing that with me.
And so often, the reason is,because it's what you just
nicely articulated, which is,Hey, I paid my dues, I've got
(30:41):
some experience, I've thoughtabout this stuff for a long
time, my job is to instill thisin them transmit this to them,
get these same outcomes fromthem, when that's not really
about how we, how we support andhelp kids to grow at home or at
school.
Lauren (31:04):
Absolutely, thank you so much for articulating that so
clearly, and offering adultslike me, as well as the children
in all of the places that youhave influenced this nuanced
understanding of what we'redoing and why and how we could
do it better, differently andbetter. The final question I
(31:28):
have for you is, because I'mimagining there's a relationship
between this deep modeling thatwas such, that was such a
profound insight for me, becauseI had been trained to model as a
teacher, but it was that I dosomething and I trained the
children to copy me and torepeat what I did, and your
(31:48):
concept of deep modeling, whichnuances that and invites
teachers and parents to shareour process to pull back the
window, show what's going onbehind the scenes, and invite
children to be able to witnessand learn from that, and then
learn how to experience thatprocess themselves. And I
(32:10):
imagine that's related to yourconcept of raising reflective
rebels, as opposed to what Ilike to call obedience attics,
which is what I used to be.
Alfie Kohn (32:22):
Right, right, right.
But the the, I think they'veread the big fault line here,
the big Fisher is not just lesssophisticated and more
sophisticated strategies ortechniques, like regular
modeling versus deep modeling.
The real distinction, the realdivide here, is between just
(32:44):
improving the method versusrethinking the goal. You know,
when I hear about these justappalling, like, just ghastly
programs in schools like classdojo and PBS positive behavior
supports, you know, that are,and these are examples of
(33:07):
treating kids like pets, ofmanipulating them, and so on in
a way that a, according to theresearch is going to be
counterproductive in the longrun, and B, is just an awful way
to treat another human beingeven a short one. You know,
that's, those critiques are justabout the method. You know, the
(33:29):
real problem with these schooldiscipline school climate
classroom management programs,is not just that the method is
inadequate, or that itbackfires. It's that the goal,
the objective was never to helpchildren become critical
thinkers, you know, or orgenuinely caring members of the
(33:52):
community, the goal is to getcompliance, to get them to
follow the rules, regardless ofwhether the rules are
reasonable, or whether the kidshad anything to say about them.
The goal is to get them to jumpthrough certain hoops
academically, even if it hasnothing to do with lighting a
fire intellectually. So part ofthe comeback to what we were
(34:15):
talking about earlier, part ofwhat is about moving past where
we were, you know, to, to go alittle further in our journey is
it's, it's, it's about beingwilling not just to ask the
radical questions, but to makesure that some of those
questions refer to the outcome.
You know, when people say, hey,look, there are studies that
(34:39):
show that doing this in theclassroom versus that teaching
reading with this techniquerather than that, for example,
has better outcomes leads tomore success. produces
excellence is more commonlyassociated with with effective
results. Whenever you see thatyour first response should be,
(35:01):
how are you defining effective?
What do you mean by successful?
And if it turns out that theanswer in that case is just
higher scores on standardizedtest, you haven't even begun to
offer a meaningful argument fordoing it this way versus that
way. The same thing is truewith, with parenting strategies
or, you know, or classroommanagement. You know, there
(35:25):
there was evidence around for,like 3040 years ago, that showed
it certain traditionalapproaches, you know, the kind
of teacher who is really knowswhat's going on, has eyes in the
back of her head, that kind ofthing, or starts with clear
expectations, and the first dayof school that leads to better
(35:46):
results. And there's researchsees studies prove, but what do
they mean by better results?
They mean, mindless obedience?
And so you always want toquestion this, too, so that
you're not only improving thequality of your so called
evidence based best practice,but that you're doing it with
(36:10):
respect outcomes, that matter,that are consistent with your
long term goals for the kind ofpeople you want your children or
your students to be.
Lauren (36:24):
Yes, absolutely. And what would you suggest those
long term goals ideally wouldbe?
Alfie Kohn (36:31):
Well, I start most of my, my lectures by workshops
by asking the question, not byproposal,
Lauren (36:38):
not by giving answers, because you're not exactly
Alfie Kohn (36:40):
I mean, I've got some I know, but I, what I can
tell you is I've done thisactivity literally hundreds of
times all over the world. I'vedone it with high school
teachers, and elementary schoolteachers and college teachers
and parents, I've done it withadministrators, I've done it in
rural, urban and suburban areas.
And I get, there's an amazingconsensus, like 80% of the items
(37:01):
on any list are on just aboutevery list, which is really
interesting when you ask peopleto think of a long term. And
what people tend to say is, ifthe question is, how do I want
my kid or kids to turn out?
years from now? People say,Well, I'd like them to be happy,
(37:25):
ethical, independent thinkers,but also caring and
compassionate, lifelonglearners, curious, creative, you
know, successful. And so what Ido for a living, is to say to
people, you say you want this.
So why are you doing that?
Because Because here's theresearch showing that you know,
(37:49):
what you're currently doing,like, offering a verbal doggie
biscuit to kids Good job whenthey jump through your hoops, or
teaching them all mandatory,long division with a textbook
and worksheets in fourth grade,whatever it is. Here's the
research showing that this isunlikely to help kids turn out
(38:10):
to be the way you say you want.
Nevermind what I want, right.
And so Something's got to give.
Either you've got to backtrackand disavow. What you've just
said, was what you really wantkids to be like lifelong
learners, or you got to stopdoing what you're doing that the
research shows makes it lesslikely that kids will be
lifelong learners. For example,giving grades and finding
(38:32):
homework, which are two of themost powerful ways to destroy is
curiosity that have ever beeninvented. You can't have it both
ways. And so I take people attheir, at their words that do we
mean it when we say we want themto be? You said you want kids to
be generous to be caring? Well,here's the research showing that
(38:53):
kids who get stickers, goldstars and praise, are more
focused on self interest, andless concerned about the impact
of their actions on otherpeople, compared to kids who
were not given patronizing.
Pat's on the head, good job forliving up to the adult
standards. So choose, right doyou want to keep praising them?
(39:17):
Do you want to keep giving themstickers and grades and
whatever? Or do you want them tobe generous, caring people. And
that's what I do for a living tosay, you got to make a choice.
Here's the research, butultimately, it comes down to the
long term goals that youyourself have set up.
Lauren (39:34):
And thank you for the work that you do in my personal
life and in the communities thatI interact with. It has been
transformative and enlighteningand life changing. So I am so
grateful. Thank you for givingus some of your time today. I'm
so excited for all of ourlisteners to get to hear what
(39:55):
you so eloquently articulated.
Alfie Kohn (39:58):
So well. Thank you.
I appreciate your interest inthese ideas and helping to make
trouble. And yes,
Lauren (40:05):
I consider myself a reflective rebel now. So thank
you.
Alfie Kohn (40:09):
You're welcome to the label. Yes.
Lauren (40:12):
Thank you so much for joining us for this incredible
conversation. I'd love to inviteyou to share this episode with
anyone you know, that might bequestioning false binaries, and
curious about third options andways to radically question the
root of things and be willing toreimagine something that might
(40:34):
need reimagining and if you haveany questions about what was
talked about in thisconversation, please email them
to me atlauren@soulpathparenting.com.
I'd love to hear from you andexplore with you and be guided
by what you want to learn. Justas we advocate for children to
(40:54):
be supported in their autonomousdesires to learn about what they
are curious about, rather thanwhat someone somewhere has
decided they need to know. Untilnext time, sending you all much
love on this journey.
We believe life can be a journey toward wholeness, toward
reconnecting with who we areauthentically meant to be. We
walk this path of growth anddiscovery with our children,
with our partners withinourselves. These are the stories
of what's possible. These arethe conversations that light the
(00:28):
way. Welcome to soul pathparenting.
Lauren (00:33):
I'm so excited to share this conversation with all of
you today. Alfie Cohn, who Iwill be speaking to, in just a
few moments, is a brilliant,funny, prolific speaker and
writer that so beautifullyteases apart ideas, and
identifies what is most true,and of highest value to us as
(00:56):
parents and educators, seekingto do our best by giving our
children what is truly best forthem as they learn and grow. He
has written many books,including punished by rewards,
unconditional parenting, and themyth of the spoiled child. And I
highly recommend all of those.
You can also find him at Alfiecohn.org, which includes
(01:20):
information about his manybooks, articles, and also his
blog as well as other things.
I'm so grateful that he took thetime to talk with me about
reimagining education in orderto create learning environments
for our children that supportauthentic, autonomous growth and
(01:43):
learning. I hope you enjoy thisconversation as much as I did.
Hello, and I'm so excited to bejoined today by author and
speaker Alfie Cohn, who writesand teaches extensively on the
topics of parenting, andeducation. Thank you so much for
(02:05):
joining me today as we continueour reimagining education
series. Nice to be here. Wechose the word reimagining
rather than reforming educationbecause we feel like reform runs
the risk of still sticking withthe false assumptions the
original system was built on.
And we want to reimagine whateducation might be like once we
(02:27):
get clear on what is truly bestfor children. And why
you are one of the mostoutspoken critics of the false
assumptions upon which bothtraditional education and some
of the alternative forms ofeducation that could be
described as a reaction againsttraditional education are based
(02:51):
on Could you talk a little bitabout what those false
assumptions are?
Alfie Kohn (02:57):
Oh, where to begin?
Lauren (03:00):
Right? That's an easy question to start with.
Alfie Kohn (03:03):
Well, I suppose we would have to distinguish
between those I could actuallyargue based on empirical
evidence are false. And thosewith which I simply disagree,
because I'm proceeding from adifferent set of values or
goals.
Education Reform, as that termis usually used, comes from a
(03:25):
whole mindset that politiciansand corporate executives use
where they see education as justa way of training future
employers who will be adequatelyskilled and have the right
attitudes toadd to the profitability of
corporations, they'll work forone day. And that's consistent
(03:47):
with the whole top down heavyhanded,
standards driven, test orientedapproach to education, which
assumes that to be well educatedis just to have a bunch of
facts, committed to memory thatcan be spit out on command and a
(04:09):
test, or a series of, ofparticular academic skills that
make you a good taker ofstandardized tests. And I
challenge all of that stuff. Butmy work in general also
challenges the idea based andthis is based on the best theory
and research we have aboutcognitive development and, and
(04:33):
learning. The I challenge theidea that kids are basically
empty receptacles into whichknowledge can be poured. We know
that kids in fact are activemeaning makers, who are
constantly re construing theirbeliefs about how the world
works, and consistent with thatfact about how people do learn.
(04:57):
The best classrooms are thoseWhere there's very little going
on in the way of lecturing,textbooks, worksheets, tests and
quizzes, homework, grades, andso on. And instead of vibrant,
collaborative, activeenvironment where kids with and
with each other, are makingsense of ideas from the inside,
(05:21):
out.
And in, in that kind ofenvironment that's about deep
understanding,putting kids at the center of
making choices about what theylearn, because the curriculum is
largely based on their ownquestions about the world. A lot
of the other sort of peripheraltraditional practices like
(05:45):
homework, grades, tests, and soon, tend to fall by the wayside
because they tend to be remnantof a less effective approach to
teaching and learning that's notreally about honoring what kids
want to know, and helping themto become critical, creative
thinkers. Beautiful, and I lovehow you modeled for me in the
(06:10):
way that you responded to myquestion, because I set up the
premise with what are the falseassumptions? And you tease that
apart by saying, well, there arefalse assumptions that we could
critique based on scientificresearch and evidence. And then
there are values. And perhaps wecould even use a word like
(06:32):
preferences. How do you feelabout I'm language person and so
values preferences? Um, is therea difference between those two
words for you? Oh, interesting.
Um,yes, the word preferences may
imply by itself, that it there,there's no good argument behind
(06:58):
it. Like I like vanilla, youlike chocolate, it's just my
preference and of discussion.
But a stronger word, perhaps orthat word understood
differently, might imply thatthere are good defensible
reasons for wanting x over y.
And that, in turn, can be basedon values on what is empirically
(07:20):
true, or some combination ofboth. I'll give you an example.
I wrote a book some years agocalled punished by rewards, yes.
Which argues that when youdangle goodies in front of
people, whether it's parentsdoing it with your children,
teachers, with their students,or employers, with their
(07:43):
workers, do this, and you'll getthat,
I argue in that book, that theargument against doing it is
based both on solid researchshowing that rewards like
punishments, are not merelyineffective, but
counterproductive. They actuallydo damage. But also, in addition
(08:07):
to that evidence about what istrue about what the effects of
rewards actually are, I believethere are good value reasons for
not treating human beings likepets, by giving them the
equivalent of a doggy biscuitsor jumping through Europa. So I
think I've got it covered onboth the value side and the
(08:27):
empirical side, which add up tosomething stronger than just a
mere whimsical preference.
Lauren (08:34):
Yes, beautiful. I love that distinction.
There are so many questions, Iwant to ask you, as I think
about your work andthe importance of getting clear
on both what is empiricallyevidentially true, and what our
(08:54):
values are, and then how tocreate environments for our
children that embody both ofthose things. And I'm, and I,
this is our reimaginingeducation series. But we also
talk a lot about parenting. It'sa parenting podcast, and we're
both parenting coaches. And wefind a lot of situations in
(09:19):
which people feel stuck betweentwo choices, and they aren't
aware of additional options. Andthey also might not even be
aware that those that falsebinary that they feel stuck in
Yep, is based on something thatthey might not even know if it's
empirically true, or it mightnot align with their values or
(09:41):
both. Can you talk a little bitabout that false binary issue?
Well, I use that conceptual, youknow, apparatus to critique a
whole lot of stuff in schoolsand with parenting. So there are
many examples where that's true.
So
Alfie Kohn (10:00):
I mentioned one with respect to parenting, which is
the choice betweena punitive, autocratic, top down
do it my way, you know, you'reunder my roof, you'll live by my
rules or else approach or apermissive hands off laissez
faire, you know, do whatever youwant, I wouldn't dare interfere
(10:24):
with you approach. Now. Now, Ibelieve the first thing I'll
say, though, is thatthe vast majority of people
writing andadvising about parenting, spend
most of their ammunitiontrying to defeat permissiveness,
(10:46):
which I think is a real mistake.
Because, in fact, I think thereal danger, at least in this
culture, is it's not parents whoare too permissive, but parents
who are so afraid of beingfought permissive, that they
overcompensate by being toocontrolling.
(11:07):
And there's various ways inwhich that control happens,
which itself opens the door tothinking about other false
dichotomies that I'll get to ina minute. But having said that,
I'm not arguing for punitive misor permissiveness, but for
challenging the assumption thatthose are our only options. We
don't have to choose betweendoing things to children to make
(11:31):
them obey, or just sitting backwhile they raised themselves.
The third alternative is aworking with children, or in the
case of classrooms with studentsto support and complicate the
process by which they come tothink about challenging ideas,
(11:53):
and solve problems. And that's alot harder than either doing
nothing or just giving orders.
That's part of the reason why weresist seeing it as a false
dichotomy. Because then we haveto learn what it means to work
with kids, you know, to helpthem make choices. So another
false dichotomy that I hinted ata minute ago, is how we go about
(12:16):
doing too. So another falsedichotomy is, well, you can, you
can use punishments with kidswhen they don't do what you
want. And that's such anunpleasant word. So we prefer to
feel better about what we'redoing by using euphemisms, like
consequences, you know,because, you know, or call them
(12:37):
logical consequences, becausethen I can feel better about
making kids feel terrible. Orinstead of calling it forcible
isolation of little kids whenthey need us most, we call it
timeout. Yes. Because Doesn'tthat sound innocuous? You know,
despite the cruelty inherent init? So we think, well, I, if I'm
not punishing kids, if I'm notcriticizing them and threatening
(13:02):
them, I guess I should rewardthem. You know, instead of
saying, do this, or here's whatI'm going to do to you. We say,
do this, and you'll get that.
And the reality is thatpunishments and rewards are two
sides of the same coin. And thatcoin doesn't buy very much
(13:23):
punishment and rewards. And ruleone rewards to By the way, we
dress up with euphemisms, likepositive reinforcement, even
though we're basically treatingkids like pips. But it's a false
dichotomy, because punishmentsand rewards are both ways of
doing things to kids instead ofworking with them. So there's
two examples more on theparenting side of how we, how we
(13:47):
tend to be limited by thinkingin black and white terms. And
incidentally, the alternative toblack and why it isn't always
gray, that is something in themiddle of that continuum. It
might be, you know, orange,something that rejects the right
that continuum, to look at, youknow, a possibility that's
(14:09):
outside of the whole way thatthe issue has been framed.
Lauren (14:13):
Absolutely in in my own parenting and seeking to make
decisions about educating mychildren. And in my past career
as a high school teacher, I feellike my experiences moved from
me blindly obeying andconforming to what I had been
(14:35):
taught and repeating it toreacting and rebelling against
it and going in the oppositedirection without realizing that
I was still being merely guidedby the original premises to now
exploring and so appreciatingyour work because you so
(14:57):
beautifully and eloquentlydescribe these Things to now
exploring what does it mean toquestion the original premises?
And how do I learn to work withchildren, both as a parent and
an educator in ways that feel tome to be completely different
than what I thought my choiceswere and what I had been
(15:19):
offered. And one of thequestions I want to ask you is,
is that a common developmentalprogression? what I just
described my experiences asbeing just does that make sense?
Alfie Kohn (15:31):
It does, indeed, I'd like to say it's a common
progression, except I'm not surehow many people get to the end
point. There are some people whoare still I mean, like, I always
think of the paradigmatic casehere is, is like, young adults,
you know, in their early 20s,saying, you know, I used to have
to do exactly what my parentssay, Now, I do exactly the
(15:54):
opposite of what they say. SoI'm free of them. Yes, exactly.
And of course, the irony here ispainful, you're just as unfree
as you were before, because it'sa knee jerk, you know, and
thesis to anti thesisantithesis. Yeah, eventually,
you want to be able to takewhat's useful from our own
(16:15):
parents and teachers and leavebehind what isn't, and begin to
develop criteria for knowing thedifference. And that takes that
takes psychological health, akind of mental flexibility, and
also a kind of emotionalintegration that a lot of
people, frankly, don't have, orlet's put that more
(16:38):
optimistically, are stillworking toward. And the criteria
by which they make thosedistinctions themselves have to
be developed, and you need theskills to be able to do that.
That's why I'm a critic, notonly of traditional discipline,
but if the idea of selfdiscipline, or getting kids to
(17:00):
internalize good values, as manyteachers and parents say, by
which they mean, our values,then they have swallowed whole
or intro jected. So now theydon't need us, you know,
standing over them with acharacteristic, they'll do what
we want without our being in theroom. And that, of course, is
(17:21):
hardly an advanced or, you know,sophisticated stage of
development. Because we haven'tprogressed to the point that
we're willing to acknowledgethat our kids may want things
and believe in things other thanthan than what we do, there has
to be a fully integrated sense.
That goes beyond mereinternalization, self discipline
(17:43):
is just a clever, scariertechnique by which people with
power, get relatively powerlesspeople to obey them more often
and more thoroughly. You know,in education circles, the word
engagement as an engagedstudents used to mean something,
I think desirable. And now it'sbeen engaged means really
(18:08):
compliant, if you look at theway that that plays out, so um,
yeah, I think where we want toend up in a place where we're
willing to have thatflexibility. And by the way,
give it to students as well. Sowe're not merely telling them
here are the here are thestandard, the goals or the
(18:28):
standards, but maybe we'll giveyou a little a little discretion
and how you meet them, asopposed to the kind of teacher
who's willing to let kids notjust individually but as a
community, reflect on and decideon? What the standards and the
goals are? Where do we want toend up as a classroom? What kind
(18:51):
of classroom do we want to haveis very different from I'm going
to tell you, you know, what ourclassroom management outcomes
will be and you can tell me howwe should punish people who
disobey you know, in general,what I do with all the issues
that I write about for parentsand teachers, is to ask the
(19:13):
radical questions, which I thinkis what you're getting at
without using that word radicalcomes from the Latin for root.
So, you know, I don't fiddlearound with little tweaks in the
status quo, like, you know,should we put grades online? Or
should we do standards basedassessment, which is a term that
really helps you understand thephrase, putting lipstick on a
(19:37):
pig?
But to ask, why would we begiving students grades at all,
given what the evidence showsabout the despair destructive
effect on quality of thinkingand interest in learning? The
same thing is true with respectto you know, do we do multiple
choice tests or fill in theblank? Wait, why are we doing
(19:59):
tests? Well, you skip the step.
And we go down the line with allof this, you know, should? How
much homework should should kidsget given? If they're in fourth
grade? Wait, no evidence hasever found any benefit of any
kind of homework at least belowhigh school? Why should kids
have to work a second shift ofacademics, when they get home
(20:20):
from a full day in school? Askthe radical question, defend
doing this at all. Don't skip tothe step of how should we do it?
Or even less impressively? Howmuch of it should we do?
Lauren (20:36):
Exactly? And and why, in your opinion, and experience?
And what does the researchsuggest about why we so often
see this skipping of thefoundational step, because I was
guilty of that as well. And I'mnow learning from guides, like
(20:57):
you who offer the kind of deepmodeling and I would love to
make sure we include yourconcept of deep modeling before
we wrap up today, because that'sone of my favorite things that
you talk about. Um, with thehelp of the deep modeling of
guides, like you, I am learningto ask those radical route based
questions. But that was not mydefault. And that seems very
(21:20):
common. Can you speak a littlebit to why that might be?
Alfie Kohn (21:24):
Yeah, I think there are psychological explanations,
and there are structural orsystemic explanations, and we
should pay some attention toboth. Psychologically, it's
scarier than ask the bigquestions, you have to have a
much higher tolerance for risk,you know, because it's
terrifying to implicitly raisethe question that the people who
(21:46):
raised and taught to you mightnot have done so in the way you
would have hoped. You know,there's just confronting that
possibility. You know, AliceMiller, the psychoanalyst talks
a lot about that, how wedesperately and on an
unconscious level, need tobelieve that, that what our
parents did was for our own goodand out of love. And so we will
(22:07):
mindlessly reproduce that stuff,even though it's often terribly
harmful. Because that helps usto, you know, wave away the
possibility that that might notalways be true. So and there's
other psychological, you know,you have to, you know, if you
are a really good teacher, inthe United States, in American
(22:30):
Public Schools, you have to be arebel, because of so much of
what's built in is bad for kids,and was never designed to help
them be creative, critical,curious people who love learning
and challenge the status quo. Ithas other, it has other goals in
mind. And that's tough forpeople, it's a lot easier to
(22:51):
just choose the path of leastresistance, you know, because if
you raise their test scores andkeep a quiet classroom, you'll
be celebrated as a greatteacher, even though that's not
really a great teaching, atleast not by my lights. Anyway,
those are the sort of cyclethere could we could go on at
length, I'm sure you cancontribute a lot of other
explanations, answers to yourown question. But at the same
(23:15):
time, it's not just aboutpeople's own histories, and
fears. It's also about what is,I guess, this is implicit in
what I'm saying about whichteachers we celebrate. It's also
about structural constraints.
You know, there are, there areteachers who are challenged, who
(23:35):
are slapped down for doing greatteaching, while they watch their
mediocre colleagues beingcongratulated for raising scores
on horrible tests. Yes, youknow, and so, so you, you have
to there has to be structuralchange, changing the system at
(23:58):
the same time that we reflect onour own barriers, and byesies.
And when we move on both tracksat once, we are better able to
do what, what, what, what, whatbenefits children?
Lauren (24:21):
Yes. And one of the things that you talk about that
I see immense benefits forchildren and for myself as I
keep growing and learning isyour concept of deep modeling.
Can you explain what that is?
Alfie Kohn (24:34):
Yeah, I'm delighted to found that I wrote that a
long time ago in one article,it's not something I that's sort
of part of my regular sort ofroutine. So I'm delighted to be
asked to recall it. Yeah,modeling means you use regular
modeling means you show kids youknow what it means to, to to
(24:54):
write and rewrite if you're saya writing teacher or two how to
approach a math problem ascientific experiment or for
that matter, an ethicalchallenge. If you're a parent,
you know, they don't, you don'tjust tell them you, you
demonstrate, and kids learn tobe caring people, we have a lot
of research on this by watchingadults who are genuinely
(25:18):
concerned about other people,even people who don't, they
don't like or look like. And youknow, when you see a very
different message, and you beginto smell the odor of hypocrisy
when that when the adult says dothis, but meanwhile, the adult
is doing something else, youknow, like, you know, no, you
(25:41):
can't play your video games, youknow, get out in the real world,
while the adult is on her phoneall the time, or whatever. But
merely modeling in itself isjust about the behavior, which
is being watched. And it doesn'talways provide a kind of
underpinning a substrate of thereasons for the behavior, which
(26:03):
ultimately counts much more thanthe action itself. And so the
idea that I called Deep modelingis about providing that
rationale and narrating what'sgoing on. And again, that can
happen when you teach kids andshow kids writing, you don't
just do it, but you, you sort ofthere's a running commentary of
(26:24):
here, no, that's not really theright word. That's not the word
I wanted, let's cross that out.
And try again, maybe the wholesentence has to be flipped. Or
Same thing with actually doingmath, which rarely happens in
math classrooms, is huge. It'susually about just step by step,
mindlessly mimic the approvedalgorithm, or strategy, which
(26:47):
doesn't teach kids to thinkmathematically at all, but
merely to memorize procedures,when they have no understanding
of what that's really about.
Which is possibly an adequateway to raise test scores, but
not a good way of helping kidsto be math learners. You know,
(27:07):
and so it goes for other thingsthat we parents do, as well. So
it's basically a fancy way ofsaying, showing and telling. But
in, in both cases, doing it in areally thoughtful, sophisticated
way, that brings kids in on theprocess, so that there's a back
and forth, there's a dialogue,and ultimately gives them more
(27:28):
say about what's going on,whether that's, you know, how to
balance being compassionate,with being honest, which is a
really tough balance to strikein real life, you know, or
whether it's about how to set upa scientific experiment, it's
about, you know, the I tellteachers and parents, kids learn
(27:51):
how to make good decisions, bymaking decisions, not by
following directions. And soeven with four, maybe,
especially with this concept ofdeep modeling, we have to do a
lot more asking them telling oreven showing.
Lauren (28:10):
Absolutely, and I think one of the mistakes I have made
both as a parent and an educatorhas been to feel like I have
gone through this process, Ihave discerned I have
questioned, I have my reasons. Ilike how I'm behaving. And then
I just want to get my children,my students to do what I do. And
(28:32):
I'm making that huge mistake ofskipping the process of
supporting and facilitatingtheir experience. They're
getting to experience what I'veexperienced.
Alfie Kohn (28:45):
Yep, yep, absolutely. And there are a lot
of teachers who pride themselveson, like peripheral aspects of
choice or respect shown forstudents. But I wrote an article
of some years ago called almostthere, but not quite, which is
about in various ways, includingthis issue of autonomy support,
but other stuff to where, youknow, we're sort of there, you
(29:09):
know, like in math, I'm so proudthat I give kids you know,
problem has to do, ormanipulatives, or something like
that. And yet, when you stepback and look at it, it's still
not about constructingmathematical ideas. It's still
about approved procedures justthrough a cuter way of doing it.
Or we give, we let kids make,make some choices. Which of
(29:35):
these topics Would you like towrite about? Pick one out of
three? Well, if you're reallygoing to support kids autonomy,
they can't just be aboutselection from your menu. It has
to be about their being able toconstruct possibilities, and to
do so in a way that's alsointeractive, not not just doing
(29:57):
it individually. So wherevery'all On the continuum of being
really thoughtful about thisstuff, you can probably go a
little, you know, a little alittle further. We can we all
can do that, as parents, nobodyhas made it, we all can try to
reflect and say, you know, Iknow teachers who like basically
(30:18):
conk themselves on a foreheaddriving home from school saying,
oh, why did I decide this?
Whatever this is like, wherewe're going to take our field
trip, or how long the classmeeting should last or whatever,
when I could have brought thekids into doing that with me.
And so often, the reason is,because it's what you just
nicely articulated, which is,Hey, I paid my dues, I've got
(30:41):
some experience, I've thoughtabout this stuff for a long
time, my job is to instill thisin them transmit this to them,
get these same outcomes fromthem, when that's not really
about how we, how we support andhelp kids to grow at home or at
school.
Lauren (31:04):
Absolutely, thank you so much for articulating that so
clearly, and offering adultslike me, as well as the children
in all of the places that youhave influenced this nuanced
understanding of what we'redoing and why and how we could
do it better, differently andbetter. The final question I
(31:28):
have for you is, because I'mimagining there's a relationship
between this deep modeling thatwas such, that was such a
profound insight for me, becauseI had been trained to model as a
teacher, but it was that I dosomething and I trained the
children to copy me and torepeat what I did, and your
(31:48):
concept of deep modeling, whichnuances that and invites
teachers and parents to shareour process to pull back the
window, show what's going onbehind the scenes, and invite
children to be able to witnessand learn from that, and then
learn how to experience thatprocess themselves. And I
(32:10):
imagine that's related to yourconcept of raising reflective
rebels, as opposed to what Ilike to call obedience attics,
which is what I used to be.
Alfie Kohn (32:22):
Right, right, right.
But the the, I think they'veread the big fault line here,
the big Fisher is not just lesssophisticated and more
sophisticated strategies ortechniques, like regular
modeling versus deep modeling.
The real distinction, the realdivide here, is between just
(32:44):
improving the method versusrethinking the goal. You know,
when I hear about these justappalling, like, just ghastly
programs in schools like classdojo and PBS positive behavior
supports, you know, that are,and these are examples of
(33:07):
treating kids like pets, ofmanipulating them, and so on in
a way that a, according to theresearch is going to be
counterproductive in the longrun, and B, is just an awful way
to treat another human beingeven a short one. You know,
that's, those critiques are justabout the method. You know, the
(33:29):
real problem with these schooldiscipline school climate
classroom management programs,is not just that the method is
inadequate, or that itbackfires. It's that the goal,
the objective was never to helpchildren become critical
thinkers, you know, or orgenuinely caring members of the
(33:52):
community, the goal is to getcompliance, to get them to
follow the rules, regardless ofwhether the rules are
reasonable, or whether the kidshad anything to say about them.
The goal is to get them to jumpthrough certain hoops
academically, even if it hasnothing to do with lighting a
fire intellectually. So part ofthe comeback to what we were
(34:15):
talking about earlier, part ofwhat is about moving past where
we were, you know, to, to go alittle further in our journey is
it's, it's, it's about beingwilling not just to ask the
radical questions, but to makesure that some of those
questions refer to the outcome.
You know, when people say, hey,look, there are studies that
(34:39):
show that doing this in theclassroom versus that teaching
reading with this techniquerather than that, for example,
has better outcomes leads tomore success. produces
excellence is more commonlyassociated with with effective
results. Whenever you see thatyour first response should be,
(35:01):
how are you defining effective?
What do you mean by successful?
And if it turns out that theanswer in that case is just
higher scores on standardizedtest, you haven't even begun to
offer a meaningful argument fordoing it this way versus that
way. The same thing is truewith, with parenting strategies
or, you know, or classroommanagement. You know, there
(35:25):
there was evidence around for,like 3040 years ago, that showed
it certain traditionalapproaches, you know, the kind
of teacher who is really knowswhat's going on, has eyes in the
back of her head, that kind ofthing, or starts with clear
expectations, and the first dayof school that leads to better
(35:46):
results. And there's researchsees studies prove, but what do
they mean by better results?
They mean, mindless obedience?
And so you always want toquestion this, too, so that
you're not only improving thequality of your so called
evidence based best practice,but that you're doing it with
(36:10):
respect outcomes, that matter,that are consistent with your
long term goals for the kind ofpeople you want your children or
your students to be.
Lauren (36:24):
Yes, absolutely. And what would you suggest those
long term goals ideally wouldbe?
Alfie Kohn (36:31):
Well, I start most of my, my lectures by workshops
by asking the question, not byproposal,
Lauren (36:38):
not by giving answers, because you're not exactly
Alfie Kohn (36:40):
I mean, I've got some I know, but I, what I can
tell you is I've done thisactivity literally hundreds of
times all over the world. I'vedone it with high school
teachers, and elementary schoolteachers and college teachers
and parents, I've done it withadministrators, I've done it in
rural, urban and suburban areas.
And I get, there's an amazingconsensus, like 80% of the items
(37:01):
on any list are on just aboutevery list, which is really
interesting when you ask peopleto think of a long term. And
what people tend to say is, ifthe question is, how do I want
my kid or kids to turn out?
years from now? People say,Well, I'd like them to be happy,
(37:25):
ethical, independent thinkers,but also caring and
compassionate, lifelonglearners, curious, creative, you
know, successful. And so what Ido for a living, is to say to
people, you say you want this.
So why are you doing that?
Because Because here's theresearch showing that you know,
(37:49):
what you're currently doing,like, offering a verbal doggie
biscuit to kids Good job whenthey jump through your hoops, or
teaching them all mandatory,long division with a textbook
and worksheets in fourth grade,whatever it is. Here's the
research showing that this isunlikely to help kids turn out
(38:10):
to be the way you say you want.
Nevermind what I want, right.
And so Something's got to give.
Either you've got to backtrackand disavow. What you've just
said, was what you really wantkids to be like lifelong
learners, or you got to stopdoing what you're doing that the
research shows makes it lesslikely that kids will be
lifelong learners. For example,giving grades and finding
(38:32):
homework, which are two of themost powerful ways to destroy is
curiosity that have ever beeninvented. You can't have it both
ways. And so I take people attheir, at their words that do we
mean it when we say we want themto be? You said you want kids to
be generous to be caring? Well,here's the research showing that
(38:53):
kids who get stickers, goldstars and praise, are more
focused on self interest, andless concerned about the impact
of their actions on otherpeople, compared to kids who
were not given patronizing.
Pat's on the head, good job forliving up to the adult
standards. So choose, right doyou want to keep praising them?
(39:17):
Do you want to keep giving themstickers and grades and
whatever? Or do you want them tobe generous, caring people. And
that's what I do for a living tosay, you got to make a choice.
Here's the research, butultimately, it comes down to the
long term goals that youyourself have set up.
Lauren (39:34):
And thank you for the work that you do in my personal
life and in the communities thatI interact with. It has been
transformative and enlighteningand life changing. So I am so
grateful. Thank you for givingus some of your time today. I'm
so excited for all of ourlisteners to get to hear what
(39:55):
you so eloquently articulated.
Alfie Kohn (39:58):
So well. Thank you.
I appreciate your interest inthese ideas and helping to make
trouble. And yes,
Lauren (40:05):
I consider myself a reflective rebel now. So thank
you.
Alfie Kohn (40:09):
You're welcome to the label. Yes.
Lauren (40:12):
Thank you so much for joining us for this incredible
conversation. I'd love to inviteyou to share this episode with
anyone you know, that might bequestioning false binaries, and
curious about third options andways to radically question the
root of things and be willing toreimagine something that might
(40:34):
need reimagining and if you haveany questions about what was
talked about in thisconversation, please email them
to me atlauren@soulpathparenting.com.
I'd love to hear from you andexplore with you and be guided
by what you want to learn. Justas we advocate for children to
(40:54):
be supported in their autonomousdesires to learn about what they
are curious about, rather thanwhat someone somewhere has
decided they need to know. Untilnext time, sending you all much
love on this journey.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!