Alfie Kohn’s Beyong Discipline

Alfie Kohn’s

Beyond Discipline

About Alfie Kohn:

- A former teacher who is now a full-time writer and lecturer.

- Wrote several influential books and published numerous journal articles relating to motivation, grading, discipline, and developing caring people.

- Recognized as one of the most original thinkers in education

- www.afliekohn.org

Kohn’s Contributions:

- Instruction should be based off constructivist theory.

o Constructivist Theory holds that students cannot receive knowledge directly from teachers but rather from experience.

- Developing a sense of community which develops caring, responsible students.

o Community brings about purposeful activity and concern for others, which teachers normally hope to achieve through discipline techniques.

Kohn’s Central Focus:

- Focused on helping teachers develop caring, supportive classrooms in which students pursue in depth topics of interest to them and participate fully in solving class problems.

- Has criticized teaching and approaches to discipline that do things to students rather than involving students as partners in the process.

- Attack discipline schemes that involve rewards or punishments.

o These are counterproductive and produce side effects such as mistrust, avoidance, and working for rewards only.

- Work toward developing a sense of community where students are continually brought into making judgments, expressing their opinions, and working cooperatively toward solutions that affect themselves and the class.

Principal Teachings:

- Educators must abandon teaching that “does things to” students and replace it with teaching that takes students seriously, involves them in decisions, and helps them explore in depth topics they consider important.

o Students forget what they’ve learned because the learning has little importance from the student’s point of view.

- Educators must look beyond the techniques of discipline and ask the question. What are we attempting to accomplish with discipline?

o As a result of discipline, strong and compliant students are not what we’d like students to become.

- Almost all popular discipline programs are based on threat, reward, and punishment, which are used to gain student compliance.

o The only difference is how kindly and respectfully the teacher speaks