you say you want this

You say you want this...so then why are you doing that?

www.joebower.orgjoe.bower.teacher@gmail.com

@joe_bower

Abigail is given plenty of worksheets to complete in class as well as a substantial amount of homework. She studies to get good grades, and her school is proud of its high standardized test scores. Outstanding students are publicly recognized by the use of honor rolls, awards assemblies, and bumper stickers. Abigail's teacher, a charismatic lecturer, is clearly in control of the class: students raise their hands and wait patiently to be recognized. The teacher prepares detailed lesson plans well ahead of time, uses the latest textbooks, and gives regular quizzes to make sure kids stay on track.

Schools Our Children Deserve by Alfie Kohn

What's wrong with this picture?

"There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea, and there is a time to fear its hold over us. The time to worry is when the idea is so widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply rooted that it feels to us like plain common sense. At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control: we do not have the idea; it has us."

Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

When do we stop blaming the kids?

Can we admit:

•school can be improved

•to improve school, we need to

change school

We tend to parent the way we were parented,and taught the way we were taught.

If you never change your mind, why have one?

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get

what you’ve always gotten.-Anthony Robbins

Insanity is continuing to do the same thing

over and over and expecting different results.

-Albert Einstein

Can we agree:

•we want children to become lifelong

learners

It ain’t what we don’t know that gets us

into trouble... it’s what we know for sure

that just ain’t so.-Mark Twain

However beautiful the strategy,you should occasionally look at the

results.-Winston Churchill

We need school to look a little less like school

What if kids who hated school became teachers?

homeworkgrading

rewardspunishment

discipline

hand raisingmultiple choice

honours

competition

testing

lecturing

standardization

lesson planning

curriculum

The more you use power to try and controlpeople, the less real influence you’ll

have on their lives.

The hardest kids to like are the oneswho need us the most

What has made you feel so bad in

your life that you feel someone

has to share your pain?-Sean Grainger

Grades cause an emotional reaction -

either positive or negative.

Feedback causes you to think, which is reflective learning.

-Dylan William

Reducing children to a test score is

the worst form of identity theft we

could commit in schools.-Steven Covey

Never grade students while they are still learningsomething and, even more important, do not

rewardthem for their performance.

-Alfie Kohn

A mark or a grade is an inadequate reportof an in accurate judgement by a biasedand variable judge of the extent to which

a student has attained an indefiniteamount of material.

-Paul Dressel

Students should experience their successes and failures not as reward and punishment

but as information.-Jerome Bruner

Every rubric I have ever seen involves the useof a fixed measurement scale.

Gather ------> Share

Collecting information doesn’t require tests,

and sharing that information doesn’trequire grades.

-Alfie Kohn

We must constantly remind ourselves that

the ultimate purpose of evaluation is to

enable students to evaluate themselves.

-Art Costa

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge

a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it

will live its whole life believing it is stupid.

-Albert Einstein

A correct answer on a test does not necessarilysignal understanding, and a wrong answer does

not necessarily signal an absence of understanding.

The bane of reducing learning to a symbolis that it inevitably overvalues whatever

can be quantified and undervalueswhat cannot

Not everything that counts can be countedand not everything that can be counted

counts.-Albert Einstein

There is a big difference between measuring what we value and valuing what we measure.

Learning should be done in a contextand for a purpose.

The passion of learning is not something youhave to inspire kids to have; it’s something

you have to keep from extinguishing.

A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to its job.

Why waste time proving over and over how great

you are, when you could be getting better?

-Carol Dweck

gaofen dineng

gaokao

zhuangyyuan

zero sum

Success should never be artificiallyscarce for an arbitrary few.

Competition is for the strong.Public Education is for everyone.

See the problem?

Peers become obstacles to your own success

We can teach kids about competition withoutimmersing them in it.

If we simply reconcile to the status quo and spend

all our time getting our children to accomodatethemselves to it and play the game, then

nothingwill change and they will have to do the same

withtheir children. As someone once said, realism corrupts; absolute realism corrupts absolutely.Alfie Kohn

The most important attitude that can be formedis that of a desire to go on learning.

If we want to make things better for ourchildren, we need to start questioning what

we consider to be the obvious.