alfiekohn

alfiekohn, 6 days ago to random

Jerome Bruner reminded us that we want students to "experience success and failure not as reward and punishment but as information." This insight is so essential that I call it Bruner's Law.

Its immediate implication is that grades must be eliminated (not merely tweaked) since they're inevitably experienced by students as rewards and punishments.

Beyond that, we should use Bruner's Law as the standard by which to weigh all other assessment practices and whether they make sense.

alfiekohn, 10 days ago to random

Historian RIck Perlstein just called this the best essay on Israel he's ever seen, although it's not a quick or easy read. It's a hard-hitting account of how Israel & its supporters have shamelessly exploited the Holocaust (and antisemitism more generally) to justify its crimes against Palestinians -- the current massacre being the apotheosis of a decades-long process -- and how a number of Jewish scholars and literary figures over the years have spoken out about this: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n06/pankaj-mishra/the-shoah-after-gaza

alfiekohn, 13 days ago to random

1/3
The GOP's core feature is cruelty: denying aid to the needy, ending reproductive rts, attacking trans people, etc. Makes sense that they're also vocal defenders of Israel's inconceivably savage siege of a civilian population killing 1000s of children.

If my politics WEREN'T on the far right yet I responded to Israeli war crimes with deflection, rationalization, or anything other than unqualified moral outrage, I'd ask myself hard questions about why MAGA minions were my natural bedfellows.

alfiekohn, 16 days ago to random

It's fair to question how "conservatism" and "creativity" were operationalized in this new study, but its finding of a negative (albeit very modest) correlation between the two phenomena across 28 different countries is interesting: https://www.psypost.org/study-links-conservatism-to-lower-creativity-across-28-countries/

alfiekohn, 24 days ago to random

Ruling the world by force:

U.S. share of the world's population: 4%

U.S. share of the world's military spending: 37% (equivalent to more than 183 of the world's other 193 countries combined) (https://is.gd/BXlkAw; https://is.gd/LmJMYh)

U.S. share of weapons sales: 42% (https://is.gd/n4aGAi)

U.S. share of foreign military bases: 75-85% (https://is.gd/jwyBu4)
(When the U.S. demanded to build a base in Ecuador, Ecuador responded, "Sure, if we can build one in Miami.")

alfiekohn, 1 month ago to random

1/4 Time for my periodic reminder about one of the most important educational research findings of the 20th century: the Eight-Year Study.

Back in the 1930s, 30 high schools around the US turned traditional practice on its head, especially for college-bound students.

In place of grade-driven, teacher-controlled, fact-based instruction, the learning was interdisciplinary, conceptual, experiential, collaborative, often ungraded, and fashioned jointly by teachers and students...

alfiekohn, 1 month ago to random

One of the all-time great NYT letters to the editor

alfiekohn, 1 month ago to random

If I had my way, every article in the popular press about research findings and recommended practices related to schooling would have to be accompanied by this caveat:

"Phrases such as 'higher achievement,' 'positive outcomes,' and 'better results' that appear here refer only to standardized test scores. These are poor indicators of intellectual proficiency and primarily measure socioeconomic status or the extent of students' training in test-taking skills."

alfiekohn, 1 month ago to random

Humility: "I'm unsettled by nontraditional gender and sexual identities, so I'm going to try to figure out what's going on with me that might explain that reaction."

Opposite of humility: "...so I'm going to condemn, ridicule, and persecute the people whom I find unsettling."

alfiekohn, 1 month ago to random

This is...quite a chart.
(It's from a new Nature article by social epidemiologists called "Why the World Cannot Afford the Rich": https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00723-3)

alfiekohn, 2 months ago to random

If you own a late-model car, it is quietly collecting detailed data about you and selling that data to other corporations and/or to your insurance company.
Three important reads:

• https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
• https://themarkup.org/the-breakdown/2022/07/27/who-is-collecting-data-from-your-car
• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html?unlocked_article_code=1.c00.u2nZ.jEQkghXF0jbL&smid=url-share

alfiekohn, 2 months ago to random

One of my favorite nature/nurture studies had people watch a video of a diapered baby. Those told that the baby was a boy were more likely to hear its crying as anger; those told it was a girl tended to hear the same sound as fear: https://tinyurl.com/y6k7m5vc

IOW, it's not just that we treat kids differently based on their biological sex, thus shaping gender differences (which are often assumed are inborn). It's that what we literally see & hear are constructions based on our gender stereotypes.

alfiekohn, 2 months ago to random

"Dancing in circles, kibbutzim, wars only because hostile neighbors forced them on us: That was what the typical American Jewish education taught us Israel was all about."
Then Rick Perlstein learned about another foundational feature of Zionism's past & present.

Worth a read: https://prospect.org/world/2024-02-21-neglected-history-state-of-israel/.

alfiekohn, 2 months ago to random

1/2
Betteridge's Law: Any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with "no."
Some exs. I've dug up:

• Ed. Digest 3/21: Can Charter Operators Turn Around District Schools?
• NY'er 8/21: Did Spacemen Build the Pyramids?"
• NewsNation 9/21: Is the Worst of the Pandemic Behind Us?
• Ed. Surge 1/22: The SAT Is Going Digital. Will That Make the Test More Equitable?
• Wash Post 4/22: Can Macron Unite a Divided France?
• ASCD SmartBrief 8/22: Should Test Scores Be Used to Assess Principals?

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

A few examples of what you're agreeing to let those companies (Facebook, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.) do when you click on "I have read and agree to the Terms of Service" even though you really haven't: https://tosdr.org/

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

1/2 An impressive long-term study shows the harms of overly controlling parenting, connecting the perception of such control by one's parents at age 13 with relationship difficulties & lower educational attainment nearly 2o decades later: https://is.gd/spjQi0

"Adolescents who perceive their parents to be psychologically controlling are likely to...steer away from close relationships [as adults, having learned that such relationships] are sources of stress and that closeness comes at a cost"

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

A highly relatable observation from my friend Debbie Meier: “I live so much in a world that disagrees with me that sometimes I over-cling to people on my wavelength.”

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

Onion headline: "Elite Selective Hospital Only Accepts 9% of ICU Applicants."

But peel back the satire: In a humane and egalitarian society, maybe selectivity makes no more sense for an institution whose charge is to educate than it does for one whose charge is to cure.

My essay on this, with special reference to private K-12 schools: https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/admit-deny/

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

Someone should write a book for kids called How to Handle Your Difficult Parents

Possible chapters:

• "The Behavioral Challenges of the Middle-Aged Brain"
• "How to Be Caring but Firm in Resisting a Controlling Parent"
• "When Mom or Dad's Self-Esteem Hinges on Your Accomplishments"

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

The entrance area that greets visitors to a typical American high school contains two things: evidence (in the form of trophies) that its students triumphed over students from other schools + plaques listing which of its students are better than others.

Suggested assignment (for administrators, teachers, and kids): Design a school lobby that reflects a commitment to collaboration and community rather than to sorting and triumphing.

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

Anthropologist and former college president Judith Shapiro once pointed out that the most compelling reason to get a good education is that it makes “the inside of your head an interesting place to spend the rest of your life."

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

1/2
In my book Unconditional Parenting I challenged the belief that parents in dangerous neighborhoods must control and punish their kids to protect them: https://is.gd/PQvxss.
A recent study confirms that such parenting is damaging even (or especially) in such places: https://is.gd/mBqpVM

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

“When you watch a child who is focused on learning, & let them know you’re watching, & let them know your opinion, you just took that thing away from them. You just made it yours. Your smell is all over it now...

“I watched an 18-month-old stacking blocks, completely absorbed. When she successfully stacked 3 blocks, I exclaimed, ‘Good job!’ She looked at me [as if to say] “Excuse me. Did somebody ask for your opinion?” Then she stopped playing with the blocks.”

Source: https://carolblack.org/the-gaze/

alfiekohn, 3 months ago to random

Dissertations typically aren't graded; either they're acceptable or they're not. So this Canadian professor wonders why we're so sure it makes sense to persist in grading what students do before that point: https://blogs.ubc.ca/teachingamongtrees/2021/10/30/why-dont-we-grade-dissertations/