November 15, 2025

It's Not Just You

The most popular initiatives in education tend to be strategies for "fixing the kids." A focus on the deficits of individual students, rather than a critical analysis of systemic issues, is the common denominator of academic remediation, behavior management programs, and efforts to equip children with more self-regulation, grit, or a "growth mindset." Yet the entire field of social psychology warns us that we err in underestimating the impact of the environments in which people, including students, find themselves. Alas, this message has become muddled because some classic social psych research is widely misunderstood, including Milgram's obedience experiments and Mischel's marshmallow studies. So let's explore what psychologists call the Fundamental Attribution Error -- and consider how the individualistic underpinnings of our education system (and of our culture more generally) prevent us from taking that insight to heart.

RESOURCES:

Lee Ross, "The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process," Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 10 (1977): 173-220 [https://tinyurl.com/3d9xdjtd]

Muzafer Sherif et al., The Robbers Cave Experiment (Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1961/1988) [https://www.weslpress.org/9780819561947/the-robbers-cave-experiment/]

Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority (Harper, 1974/2009) [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/obedience-to-authority-stanley-milgram]

Philip Zimbardo's prison experiment: See prisonexp.org.

Walter Mischel's marshmallow experiments: Alfie Kohn, "S'More Misrepresentation of Research: What Waiting for a Second Marshmallow Doesn't Prove," Education Week, September 10, 2014 [https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/smore-misrepresentation-research/]; Walter Mischel, “From Good Intentions to Willpower,” in The Psychology of Action, ed. P. M. Gollwitzer and J. A. Bargh (Guilford, 1996); Mischel et al., “Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 21 (1972): 204-18.

Alfie Kohn, "How Not to Teach Values: A Critical Look at Character Education," Phi Delta Kappan, February 1997 [https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/teach-values/]

Ruth Butler, "What Young People Want to Know When: Effects of Mastery and Ability Goals on Interest in Different Kinds of Social Comparisons," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62 (1992): 934-43.

Nona M. Flynn and Judith L. Rapoport, "Hyperactivity in Open and Traditional Classroom Environments," Journal of Special Education 10 (1976): 285-90; Rolf G. Jacob et al., "Formal and Informal Classroom Settings: Effects on Hyperactivity," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 6 (1978): 47-59.

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

My sincere thanks to the listeners who have taken a minute to click on the DONATE link (or to visit coff.ee/kohnszone) and helped to cover our production costs, thereby keeping the podcast ad- and paywall-free. If you are not yet one of the listeners who has done this, it's not too late. It will also not be too late tomorrow, but doing so right now would be even better.

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ART: Abi Kohn

November 1, 2025

Making Kids Work a Second Shift

Too often the debate over homework is restricted to its quantity -- or, at best, its quality. But such discussions take for granted the need for some homework, as if it were impossible to question that premise. It may come as a surprise, therefore, to learn that research generally fails to support the value of, let alone the need for, requiring children to complete more academic tasks when they get home from school. (For elementary and middle school students, no controlled studies have found a meaningful benefit to assigning any type or amount of homework.) So why is the practice still so pervasive and widely accepted? Perhaps the answer lies in mistaken beliefs about learning and cynical beliefs about children.

RESOURCES:

Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish, The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It (Crown, 2006)

John Buell, Closing the Book on Homework: Enhancing Public Education and Freeing Family Time (Temple University Press, 2004)

Alfie Kohn, The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing (Da Capo Press, 2006) (https://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-myth/).  Read chapter 2 ("Does Homework Improve Learning?") here: https://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-improve-learning/

Alfie Kohn, "Homework: An Unnecessary Evil? Surprising Findings from New Research," 2012 (https://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/homework-unnecessary-evil-surprising-findings-new-research/)

Etta Kralovec and John Buell, The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning (Beacon Press, 2000)

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

My sincere thanks to the listeners who have taken a minute to click on the DONATE link (or to visit coff.ee/kohnszone) and helped to cover our production costs, thereby keeping the podcast ad- and paywall-free. If you are not yet one of those listeners, it's not too late. It will also not be too late tomorrow, but doing so right now would be even better.

Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please tell other people about it. And if you have feedback about the episode you've just listened to, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/.

Please click the button below to donate.

If you don’t see a button, please go to this page (https://coff.ee/kohnszone).

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ART: Abi Kohn

October 15, 2025

A.I., as in Anti-Intellectual

People who express concern about the use of AI in schools often focus on how it allows students to get away with something (by using OpenAI to write their essays). But shouldn't we be talking more about its potential effects on teaching and learning than whether it will impede our ability to evaluate students? The problem is not just that we seem to be overestimating the capabilities of LLMs but that we seem to be underestimating the essence of education, which is a process, not merely a series of products. Moreover, is it really a math or English teacher's responsibility to train students in how to use AI? At best, that skill is quite different from learning to reason through a problem, read deeply, or organize one's thoughts. At worst, AI offers a way for students to avoid doing those things.

RESOURCES:

Research:

Hamsta Bastani et al., "Generative AI Can Harm Learning," 2024 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4895486)

Nataliya Kosmyna et al., "Your Brain on ChatGPT," 2025 (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872)

Michael Gerlich, "AI Tools in Society," 2025 (https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6)

Activism:

https://against-a-i.com/

https://stopgenai.com/

https://openletter.earth/an-open-letter-from-educators-who-refuse-the-call-to-adopt-genai-in-education-cb4aee75

Other critiques:

This episode overlaps with a recent essay by Alfie Kohn ("The Chatbot in the Classroom, the Forklift at the Gym" - https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/ai/), which contains dozens of links to provocative discussions of AI by other writers.

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

I made two decisions when I decided to start this podcast. The first was not to accept ads. The second was to avoid putting certain episodes behind a paywall (or offering special content only to those who pay). But this means that I depend on the generosity of everyone who listens to help cover the production costs. So: Can you afford a modest contribution -- ideally on a regular basis, since a podcast, after all, is not a one-shot event? If so, I'd be grateful if you'd support the project with whatever amount seems fair to you. (Your generosity will also confirm the thesis of my book The Brighter Side of Human Nature.)

Oh, and if you enjoy the podcast, please tell other people about it. And if you have feedback about the episode you've just listened to, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/.

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ART: Abi Kohn

October 1, 2025

Death by Civics

A Conversation with Joel Westheimer About the Role of Education in Democratic Life

 

Suppose you wanted young people to develop a commitment to democracy, particularly at a time when it's under assault. How would you do that? Not by creating a school culture in which following the rules is valued more than critical thinking. And not by offering conventional civics courses with mind-numbing recitations of facts about how government is supposed to work. There's a big difference between teaching about a country's political system (or even about democracy), on the one hand, and preparing students to be active participants in a democratic society, on the other. This extended episode of Kohn's Zone features a lively conversation with educator Joel Westheimer, a professor at the University of Ottawa, who reflects on how even young children, with their natural concern about fairness, can be helped to reflect on democracy. But at what point does the promotion of democratic values shade into indoctrination? Conversely, when does a commitment to valuing multiple perspectives lapse into relativism? And is progressive teaching sufficient, or even necessary, for developing a commitment to democratic ideals?

RESOURCES:

Joel Westheimer, What Kind of Citizen?: Educating Our Children for the Common Good, rev. ed. (Teachers College Press, 2024)

Joel Westheimer, ed., Pledging Allegiance: The Politics of Patriotism in America's Schools (Teachers College Press, 2007)

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

I made two decisions when I decided to start this podcast. The first was not to accept ads. The second was to avoid putting certain episodes behind a paywall (or offering special content only to those who pay). But this means that I depend on the generosity of everyone who listens to help cover the production costs. So: Can you afford a modest contribution -- ideally on a regular basis, since a podcast, after all, is not a one-shot event? If so, I'd be grateful if you'd support the project with whatever amount seems fair to you. (Your generosity will also confirm the thesis of my book The Brighter Side of Human Nature.)

Oh, and if you enjoy the podcast, please tell other people about it. Also, if you have feedback about the episode you've just listened to, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/.

Please click the button below to donate.

If you don’t see a button, please go to this page (https://coff.ee/kohnszone).

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ART: Abi Kohn

September 15, 2025

The Failure of Failure

The notion that kids today have it too easy and would benefit from more experiences with failure is no longer a surprising, contrarian claim; it has become the conventional wisdom. But it's dead wrong on two levels: Most children deal with frustration and failure quite a lot, and those experiences tend not to be beneficial, according to research. Either naïveté or conservative ideology leads many adults to believe that when students fall short, they'll react by trying harder next time. But more commonly students are trapped in a vicious cycle such that they're even more likely to fail again -- and they're also apt to lose interest in what they're doing and to prefer easier tasks. Educators and parents would do well to realize that the supposed benefits of failure are vastly overrated.

RESOURCES:

Lauren Eskreis-Winkler and Ayelet Fishbach, "Not Learning from Failure - the Greatest Failure of All," Psychological Science 30 (2019): 1733-44

Lauren Eskreis-Winkler et al., "The Exaggerated Benefits of Failure," Journal of Experimental Psychology - General 153 (2024): 1920-37

Ann K. Boggiano et al., "Competing Theoretical Analyses of Helplessness," Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 55 (1993): 194-207

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

I made two decisions when I decided to start this podcast. The first was not to accept ads. The second was to avoid putting certain episodes behind a paywall (or offering special content only to those who pay). But this means that I depend on the generosity of everyone who listens to help cover the production costs. So: Can you afford a modest contribution -- ideally on a regular basis, since a podcast, after all, is not a one-shot event? If so, I'd be grateful if you'd support the project with whatever amount seems fair to you. (Your generosity will also confirm the thesis of my book The Brighter Side of Human Nature.)

Oh, and if you enjoy the podcast, please tell other people about it. Thanks!

Please click the button below to donate.

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September 1, 2025

Bad Signs

The posters and signs adorning school walls speak volumes about the people who put them there, revealing a surprising amount about their views of children, their assumptions about learning, and even their beliefs about human nature. There's the enforced positivity of slogans that basically tell students: "Have a nice day....or else," the individualistic worldview of inspirational slogans with their messages of strenuous uplift, the chirpy banalities airily informing kids that structural barriers don't exist: All they need is perseverance and a dream, so they have only themselves to blame if they fail to achieve greatness. Nothing preserves the current arrangements of power more than messages that ignore the current arrangements of power. To see this principle in action, just visit a school -- particularly one in a low-income neighborhood -- and read the writing on the walls.

RESOURCES

- Demotivators: https://despair.com/collections/posters

- Barbara Ehrenreich: Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America (Metropolitan, 2009) (https://tinyurl.com/yr9vew3u)

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

I made two decisions when I decided to start this podcast. The first was not to accept ads. The second was to avoid putting certain episodes behind a paywall (or offering special content only to those who pay). But this means that I depend on the generosity of everyone who listens to help cover the production costs. So: Can you afford a modest contribution -- ideally on a regular basis, since a podcast, after all, is not a one-shot event? If so, I'd be grateful if you'd support the project with whatever amount seems fair to you. (Your generosity will also confirm the thesis of my book The Brighter Side of Human Nature.)

Oh, and if you enjoy the podcast, please tell other people about it. Thanks!

Please click the button below to donate.

If you don’t see a button, please go to this page (https://coff.ee/kohnszone).

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PRODUCTION SUPPORT: Ultraviolet Audio

ART: Abi Kohn

August 15, 2025

Confusing Harder with Better

What do the following have in common?

a) parents who don't seem particularly concerned about whether what their kids are doing in school is engaging or meaningful, but are quick to complain if their assignments aren't sufficiently challenging

b) people who assume that Advanced Placement classes must be the best that a high school has to offer just because these classes are really tough

c) proponents of school reform who use the language of "rigor" and "raising the bar"

d) legislators and administrators who require students to take standardized tests that many successful adults would struggle to pass

The common denominator here is the deep-rooted assumption that, where schooling is concerned, higher quality is basically equivalent to greater difficulty. This episode of Kohn's Zone explores how profoundly this misconception has shaped our understanding of schooling.

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you've been enjoying, or at least listening to, the podcast but have put off doing your part to support it, I am pleased to inform you that it is not too late to do so. It will also not be too late tomorrow, but doing so today would be even better. Microphones, as my father might have said, do not grow on trees.  Please consider a modest contribution -- ideally on a regular basis, since a podcast, after all, is not a one-shot event -- to keep us ad-free and unpaywalled.  Thanks!

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August 1, 2025

Number Sense and Nonsense

A Conversation with Jo Boaler About Learning Math(s)

 

Question: Why do so many people write off math as uninteresting if not downright unpleasant, and as something they just don't have a knack for? Answer: Years of traditional instruction with textbooks and worksheets and quizzes, memorization of math facts and algorithms, direct instruction of the approved technique for arriving at the right answer (followed by endless practice problems) that leaves you with no understanding of what you're doing, let alone why.

This extended episode of Kohn's Zone features a spirited conversation with math educator Jo Boaler of Stanford University, who explains how we're trapped by mistaken beliefs about how math should be taught - and what math is.

RESOURCES:

YouCubed.org -- Boaler's center for innovative math teaching

Books by Boaler: Math-ish, Mathematical Mindsets, What's Math Got to Do With It?

A chapter by Kohn (from The Schools Our Children Deserve): "What Works Better than Traditional Math Instruction" (https://tinyurl.com/54mzvu69)

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

I made two decisions when I decided to start this podcast. The first was not to accept ads. The second was to avoid putting certain episodes behind a paywall (or offering special content only to those who pay). But this means that I depend on the generosity of everyone who listens to help cover the production costs. So: Can you afford a modest contribution -- ideally on a regular basis, since a podcast, after all, is not a one-shot event? If so, I'd be grateful if you'd support the project with whatever amount seems fair to you. (Your generosity will also confirm the thesis of my book The Brighter Side of Human Nature.)

Oh, and if you enjoy the podcast, please tell other people about it. Thanks!

 

Please click the button below to donate.

If you don’t see a button, please go to this page (https://coff.ee/kohnszone).

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PRODUCTION SUPPORT: Ultraviolet Audio

ART: Abi Kohn

July 15, 2025

Skip the Sugarcoating

If your company is offering unappealing food, you'll be tempted to add artificial sweetener. And if your schools are offering unengaging lessons (which students had no role in creating), you'll be tempted to use some kind of gimmick to make them seem less dreary. This episode considers how, long before "gamification," John Dewey hit on the metaphor of sugarcoating to describe efforts to distract kids from the "barrenness" of what they were being made to do. Half a century later, give or take, a pair of early-childhood educators, Rheta DeVries and Betty Zan, hit on the same metaphor to explain how the use of rewards, including the verbal kind ("Good job!"), are mostly efforts to sugarcoat control. (If this podcast accepted ads, which it assuredly does not, you would expect one to run in this episode for a certain cereal mentioned by name that is tasty enough to require no artificial sweetening.)

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

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July 1, 2025

Little Ed Koches

Grades and tests get in the way of learning for multiple reasons, but this episode digs deeper to explore how any practices that lead students to focus on how well they're doing in school -- as opposed to what they're doing -- are bad news. Policy makers who trumpet their demands for higher standards, "rigor," and "raising the bar" may not realize that this focus on achievement makes kids think less about learning because, like a certain bald former mayor of New York City, they're constantly asking, "How'm I doin'?"

For details about the harmful effects on learning of overemphasizing achievement, please see chapter 2 of The Schools Our Children Deserve (AlfieKohn.org/schools-children-deserve/).

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

I made two decisions when I decided to start this podcast. The first was not to accept ads. The second was to avoid putting certain episodes behind a paywall (or offering special content only to those who pay). But this means that I depend on the generosity of everyone who listens to help cover the production costs. So: Can you afford a modest contribution -- ideally on a regular basis, since a podcast, after all, is not a one-shot event? If so, I'd be grateful if you'd support the project with whatever amount seems fair to you. (Your generosity will also confirm the thesis of my book The Brighter Side of Human Nature.)

Oh, and if you enjoy the podcast, please tell other people about it. Thanks!

Please click the button below to donate.

If you don’t see a button, please go to this page (https://coff.ee/kohnszone).

 

Donate

PRODUCTION SUPPORT: Ultraviolet Audio

ART: Abi Kohn