Kohn's Zone

“The heart of science,” said the educator Sylvia Farnham-Diggory, “is the drive to discover, not the mastery of laboratory procedures and report formalities or the ability to recite facts from textbooks.” Traditional science teaching, often geared to memorizing information that will be on a test, is a bad bet in several ways. Students remember little of what they were taught, fail to move past sticky misconceptions about how the world works, and end up with little interest in science. Research tells us that the outcomes are far better in classrooms (from elementary school on up) that feature student-centered projects originating with kids’ questions, where the learning is both hands-on and minds-on. When students actually do science, they’re more likely to acquire an aptitude for thinking like a scientist and to develop a taste for the excitement that comes from discovery.

RESOURCES:

Marvin F. Wideen et al.,, “High-Stakes Testing and the Teaching of Science,” Canadian Journal of Education 22 (1997): 428-44 – https://tinyurl.com/53b9z2wy

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!

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“Schools are getting worse and worse; young people today can barely read and write! In the old days, education standards were higher, kids were less self-centered, and people were more moral.” Except…social scientists have shown that none of this is true — and that people have been insisting that things were better back when they were young pretty much forever. Such pronouncements tell us more about the individuals making them than about the reality they purport to describe. Moreover, myths of a halcyon past are wielded by right-wing demagogues and are used to justify authoritarian, “Because I said so!” parenting and back-to-basics, bunch o’ facts teaching.

RESOURCES

David Berliner & Bruce Biddle, The Manufactured Crisis (Addison-Wesley, 1995)

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!

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More than a quarter-century after “No Child Left Behind” deliberately left millions of children behind by imposing nationwide punitive high-stakes testing, U.S. students are still tested constantly, starting early in elementary school. Children in many states may be forced to repeat a grade based solely on their scores. In a memorable conversation, FAIRTEST director Harry Feder helps us understand just how pervasive testing has become and why that’s very bad news. Standardized exams have largely become, in his words, “tests of test-taking skills” rather than of academic proficiency. Moreover, NCLB and its legacy of constant testing (and test-oriented instruction) has a disproportionately damaging impact on low-income and minority students. Feder explains that authentic, performance-based assessments are not just realistic alternatives to standardized tests but produce far more meaningful results while avoiding the deadening effects of a test-prep curriculum. In short, people who who claim that standardized testing is necessary or useful are those who know the least about assessment and learning.

RESOURCES:

A note from Alfie Kohn:

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The psychological consequences of pressuring children to perform well academically (and, worse, to outperform their peers) are distressingly obvious. But some adults rationalize their actions by claiming that pressure can be productive. Here we consider psychological research on different amounts and types of stress, as well as asking what exactly we view as a “productive” outcome. It turns out that internal pressure can be as damaging as external, and pressure on educators (e.g., to raise students’ test scores) can undermine the quality of teaching — and, thus, of learning. Likewise, “no pain, no gain” – a particularly toxic credo often taught to males – is driven more by ideology than by any evidence of practical value.

RESOURCES

Suniya Luthar and Bronwyn Becker, “Privileged but Pressured?” Child Development 73 (2002) – https://tinyurl.com/4r5arxa4

Abiola Keller et al., “Does the Perception that Stress Affects Health Matter?”, Health Psychology 31 (2012) – https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-30116-001

Thomas Curran et al., “Perfectionism is Accelerating Over Time,” Psychological Bulletin 152 (2026) – https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2027-72800-001.html

Cheryl Flink et al., “Controlling Teaching Strategies,” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 59 (1990) – https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1991-13808-001

Edward L. Deci et al., “Effects of Performance Standards on Teaching Styles,” Journal of Educational Psychology 74 (1982) – https://tinyurl.com/3nekpbyw

Alfie Kohn, The Myth of the Spoiled Child (Beacon Press, 2016) – https://www.alfiekohn.org/myth-spoiled-child/

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!

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The amount of bullying that goes on in schools is as sobering as the psychological impact it has on its victims, sometimes lasting into adulthood. Alas, common strategies for dealing with this problem are often ineffective and even counterproductive. In fact, we may inadvertently create a climate conducive to bullying by relying on punitive discipline and also by pitting students against each other in contests. Rather than just trying to protect individual kids — or, worse, punishing bullies — we need to work with all students (and adults) to restructure the school’s culture and norms.

RESOURCES:

Barbara Coloroso, The Bully, The Bullied, and the Not-So-Innocent Bystander (William Morrow, 2004/2016) – https://tinyurl.com/4z3nmyur

Katherine Schaeffer, “9 Facts About Bullying in the U.S.,” Pew Resarch Report, 2023 – https://tinyurl.com/ybe5axjh

Frank Elgar et al., “Income Inequality and School Bullying,” Journal of Adolescent Health 45 (2009) – https://tinyurl.com/4rj6fs98

Suzet Tanya Lereya et al., “Parenting Behavior and the Risk of Becoming a Victim and a Bully/Victim,” Child Abuse & Neglect 37 (2013) – https://tinyurl.com/4ncaecv5

Kyriaki Fousiani et al., “Perceived Parenting and Adolescent Cyber-Bullying,” Journal of Child and Family Studies 25 (2016) – https://is.gd/ziVkTJ

William E. Copeland et al., ” Adult Psychiatric Outcomes of Bullying and Being Bullied…,” JAMA Psychiatry 70 (2013) – https://tinyurl.com/wk6du7ba

Mark J. Van Ryzin & Cary J. Roseth, “Cooperative Learning in Middle School, Journal of Educational Psychology 110 (2018) – https://is.gd/k04lUr

Maria Rosaria Di Stasio et al., “Social Comparison, Competition, and Teacher-Student Relationships…Predicts Bullying and Victimization,” Journal of Adolescence 53 (2016) – https://tinyurl.com/bdddtdej

Sung Hyeon Cheon et al., “Cluster Randomized Control Trial to Reduce Peer Victimization,” American Psychologist 78(2023) – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36701523/

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!

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How can schools help children to become not only good learners but also good people? What’s involved in cultivating a genuine concern about others, an enduring commitment to helping and caring? Here we consider several strategies, which require us to look beyond behaviors and think about motives: the care we express for students, the prosocial examples we set, the beliefs we hold about them, the explanations we offer (about how their actions affect others), and the opportunities we create to practice caring. Particularly important for helping students to grow into caring people is the (eminently teachable) capacity to imagine the perspective of others, which promotes intellectual as well as moral growth.

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!

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What the real science of reading shows is that there isn’t a single method for learning how to read that’s ideal for all children. Moreover, reading is not just about letter-sound relationships; it’s about making meaning — reading (and talking about) real books for real reasons. In an eye-opening conversation, literacy expert Catherine Compton-Lilly helps us dissect the dishonest claims of the so-called “Science of Reading” campaign and understand why an overemphasis on phonics (mechanical decoding) is not just unhelpful but actively harmful. SOR mandates amount to a kind of “educational malpractice” that ultimately diminish kids’ understanding of what they read and their enthusiasm about reading itself. Compton-Lilly describes what high-quality language-arts instruction looks like in the primary grades and beyond, as well as how thoughtful teachers assess kids’ reading proficiency (hint: not with tests!).

RESOURCES

Catherine Compton-Lilly et al., “Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What We Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading,” The Reading Teacher 77 (2023): 392-400 – https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/trtr.2258

Catherine Compton-Lilly, “Centering Children and Working Towards Equity: Teaching All Children to Read,” Journal of Reading Recovery 24 (2025): 5-16 – https://tinyurl.com/zn9pa3yu

Robert J. Tierney and P David Pearson, Fact-Checking the Science of Reading (Literacy Research Commons, 2024) – https://is.gd/3CboHH

David Reinking et al., “Legislating Phonics: Settled Science or Political Polemics?”, Teachers College Record 125 (2023): 104-31 – https://is.gd/FChhv3

Alfie Kohn, “On Teaching Reading…” (excerpt from The Schools Our Children Deserve [Houghton Mifflin, 1999]) – https://is.gd/h32VeY

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!

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Even if you aren’t ideologically opposed to segregation in schools, research shows that it doesn’t make sense for practical reasons — and that goes not only for segregation by race but also segregation by gender, ability, or age. What generally proves beneficial, from preschool to college, are heterogeneous environments — diverse schools and, equally important, diverse classrooms. But because proximity doesn’t guarantee affection, the optimal arrangement also provides support for interdependence: guided heterogeneity in which learning is structured to promote shared goals and perspective taking.

RESOURCES

For citations to the research mentioned in this episode, please see “Heterogenius,” the essay on which it’s based.

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We’re faced with a silent epidemic of obedience, a pervasive failure to become outraged by outrageous things. Adults whose highest accolade for a child is “well-behaved” often themselves suffer from a crisis of moral courage. This episode offers practical suggestions for teachers and parents who want to help kids acquire not only the capacity but the inclination to question what they’re told — and, when necessary, to refuse to go along.

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!

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We have been raised – and, in turn, raise our children – to take on faith that recreation requires competition, that half the people playing a game must try to defeat the other half. (They “cooperate” only with their teammates, and only in order to triumph over the other team.) In a true cooperative game, by contrast, everyone on the field – or gathered around a table indoors, in the case of cooperative board games – is working together toward the same goal. There are loads of such games for kids and adults, and you have to experience them to realize just how much fun competition isn’t.

RESOURCES:

Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition (Houghton Mifflin, 1986/1992) – https://www.alfiekohn.org/contest/

Terry Orlick, The Cooperative Sports & Games Book (Pantheon, 1978) – https://amzn.to/33rltfY

https://www.cooperativegames.com/

https://familypastimes.com

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you have comments or questions about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to help keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!

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