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| Teachers.Net Gazette Vol.6 No.1 | January 2009 |
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 It’s Not What We Teach; It’s What They Learn “I taught a good lesson even though the students didn’t learn it,” makes no more sense than “I had a big dinner even though I didn’t eat anything.” | ||
| by Alfie Kohn www.alfiekohn.org Continued from It’s Not What We Teach; It’s What They Learn page 1 Reprinted from Education Week, September 10, 2008 with the author's permission. January 1, 2009 |
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Exactly the same point applies in a school setting since educators, too, may use carrots and sticks on students. We may think we’re emphasizing the importance of punctuality by issuing a detention for being late, or that we’re making a statement about the need to be respectful when we suspend a student for yelling an obscenity, or that we’re supporting the value of certain behaviors when we offer a reward for engaging in them. But what if the student who’s being punished or rewarded doesn’t see it that way? What if his or her response is, “That’s not fair!” or “Next time I won’t get caught” or “I guess when you have more power you can make other people suffer if they don’t do what you want” or “If they have to reward me for x, then x must be something I wouldn’t want to do.” We protest that the student has it all wrong, that the intervention really is fair, the consequence is justified, the reward system makes perfect sense. But if the student doesn’t share our view, then what we did cannot possibly have the intended effect. Results don’t follow from behaviors but from the meaning attached to behaviors.
The same is true of teachers who are stringent graders. Their intent – to “uphold high standards” or “motivate students to do their best” – is completely irrelevant if a low grade is perceived differently by the student who receives it, which it almost always is. Likewise, if students view homework as something they can’t wait to be done with, it doesn’t matter how well-designed or valuable we think those assignments are. The likelihood that they will help students to learn more effectively, let alone become excited about the topic, is exceedingly low. If teachers just do their thing and leave it up to each student to make sense of it -- “so that the child comes to feel, as he is intended to, that when he doesn’t understand it is his fault” (to borrow John Holt’s words) – then meaningful learning is likely to be in awfully short supply in those classrooms.  | ||
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Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The latest of his eleven