Quotes for Kohl and Extended Comment on Kohn

 Quotes from Herbert Kohl's "I Won't Learn from You"

1)  “My job as a teacher was to get him to feel more empowered doing reading than practicing his active not-learning to read.  I developed a strategy of empowerment for Barry and didn’t even bother with thinking about remediation.”

            It was interesting reading about the method Kohl chose to use to reach out to Barry.  It would have been easy to assume that Barry’s behavior regarding reading was due to the fact that he couldn’t read, or had a hard time reading.  And in fact, this is what had happened with Barry’s previous teachers.  But instead, Kohl took the time to step back and figure out WHY Barry was behaving the way he was.  He recognized that it wasn’t that Barry needed any more help than other kids, but that he wanted to cling to that sense of empowerment he got from getting his way and having the other kids see him get his way.  So Kohl devised another way to give him that same sense of empowerment, but in a constructive way that got him to learn the material.  I think this is important to note – that as teachers, when a student is acting out (or shutting down), we should take a step back and try to figure out why that might be happening, which is essentially what Kohl continues to indicate throughout the article.  In the end, it could be that the student is struggling or failing.  But that might not be the case, and in assuming so without trying to see what else is going on and figuring out a different approach, the system winds up failing the student.

2)  “I learned from Akmir’s analyses … and came to take his criticisms seriously.  I tried to read texts from his point of view…. In some cases, it made reading some familiar material very uncomfortable.”

            This made me think of Johnson’s piece, when he was talking about sitting in the restaurant with his African-American colleague, and how he could feel how uncomfortable it was to talk to her about race and gender.  That was a moment where someone tapped on his glass pane (to borrow Dr. Bogad’s metaphor).  In the same way, it was uncomfortable for Kohl to read from a different perspective, because Akmir had tapped on his glass pane.  “The ease of being unaware of privilege is an aspect of privilege itself”  (Johnson 24).  Becoming aware of his privilege, and making the effort to look at things from Akmir’s view, allowed Kohl to understand just what it was that had made Akmir resistant to his schooling.  (I noticed at the beginning of this segment that Kohl said he’d “had the privilege of knowing [Akmir] for the last three years of his life” (3)  Did anyone else wonder what might have happened to him?)

3)  “Education built on accepting that truth about our society can break through not-learning and lead students and teachers together, not to the solution of problems but to direct intelligent engagement in the struggles that might lead to solutions.”

            Here, Kohl is referring to the truth that for a lot of students, the only options they feel they have are not-learning, or directly facing oppression in school.  This is going to result in students who act out, or shut down when it comes to academics.  If we accept that this as a reason for students to reject their schooling—because as Kohl says, it is “an appropriate response to oppressive education … students have no way to legitimately criticize…” (5)—then we can have the dialogue needed to address the struggle.  And as with last week’s piece, I’m reminded again of how Johnson says that we need to be able to talk if we can expect anything to change.  (I feel like I am always referring to this part of Johnson’s article!)

 Extended Comment on Alfie Kohn's "5 Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job"

Reading through Jaclyn’s response to Kohn’s article, “5 Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job,” I realized that I felt the same way the first time I read the article.  It seems almost counter-intuitive to not use praise as positive reinforcement, and it seems even more counter-intuitive that praising a child could somehow be harmful.  It’s something I hear all the time in any situation where small kids are present, and I can remember hearing it when I was little too.  How could it be bad to encourage a desired behavior, or bolster confidence?  After glancing through the article again later though, and I can understand the points that Kohn is making.  Kohn even remarks that “it can seem strange, at least at first, to stop praising; it can feel as though you’re being chilly or withholding something.”  But he’s not so much saying that you have to stop positive reinforcement altogether—though he does list “say nothing” as a possible option—but more just to modify what you are saying.  Like acknowledging what they’ve done without evaluating it.

It made me think of how I am in my SLP classroom of kindergarteners.  I’ve made a conscious effort not to say “Awesome!” for everything, though not for the reasons Kohn lists.  I just know that I tend to catch myself doing it when I’m talking to little kids.  (“That looks awesome!” “Awesome job!” “You did?  Awesome!”)  But I wonder what Kohn would say about all the high-fives I’m now doling out left and right to the kids in the class.  Is that just non-verbal praise?

Also -- I found Jennifer Lehr's website while poking around.  She lists Alfie Kohn as her hero.  Good Job and Other Things You Shouldn't Say or Do.  Interesting to look through.