charlou wrote:You like that "grain of salt" advice, don't you
Perhaps I do..
charlou wrote:Well you're entitled to your opinion and to take a grain of salt whenever it suits you, no matter how huge.
Sure, but it's important to note that it's not my "opinion", it's simply an empirical fact that Kohn's arguments are often at odds with behavioral science.
charlou wrote:I take this article as an interesting consciousness raiser about interacting with children ... and it meshes with my own observation and experience ... both with regard to children and with regard to adults.
Hmm.. well, some vague points he makes might be interesting to think about, but his main points are demonstrably false.
1)
Manipulation: "The reason praise can work in the short run is that young children are hungry for our approval. But we have a responsibility not to exploit that dependence for our own convenience. A "Good job!" to reinforce something that makes our lives a little easier can be an example of taking advantage of children’s dependence. Kids may also come to feel manipulated by this, even if they can’t quite explain why."
He suggests that instead of doing something "to" children to get them to do something, it's better to do something "with" children to get them to do something. In essence, it's still manipulation and he can't escape this fact, but of course 'manipulation' isn't a bad thing. If I teach a kid not to run in front of speeding cars using candy then the fact that I've "manipulated" him into not killing himself is irrelevant. Kohn obviously views teaching children important societal norms and rules as simply being "convenience" or for our own good, but this is a bit silly.
2)
Creating praise junkies: "In short, "Good job!" doesn’t reassure children; ultimately, it makes them feel less secure. It may even create a vicious circle such that the more we slather on the praise, the more kids seem to need it, so we praise them some more. Sadly, some of these kids will grow into adults who continue to need someone else to pat them on the head and tell them whether what they did was OK. Surely this is not what we want for our daughters and sons."
He's confusing "praise" with "lavish praise". Praise is an easy form of reinforcement, but if we want children to learn how to correctly answer questions, then obviously they need some form of reinforcement (whether it's praise, smiley faces, marks, intelligently engaging the child in a discussion, etc). The problem with 'lavish praise' is that it is not reinforcement of the correct response, but rather just reinforcement of a number of varied responses. This leads to confusion over what the correct response is supposed to be, resulting in the hesitation and uncertainty that he refers to, or the "praise junkies".
3)
Stealing a child's pleasure: "To be sure, there are times when our evaluations are appropriate and our guidance is necessary -- especially with toddlers and preschoolers. But a constant stream of value judgments is neither necessary nor useful for children’s development. Unfortunately, we may not have realized that "Good job!" is just as much an evaluation as "Bad job!" The most notable feature of a positive judgment isn’t that it’s positive, but that it’s a judgment. And people, including kids, don’t like being judged."
This is a weird complaint and I think it's probably a good example of how poor his understanding of learning in children is. What happens with reinforcement (like praise) is that it becomes associated with whatever behavior preceded it, for example, drawing a good picture. Given what we know about behavior, the praise eventually becomes unnecessary (and irrelevant to the kid) as the act of drawing itself becomes reinforcing to the child. The fact that we view it as a form of judgement is irrelevant and doesn't factor into it at all.
4)
Losing interest: ""Good painting!" may get children to keep painting for as long as we keep watching and praising. But, warns Lilian Katz, one of the country’s leading authorities on early childhood education, "once attention is withdrawn, many kids won’t touch the activity again." Indeed, an impressive body of scientific research has shown that the more we reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward. Now the point isn’t to draw, to read, to think, to create – the point is to get the goody, whether it’s an ice cream, a sticker, or a "Good job!""
This, again, is a result of the confusion over "praise" and "lavish praise". If a child is near-indiscriminately rewarded for a behavior, then they will learn to associate the reward with the only constant in the situation: the person giving the praise. Therefore, the person becomes a discriminative stimulus signalling the possibility of reward, rather than the act itself being rewarding.
Given the vast amount of research on how tangible rewards can foster, generate and create behaviors from simple acts like drawing, eye contact, and so on, to more complex behaviors such as sharing and empathy, it's clear that Kohn is talking out of his ass here. Otherwise we'd have to conclude that Kohn has disproved the entire field of applied behavior analysis.
5)
Reducing achievement: "Why does this happen? Partly because the praise creates pressure to "keep up the good work" that gets in the way of doing so. Partly because their interest in what they’re doing may have declined. Partly because they become less likely to take risks – a prerequisite for creativity – once they start thinking about how to keep those positive comments coming."
This is of course false as well, again to do with the confusion over praise and lavish praise. We have mountains of evidence that demonstrates that correctly applied reinforcement necessarily increases achievement, so the only way Kohn can pretend to ignore this evidence is to misrepresent the circumstances that are being discussed.
As you've probably guessed, I can't stand Alfie Kohn. I'm glad that mainstream science rejects all of his claims, but I really wish education fields would become more evidence-based and look to science a bit more to inform their policies.
“The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.” - B. F. Skinner.
. And then when they come back, they can 
