Alfie Kohn
| Alfie Kohn | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
October 15, 1957 Miami Beach, Florida, U.S. |
| Residence | Belmont, Massachusetts |
| Occupation | Author and lecturer (education, psychology, and parenting) |
Alfie Kohn (born October 15, 1957) is an American author and lecturer in the areas of education, parenting, and human behavior. He is a proponent of progressive education and has offered critiques of many traditional aspects of parenting, managing, and American society more generally, drawing in each case from social science research.
Kohn's challenges to widely accepted theories and practices have made him a controversial figure, particularly with behaviorists, conservatives, and those who defend the practices he calls into question, such as the use of competition, incentive programs, conventional discipline, standardized testing, grades, homework, and traditional schooling.
Kohn was born in Miami Beach, Florida. He earned a B.A. from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in 1979, having created his own interdisciplinary course of study, and an M.A. in the social sciences from the University of Chicago in Illinois in 1980. He lives in the Boston area and works as an independent scholar, writing books about research in the areas of education, parenting, and human behavior.
Kohn's ideas on education have been influenced by the works of John Dewey and Jean Piaget. He believes in a constructivist account of learning in which the learner is seen as actively making meaning, rather than absorbing information, and he argues that knowledge should be taught "in a context and for a purpose." He has written that learning should be organized around "problems, projects, and questions – rather than around lists of facts, skills, and separate disciplines." Along with this belief, Kohn feels that students should have an active voice in the classroom with the ability to have a meaningful impact on the curriculum, structure of the room, and any necessary discipline measures.
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