Alfie Kohn
alfiekohn.bsky.social
Alfie Kohn
@alfiekohn.bsky.social

author and lecturer on topics in education, parenting, and human behavior....
(Personal messages more likely to be read if left on http://alfiekohn.org)
He/him

Alfie Kohn 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. .. more

Education 68%
Psychology 10%
Pinned
"Podcast" comes from the Latin "paudus" (meaning "to half-listen to") and "casteratum" (meaning "while preparing food"). Mine is called "KOHN'S ZONE: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Education & Kids." New episodes are posted on the 1st & 15th of each month: www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/

I'm sure the NYT will issue a correction for their latest typo. (Read the article and judge for yourself.)
is.gd/6IiMwZ

Were it not for him, Hegseth would just be a bloviating drunk peacock on Fox News
“violent fantasy became an obsession, according to former Trump administration officials…“Fucking kill them all,” Trump would say. “An eye for an eye.” Other times he’d snap at his staff: “You just got to kill these people…Other countries do it all the time.” www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing

"Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions."

Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social
“violent fantasy became an obsession, according to former Trump administration officials…“Fucking kill them all,” Trump would say. “An eye for an eye.” Other times he’d snap at his staff: “You just got to kill these people…Other countries do it all the time.” www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing

"Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions."

Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.
www.washingtonpost.com
I would call Pete Hegseth a war criminal, but we aren’t at war. He’s just a mass murderer.

Is this unique to Miller, or does sociopathy itself signal that something in the person got fundamentally damaged?

Advice for attending your next high school or college reunion: When you get there, ignore all those old people you see milling around. They're there for a senior citizen gathering that just happened to be scheduled at the same facility.
Stephen Miller is now arguing that assimilation is fundamentally impossible and that certain cultures are not compatible with Western civilization

Every day brings a fresh indecency
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/h...
Trump Administration Will No Longer Commemorate World AIDS Day
www.nytimes.com

"The Overselling of Gratitude": My seasonally relevant challenge, based on a talk I gave a few Thanksgivings ago, argues that always being positive is no more sensible than always being negative. (Also, who benefits when we're all instructed to count our blessings?)
www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/gratit...
The Overselling of Gratitude
July 11, 2018 The Overselling of Gratitude By Alfie Kohn Being told that all of us should regularly take time to list the things we’re grateful for sets my teeth on edge. It took me…
www.alfiekohn.org

Let's hear it for viewpoint diversity!

Absolutely. And, as I pointed out a couple of years ago, this is exactly why a phonics-based approach to reading instruction (now deceptively rebranded as the "Science" of reading) has long been promoted by the religious right.

My one-off post about this a few years ago, in which I wondered whether they could be renamed "placebo leaves," drew more heated replies than any of my hot takes on education, politics, or other topics I care about.

Same for teachers' lesson plans and assignments extruded by a chatbot?
Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’

Oh, swell. Next you're going to be keeping us awake wondering if bay leaves really add anything to our soups and sauces - a long-term propaganda campaign by Big Leaf.

"Worst of the worst" is, however, an apt description of the men responsible for terrorizing and abducting them.
Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
Even God Is Worried About ChatGPT
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
www.vulture.com

MAGA GOP as a three-legged stool: "the nativist extremism of Stephen Miller...the anti-government extremism of Russell Vought, and...the open, flamboyant corruption of Trump that degrades a people's faith in gov't and makes it easier to remake the state in the image of a single man": is.gd/VRlGql
is.gd

[Louis XIV 1655]

More to the point: "So you're saying that anything Trump orders is legal just because *he* ordered it?"
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.

This is how I imagine today's NY Times would have covered Kristillnacht
Leavitt on Trump's boat strikes: "You can expect to see those strikes continue"

Afterthought: How many other authors have at some point been tempted to write a follow-up book with that title?

And how many others *should* have written such a book?

Gleaned from an unusually entertaining obit:

1979: Mrs. Terry Martin Hekker publishes an antifeminist book: "Ever Since Adam & Eve: The Satisfactions of Housewifery & Motherhood in the Age of Do-Your-Own-Thing."

1996: Her husband leaves her for a younger woman.

2009: She publishes a second book:

yes, but they're *magic* soybeans

Exactly. Next they'll probably get a woman to play the lead in a biopic of the novelist George Eliot

Reposted by Alfie Kohn

Now they are casting a Black Othello just to be PC, wokeness is ruining entertainment

deadline.com/2025/11/broc...
Barbara Broccoli’s First Post-James Bond Feature ‘Othello’ To Shoot In Qatar With David Oyelowo, Rachel Brosnahan & Cynthia Erivo
Barbara Broccoli's First Post-James Bond Feature 'Othello' To Shoot In Qatar With David Oyelowo, Rachel Brosnahan & Cynthia Erivo
deadline.com

ICYMI: The Fundamental Attribution Error says we overstate the impact of indiv characteristics (talent, effort, beliefs) & minimize how social context shapes what we do & who we are. So what does that mean for education? Listen to "It's Not About You," the latest episode of Kohn's Zone: is.gd/JiaK2w
Podcast
The Work Of Alfie Kohn
is.gd

Ah, I see where the confusion lies. Mamdani is "antisemitic" in the other usage of the word - viz., "critical of Israel's policy of bombing hospitals and schools"

Credibility restored.