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Thursday September 02, 2010
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About Alfie Kohn
Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The latest of his eleven books are The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing (2006) and Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason (2005). Of his earlier titles, the best known are Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes (1993), No Contest: The Case Against Competition (1986), and The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (1999).
Kohn has been described in Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." His criticisms of competition and rewards have helped to shape the thinking of educators -- as well as parents and managers -- across the country and abroad. Kohn has been featured on hundreds of TV and radio programs, including the "Today" show and two appearances on "Oprah"; he has been profiled in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, while his work has been described and debated in many other leading publications.
Kohn lives (actually) in the Boston area with his wife and two children, and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org. |
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“ Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” - Vince Lombardi
Related Resources
(The last one to read them is a rotten egg! Just kidding!)
Play Ball! The crisis in today’s youth sports
Article by Gwenn Schurgin O'Keeffe, M.D. Founder and Chief Editor of Pediatrics Now
Teaching Good Sportsmanship
Article by Carleton Kendrick
Unhealthy Competition: Young kids are training like professionals, and have the injuries to prove it. Article excerpted from Revolution in the Bleachers: How Parents Can Take Back Family Life in a World Gone Crazy Over Youth Sports by Regan McMahon
The Perils of Competitive Parenting + Avoid the Competition Trap
Article by Keri Wyatt Kent, Respect your child's uniqueness instead of comparing developmental milestones.
Cooperative Games And Sports: Joyful Activities For Everyone by Terry Orlick
Book recommended by Alfie: Children live what they learn through games and play. Through Cooperative Games and Sports, you can teach children how to play with - rather than against - each other, using 153 field-tested games and activities that are designed to build a child’s self-worth through cooperation, acceptance, inclusion, and fun.
Family Pastimes
Website recommended by Alfie: Manufacturer of family oriented games that foster cooperative play rather than competition.
The Case Against Competition
Article by Alfie Kohn as appeared in Working Mother Magazine
The Case Against Competition
The race to be Number One has been described as America's state religion. We have been trained not only to compete frantically, but to believe in the value of beating people -- and to help our children become winners. Research and experience, however, demonstrate that competition is actually destructive to self-esteem, poisonous to relationships, and counterproductive in terms of learning. Spelling bees, awards assemblies, competitive sports, and even informal contests at home teach children to regard other people as potential obstacles to their own success. The result is that everyone ultimately loses in the desperate race to win.
Alfie Kohn, author of NO CONTEST: The Case Against Competition, describes the hidden costs of turning the school into a place for triumph. The problem, he argues, is not just that competition is overdone or badly handled; rather, the very win/lose structure itself has damaging consequences for how children come to see themselves, each other, and the act of learning. The alternative is not merely the absence of competition but the construction of caring communities in which people help each other to succeed.
No Contest, which has been stirring up controversy since its publication in 1986, stands as the definitive critique of competition. Drawing from hundreds of studies, Alfie Kohn eloquently argues that our struggle to defeat each other -- at work, at school, at play, and at home -- turns all of us into losers.
Table of Contents
1. The “Number One” Obsession
2. Is Competition Inevitable?: The Human Nature Myth
3. Is Competition More Productive?: The Rewards of Working Together
4. Is Competition More Enjoyable?: On Sports, Play, and Fun
5. Does Competition Build Character?: Psychological Considerations
6. Against Each Other: Interpersonal Considerations
7. The Logic of Playing Dirty
8. Women and Competition
9. Beyond Competition: Thoughts on Making Change
10.Learning Together
Contrary to the myths with which we have been raised, Kohn shows that competition is not an inevitable part of "human nature." It does not motivate us to do our best (in fact, the reason our workplaces and schools are in trouble is that they value competitiveness instead of excellence.) Rather than building character, competition sabotages self-esteem and ruins relationships. It even warps recreation by turning the playing field into a battlefield.
No Contest makes a powerful case that "healthy competition" is a contradiction in terms. Because any win/lose arrangement is undesirable, we will have to restructure our institutions for the benefit of ourselves, our children, and our society. For this [1992] revised edition, Kohn adds a comprehensive account of how students can learn more effectively by working cooperatively in the classroom instead of struggling to be Number One. He also offers a pointed and personal afterword, assessing shifts in American thinking on competition and describing reactions to his provocative message.
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“All of us are smarter than one of us.” |
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