Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn (born 1957) is an American author and lecturer who writes about education, parenting and human behavior. He is a proponent of progressive education and a persistent critic of traditional schooling practices such as competition, grades, homework, incentive programs and standardized testing, drawing on social science research for his arguments. His education writing follows a constructivist account in which learners actively make meaning, and it has been influenced by John Dewey and Jean Piaget. He argues that learning should be organized around problems, projects and questions and that students should have a real voice in classroom decisions. Among his books are No Contest, Punished by Rewards, The Schools Our Children Deserve, The Case Against Standardized Testing and The Homework Myth. He is controversial, particularly among behaviorists and conservatives, and works as an independent scholar in the Boston area.