Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community

211 Pages·2006·1.65 MB·English

by  Alfie Kohn

Education
BEYOND
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DISCIPLINE
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From Compliance to Community
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hat is most remarkable about the assortment of discipline programs on the market l
today is the number of fundamental assumptions they seem to share. Some may i
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advocate the use of carrots rather than sticks; some may refer to punishments as e
“logical consequences.” But virtually all take for granted that the teacher must be in control
of the classroom, and that what we need are strategies to get students to comply with the
adult’s expectations.
Alfie Kohn challenged these widely accepted premises, and with them the very idea of
classroom “management,” when the original edition of Beyond Discipline was published in 1996.
Since then, his path-breaking book has invited hundreds of thousands of educators to question
the assumption that problems in the classroom are always the fault of students who don’t do what BEYOND
they’re told; instead, it may be necessary to reconsider what it is that they’ve been told to do—or
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to learn. Kohn shows how a fundamentally cynical view of children underlies the belief that we 0
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must tell them exactly how we expect them to behave and then offer “positive reinforcement” h
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when they obey. n
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Just as memorizing someone else’s right answers fails to promote students’ intellectual i
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development, so does complying with someone else’s expectations for how to act fail to help er
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students develop socially or morally. Kohn contrasts the idea of discipline, in which things are a DISCIPLINE
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done to students to control their behavior, with an approach in which we work with students to y
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create caring communities where decisions are made together. d
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t
Beyond Discipline has earned the status of an education classic, a vital alternative to all the io
traditional manuals that consist of techniques for imposing control. For this 10th anniversary n
edition, Kohn adds a new afterword that expands on the book’s central themes and responds to From Compliance to Community
questions from readers. Packed with stories from real classrooms around the country, seasoned
with humor and grounded in a vision as practical as it is optimistic, Beyond Discipline shows how
students are most likely to flourish in schools that have moved toward collaborative problem
solving—and beyond discipline.
Alfie Kohn is the author of many other books about education and human behavior, including [10th Anniversary Edition]
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Punished by Rewards, The Schools Our Children Deserve, and Unconditional Parenting. A former O
teacher, he now works with educators and parents across North America and maintains a Web H
site at www.alfiekohn.org. N
Alfie Kohn
$23.95 U.S.
BROWSE EXCERPTS
Association for Supervision FROM ASCD BOOKS:
With a New Afterword by the Author
and Curriculum Development www.ascd.org/books
Alexandria, Virginia USA
A Provocative Challenge to the Field of Classroom Management
Beyond Discipline Final2.indd 1 8/7/06 3:02:46 PM
BEYOND
DISCIPLINE
From Compliance to Community
[10th Anniversary Edition]
Alfie Kohn
With a New Afterword by the Author
Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development
Alexandria, Virginia USA
Beyond Discipline TP.indd 1 8/7/06 3:04:47 PM
Educators Respond to
Beyond Discipline
“After teacher candidates in my class read the first few chapters, they are
always mad: ‘Who does that Kohn guy think he is?’ After the next cou-
ple of chapters: ‘Oh, maybe that Kohn guy knows something.’ After they
finish the book, they’re on the bandwagon and committed to creating
communities in their classrooms.”
—Linda V. Neiman, Milwaukee, WI
“I’m one of those consultants you refer to who, until reading your book,
traveled around spreading the gospel of compliance at the expense of
genuine community. Beyond Discipline has helped me to reflect deeply
upon the practices I’ve espoused and to recognize their shortcomings.
Although I think of myself as someone who embraces a constructivist
approach to learning, I’ve never reflected on its application to becoming
a responsible and self-disciplined person. The connection is so obvious,
so simple and at the same time so elegant and powerful.”
—Ron Rubin, Middlebury, VT
“Beyond Discipline has been and continues to be one of the most impor-
tant books to me and to the faculty. The philosophy articulated in the
book has transformed the entire culture of our junior high school.”
—Charles Glassman, New York, NY
“Your book has shown me a better, more humane and more productive
method of classroom management—a democratic model based on mu-
tual respect—one that allows kids a significant voice in defining their
classroom community, and even elements of the curriculum. It allows
me to spend more time on instruction and less on managing behavioral
issues. More importantly, it addresses one of the fundamental reasons
schools exist—to raise good, kind people.”
—Kiernan H. Butz, Germantown, WI
“Unlike most ‘classroom management’ texts, your text requires students
to explore their own beliefs about the nature of human beings and the
nature of relationships between adults and youth, and thus addresses a
much deeper and more significant level of professional development.
Your text has been instrumental in helping teacher-trainees come to
grips with their own beliefs before they develop classroom management
plans. As a result, I think they are more rational practitioners. On a per-
sonal note, it has had a major impact on the way I parent my two young
children.”
—Wallace K. Pond, Chicago, IL
Also by
Alfie Kohn
No Contest: The Case Against Competition
The Brighter Side of Human Nature: Altruism and Empathy in
Everyday Life
You Know What They Say . . . : The Truth About Popular Beliefs
Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans,
A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes
Education, Inc.: Turning Learning into a Business [editor]
What to Look For in a Classroom . . . And Other Essays
The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional
Classrooms and “Tougher Standards”
The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining
the Schools
What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?: And More Essays on
Standards, Grading, and Other Follies
Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments
to Love and Reason
The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
1703 N. Beauregard St. • Alexandria, VA 22311-1714 USA
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Director of Book Editing & Production; Genny Ostertag, Project Manager; Reece
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Copyright © 1996, 2006 by Alfie Kohn. All rights reserved. First edition published
1996. Second edition 2006. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmit-
ted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, re-
cording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from
Alfie Kohn (www.alfiekohn.org).
The author is grateful for permission to use excerpts from the following sources:
Becoming Responsible Learners: Strategies for Positive Classroom Manage-
ment by Mark Collis and Joan Dalton (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann,
1990). Reprinted with the permission of Heinemann, a division of Reed
Elsevier, Inc.
“Move On,” from Sunday in the Park with George—Music & lyrics by
Stephen Sondheim. Copyright 1984 by Rilting Music, Inc. All rights re-
served. Used by permission.
Printed in the United States of America. Cover art copyright © 2006 by ASCD.
ASCD publications present a variety of viewpoints. The views expressed or implied in
this book should not be interpreted as official positions of the Association.
PAPERBACK ISBN-13: 978-1-4166-0472-3 ASCD product #106033 s8/06
PAPERBACK ISBN-10: 1-4166-0472-3
Also available as an e-book through ebrary, netLibrary, and many online booksellers
(see Books in Print for the ISBNs).
Quantity discounts for the paperback edition only: 10–49 copies, 10%; 50+ copies,
15%; for 1,000 or more copies, call 800-933-2723, ext. 5634, or 703-575-5634. For desk
copies, e-mail [email protected].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kohn, Alfie.
Beyond discipline : from compliance to community / Alfie Kohn.—10th anniversary ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4166-0472-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4166-0472-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. School discipline—United States. 2. Classroom management—United States. I. Title.
LB3011.K64 2006
371.5—dc22
2006017669
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
For my daughter Abigail

The chief source of the “problem of discipline” in
schools is that . . . a premium is put on physical
quietude; on silence, on rigid uniformity of posture
and movement; upon a machine-like simulation of
the attitudes of intelligent interest. The teachers’
business is to hold the pupils up to these requirements
and to punish the inevitable deviations which occur.
—JOHN DEWEY
DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
1. The Nature of Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Blaming the Kids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3. Bribes and Threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4. Punishment Lite: “Consequences” and Pseudochoice . . . . . 37
5. How Not to Get Control of the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . 54
6. A Classroom of Their Choosing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
7. The Classroom as Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
8. Solving Problems Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Appendix 1. Ten Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Appendix 2. Assertive Discipline: A Glossary . . . . . . . . . . 165
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191