Rating: 
Summary: Tedious to get through the first half
Review: Alfie Kohn is a lonely voice of reason and compassion amid a sea of reactionary rhetoric about accountanbilty and "classrooom management." He changed my life; let him change your's too.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Book I've Read in a Long Time
Review: Alfie Kohn is a lonely voice of reason and compassion amid a sea of reactionary rhetoric about accountanbilty and "classrooom management." He changed my life; let him change your's too.
Rating: 
Summary: Many Questions Left Unanswered
Review: Alfie Kohn's unique perspective on building community in the classroom sounds provocative, but really it's a plan that won't work in today's schools. Kohn seems to feel that much of the control in the classroom should be with the students, but how can this work when most children can't handle this power Kohn wants them to have? The book leaves many questions unanswered, and the "ten most frequently asked qusetions" near the end doesn't cut it. Kohn's repeated criticism of more assertive discipline methods gets old quickly, and perhaps he should've spent more time defining his own method instead of tearing apart other peoples' work. Sure, giving students more freedom and building community is a goal in education, but this book's ideas aren't the answer.
Rating:
Summary: Many Questions Left Unanswered
Review: Alfie Kohn's unique perspective on building community in the classroom sounds provocative, but really it's a plan that won't work in today's schools. Kohn seems to feel that much of the control in the classroom should be with the students, but how can this work when most children can't handle this power Kohn wants them to have? The book leaves many questions unanswered, and the "ten most frequently asked qusetions" near the end doesn't cut it. Kohn's repeated criticism of more assertive discipline methods gets old quickly, and perhaps he should've spent more time defining his own method instead of tearing apart other peoples' work. Sure, giving students more freedom and building community is a goal in education, but this book's ideas aren't the answer.
Rating:
Summary: Anecdotes galore, but no beef
Review: Don't get me wrong. The book was relatively easy to read. BUT ALFIE HAS NO CREDENTIALS IN THIS FIELD! He has never been a teacher. He has no educational certification. He's an arm-chair general telling you what he thinks is wrong with education, and there's plenty wrong. Unfortunately, without that background in the field, his arguments and positions are extreme. It's an unreasoned "throw the baby out" approach similar to his anti-testing rhetoric that complains, but does not suggest viable, reasoned alternatives. I know where the holes are -- the dam in full of them. Give me reasoned solutions please! If that's what you're looking for, don't buy this book or any of Alfie's material.
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Summary: Why I Became a Teacher
Review: First, Alfie Kohn is a former teacher, to answer a previous reviewer who said he wasn't.
As I begin my fourth year of teaching, I have tried so many of the behavior-management methods. And as I look back on my teaching, I had the least behavior problems when my class was having fun and I was tailoring lessons to meet their interest. Whenever I decided to take a more traditional, back-to-basics approach, I found the class to be visibly more miserable with an increase in behavior problems.
Alfie Kohn's book makes us take a reflective look at our teaching rather than blaming everything on the children. It challenges us to use the children as co-problem solvers and relinquish some control in the classroom.
After a difficult past year, I realized that marble jars, funny money, class stores, tickets, and even behavior awards were simply bribing children, pitting them against each other, and creating a "What am I going to get for this?" mentality. I told myself that I wouldn't do it again this year.
I feel so fortunate to have read this book before the beginning of school. This book reminds me why I wanted to become a teacher.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS
Review: I agree with the one reveiwer that kohn whines about other theorists that are outdated in MY philosophy, but are they outdated in society? Hell NO! Especially in lower income schools. I have been observing intensely over the past year and a half, and I find that 95% of the teachers are seriously mad, depressed, and without hope. This book is a MUST read for people seeking something more than this materialistic dogmatic world.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS
Review: I agree with the one reveiwer that kohn whines about other theorists that are outdated in MY philosophy, but are they outdated in society? Heck NO! Especially in lower income schools. I have been observing intensely over the past year and a half, and I find that 80% of the teachers are seriously mad, depressed, and stuggling for hope. This book is a MUST read for people seeking something more than this materialistic dogmatic world. Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community, by Alfie Kohn, is a must read for both teachers and parents alike. His ideas are not new, but are rarely heard or understood. This book is a wonderful read. It is both humorous and very serious. It should be required reading for every teacher young and old. Kohn poses the question to everyone, "What are you trying to accomplish in the classroom?" He answers this by saying that most teachers, both consciously and unconsciously, are trying to maintain control or order. He believes that just as the "right-answer" focus doesn't help children become good thinkers, the "right-behavior" focus doesn't help children become good people. These short-term fixes of controlling bad behavior only at best stop the bad behavior. They do not turn children into good people. Kohn begins the book talking about the actual nature of children and the misconstrued view of the major discipline writers of the field. He displays ample evidence that the major discipline management programs and their writers have a view that children are basically power seekers and are not characteristically good. He provides this evidence from their own writings and programs. It is shocking to see their basic underlying motivations of control. Every major behaviorist is mentioned and studied in all the educational programs of the United States. Kohn explains the horror, tragedy, and the price of using bribes and threats in the classroom. Kohn's argument is that our first question should be, "What do children need?" - followed immediately by "How can we meet those needs?" - and from that point of departure we will end of in a very different place than if we begun by asking, "How do I get children to do what I want?" Unlike most books on discipline Alfie Kohn offers more than step-by-step recipes for compliance. He says that students must have a classroom of their choosing. The classroom must be a community. "It must be a place in which students feel cared about and are encouraged to care about each other. They experience a sense of being valued and respected; the children matter to one another and to the teacher. They have come to think in the plural: they feel connected to each other; they feel part of an "us." And, as a result of this, they feel safe in their classes, not only physically but emotionally." Excellent strategies are offered for building these types of communities. Kohn lastly suggests that everyone in the classroom must solve problems together. He offers more than enough suggestions on how to solve problems together. This book comes from years of observations in the classroom. There are plenty of beneficial scenarios from his visits to classrooms. There are also many questions to ask yourself as well as the teacher body in teacher meetings. This book will make everyone reevaluate the way they look at children and the classroom. There is also a helpful question and answer section in the appendix of the book. Here, Kohn tackles tough questions asked of him by both mothers and teachers. I recommend this book to everyone, especially teachers and new parents.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS
Review: I agree with the one reveiwer that kohn whines about other theorists that are outdated in MY philosophy, but are they outdated in society? Hell NO! Especially in lower income schools. I have been observing intensely over the past year and a half, and I find that 95% of the teachers are seriously mad, depressed, and without hope. This book is a MUST read for people seeking something more than this materialistic dogmatic world.
Rating: 
Summary: For those that need more ideas....
Review: I am a graduate student in elementary ed, and received a portion of this book as part of a class lesson (the reason for the 4 stars as I haven't read the whole book). This is new material to me but I was truly shocked at what some of these "discipline" programs are teaching people. Isn't it just common sense that we don't treat (or abuse in my opinion) children in the fashion of Rudolf Dreikurs "STEP" program, where part of their philosophy states "Kids have reasons for misbehaving and the idea is not to give them what they want" or in "Cooperative Discipline", where children are "held accountable" for their actions and teachers therefore punish or blame them (the easy way out), rather than look deeper at the child to try and discover the root of the behavior, as Mr. Kohn states?
Please, if you value this book at all (even if you think Kohn whines a bit), take a look at some other books and articles related to the subject, such as:
-"In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms", by JG Brooks and MG Brooks, 1993, 1999
-"Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn, 1993I have also read many articles on HOME discipline by Alice Miller, Stan Dale, and Aletha Solter dealing with issues of spanking and time-out which I highly recommend. This book is not meant to be an attack on all teachers that everything you are doing is wrong. It suggests that teachers constantly look at their curriculum and the way you teach children, and open yourselves up to the idea that YOU need to change in order to improve your classroom, and not to automatically blame the child/children.
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