Alfie Kohn

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

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Last Notes

2026-07-14 14:11:33 CEST

If you had no other information about the legitimacy and moral status of a country's foreign policy, this alone would tell you everything you needed to know:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/13/marco-rubio-dismantle-international-criminal-court

2026-07-13 14:09:24 CEST

I've written separately about curiosity (https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/curiosity/) and about A.I. (https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/ai/), both in the context of education. Here, a neuroscientist discusses the impact of the latter on the former, and the news isn't good. People in the habit of using A.I. for research, she finds, "become better at extracting ready-made conclusions than building connections of their own": https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/08/opinion/ai-google-gemini-search-questions.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xVA.Z6hF.5r5zk6PAc-kR&smid=url-share
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/912/585/219/580/701/original/ffb6e2ceaf2988a3.png

2026-07-10 14:32:24 CEST

Characteristically pointed piece by Cory Doctorow on the difference between the left and the right, particularly with regard to property rights: https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/08/wilhoitian/#human-rights-v-property-rights
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/895/693/002/597/290/original/c9736ba9d371d4cd.png

2026-07-08 14:46:05 CEST

https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/884/419/806/348/536/original/56f018f1a9f8aea8.png

2026-07-06 14:32:51 CEST

Helping kids to develop both the capacity and the inclination to question what they’re told — and, when necessary, to refuse to go along. That's on the latest episode of Kohn's Zone: "Raising Reflective Rebels" - https://www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/

2026-07-04 14:23:10 CEST

Every July 4 I like to recall the political philosopher Benjamin Barber's observation that this country was created not by individuals but by neighbors - and therefore what we really need is a declaration of interdependence. Never more important than now, with purveyors of hatred and fear in power.

2026-06-29 15:58:59 CEST

Political journalist ‪David Roberts‬:
"It is core to the nature of reactionary politics that its adherents *always* conceive of themselves as aggrieved victims, no matter how much power they amass. It's a permission structure for their own lawlessness & violence."
No wonder that such political movements attract individuals who, for psychological reasons, spend their every waking hour stewing in resentment over how they've been treated unfairly or unappreciated (e.g., Trump, Alito, Thomas).

2026-06-26 14:27:28 CEST

Apropos of A.I.:
"When the American biotech industry became worried about the negative potential of genetic engineering tools in the 1990s, it didn’t rush ahead to clone humans before China could get there; it instead lobbied Congress and relevant international bodies to limit the most odious possibilities for these innovations. The possibility that another actor might do something bad doesn’t give you the moral right to do something similar":
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/opinion/ai-dangerous-openai-anthropic.html?unlocked_article_code=1.s1A.dLH_.mnIvY4nyoCLk&smid=url-share

2026-06-25 23:32:05 CEST

Jen Sorenson nails it, as always.
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/812/876/847/049/933/original/e589fbe0152a7b1c.png

2026-05-27 14:21:07 CEST

“Of all the vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influence on the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences.”
- John Stuart Mill

2026-05-27 12:45:27 CEST

I guess the critics who predicted that Bezos's Washington Post would abandon hard-hitting politcal journalism are feeling pretty silly now, huh?
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/646/129/338/051/757/original/2a03ba3f1a37eada.png

2026-05-23 13:22:37 CEST

This old study still packs a punch in illustrating how standardized tests simultaneously overestimate and underestimate kids' understanding. (My summary is below; the study itself is here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41193784.)
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/623/611/662/379/945/original/510eed271629d671.jpeg

2026-05-21 15:23:32 CEST

Intriguing: Research finds that the rank-and-file workers who carry out the immoral orders of authoritarian regimes usually aren't motivated by either ideological commitment or fear. They're "loyal losers" who are offered a way to salvage their careers: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/world/americas/actually-democracy-dies-in-hr.html?unlocked_article_code=1.j1A.A767.yRU-KeNoO9i_&smid=url-share.
Obvious implications for the U.S.:
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/612/776/821/556/234/original/c4567e6889d1b88a.png

2026-05-18 15:27:28 CEST

"Grade Inflation Is Not the Problem" - my latest podcast episode - explains why those who are most exercised over this issue (based on dubious data) seem to view school as a giant sorting machine rather than a place to help everyone succeed.
Listen here: https://www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/

2026-05-14 21:32:58 CEST

The universe - and all known principles of human psychology - again make sense now that our initial assumption has been confirmed: No one has ever loved Stephen Miller.
https://www.rawstory.com/stephen-miller-2676875552/

2026-05-07 17:12:34 CEST

Big internecine dispute in MAGAland: the gung-ho supporters of Israel's war crimes vs. the antisemites. If you're clever enough, you can be a little of both. But "neither" isn't on the menu.
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/533/932/057/807/480/original/ffdc6f063e084f63.png

2026-05-07 13:54:19 CEST

"Men have become the tools of their tools."
-Thoreau, 1854
"After just ∼10 minutes of AI-assisted problem-solving, people who lost access to the AI performed worse and gave up more frequently than those who never used it."
- research finding, 2026
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.04721

2026-05-06 18:37:02 CEST

When experts warn about authoritarianism, these are exactly the kinds of developments they have in mind.
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/528/585/127/685/959/original/bd425a1551195fc5.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/528/585/449/158/032/original/efe274c4f4a01ffc.png

2026-05-05 13:59:57 CEST

Drinking salt water when you're thirsty just makes you thirstier.
Competing to feel better about yourself ultimately makes you feel worse about yourself (even if you win).
And guess what new research finds about the effect of interacting with chatbots when you're lonely?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976261427747

2026-04-25 14:02:35 CEST

"Hezbollah does not resist Israel simply because it is a Shiite organization supported by Iran; it resists Israel primarily because Israel has repeatedly invaded, scorched and occupied Lebanese land, and because Israel uprooted and terrorized its community." Worth a read: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/opinion/israel-exploits-lebanon-sectarian-divides.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dlA.krNC.3JLNP0R2gx_I&smid=url-share
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/465/239/368/161/326/original/0acd3c0e056ed6fd.png

2026-04-08 14:00:44 CEST

1/2
YouTube's CEO was recently quoted as saying that we should protect "young people IN the digital world," not "FROM the digital world." BIg Tech uses the same framing for A.I. The implication is that we can't question whether something that's profitable to them might be *inherently* problematic; its existence must be accepted; the only discussion we're permitted to have is about implementation...

2026-03-05 15:05:18 CET

https://bsky.app/profile/bencollins.bsky.social/post/3mgbydabftc26

2026-02-25 14:13:20 CET

1/3
This conservative take ("Parents trust grades more than standardized test scores; that's bad because grades are inflated") is based on a study by economists that reduces learning and assessment to "signal weighting in human capital investment": https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-parents-report-cards/. It's problematic for multiple reasons....

2026-02-13 18:49:15 CET

https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/116/064/575/345/113/697/original/b79992c71ad4733e.png

2025-01-28 15:11:17 CET

Sort of like saying GoogleMaps worked well until we tried to find the Gulf of Mexico?
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/113/906/283/788/661/385/original/6ba0c58938116854.png

2025-01-21 20:23:37 CET

1/2
I find myself thinking today about historical precedents:
1) Hubristic tyrants convinced they could decree anything to happen just by sheer force of will.
*poof* "It is now the Gulf of America!"
*poof* "14th-Amendment protections no longer exist!"
*poof* "There are now only two genders." (This last one would almost be funny if it weren't for the horrifying, life-imperiling impact on real human beings.)

2024-11-08 18:54:36 CET

- reply

OK, maybe *I'm* going to collect them...
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/113/448/602/637/882/400/original/e67ce7c57fd3eb58.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/113/448/602/984/924/953/original/988b75f427538765.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sciencessocial/media_attachments/files/113/448/603/376/951/930/original/7aace745c9edf990.png