Want to make a student stop learning? Make him/her study ALL THE TIME

[Virginia]

I found this article online... I was particularly drawn to this passage:

Consider a school that constantly emphasizes the importance of performance! results! achievement! success! A student who has absorbed that message may find it difficult to get swept away with the process of creating a poem or trying to build a working telescope. He may be so concerned about the results that he’s not all that engaged in the activity that produces those results.

The full article can be found here: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/tcooa.htm

It's worth a read for any person who is already frustrated with the constant evaluation that is done here.... or who is wondering why the kids aren't super-motivated in their classes.

These students, since childhood, have been trained to regurgitate and parrot. How can we expect them to suddenly go cooperative and communicative in our classes? A cynical view, perhaps...